Norton Anti-virus is one of the most popular anti-virus programs for home computers. It is also a popular anti-virus program that is bundled with new computers sold by companies such as HP and Dell computing. Many computer users will want to be able to turn Norton off if they have a preferred anti-virus program or need to conduct computer downloads or game play that are not compatible with running Norton anti-virus. Regardless of the reason that you need to turn Norton on or off, it is relatively straightforward to accomplish once you have done it once.

How to Turn Norton Anti-Virus Off Using the Software Interface

The easiest way to turn Norton Anti-virus off is using the program’s interface to secure the application. In order to so:
1 – Double left click the Anti-virus center icon in the right corner of your toolbar. Then, choose the “status and Settings” toolbar option.
2 – Now, you’ll select the “Security” menu option and select the “off” option on the subsequent menu.

When you restart your computer, Norton Anti-virus will be off.

How to Manually Turn Off Norton Security

Alternatively, you can secure Norton Anti-virus manually through the Windows Task Manager. To secure Norton in this manner:
1 – Open your computer’s task manager by choosing the “Ctrl + Alt + Delete” keys simultaneously.
2 – Choose the “Processes” tab that’s at the top of your computer’s task manager. You can then sort the application names by clicking the “description” program heading.
3 – Find Norton Anti-virus on the program listing. Single left click the program name and choose the “End Process” menu option. Norton will now be manually turned off.

How to Manually Turn On Norton Security

If you need to turn Norton Security back on, you will need to open Norton from your computer’s start menu. Then,
1 – Choose the “Options” menu option in the main Norton window.
2 – Toggle the “Auto-Protect” option in the Norton Options window and check the check box next to the “Enable Auto-Protect” menu choice. Norton will now be enabeld on your computer.

How to Enable Norton LiveUpdate

Norton LiveUpdate can be set to have Norton Anti-Virus to check for software updates automatically on a set schedule. When LiveUpdate is set to automatic, it will check for updates on a four hour frequency. In order to enable LiveUpdate you will need to:

1 – Choose the “Options” menu in the main Norton Anti-virus window.
2 – Click the “Internet” option in the options menu and pick “LiveUpdate”
3 – Then, choose the “Enable Automatic LiveUpdate” check box on the next window.

Computer Spyware infects a computer without the user’s permission. Spyware can be very dangerous to your personal privacy and can serve as a gateway to additional computer malware infection on your computer. Spyware by its nature does not self-replicate, but is used to exploit holes in the security on your computer. Recent trends have seen a significant rise in fake anti-spyware programs on the Internet that have been used to trick users into downloading additional spyware and malware to their computers.

Types of Computer Spyware

Four of the common types of computer spyware are: Adware, Browser Hijackers, Keyboard Loggers, and Modem Hijackers.

Adware

Not all Adware is bad. There is a growing population of Adware, however, that collect and send information to remote servers from your computer. This information includes web surfing history, advertisement clicks, etc. The rogue adware variants are also known to be bundled with other computer malware that could be installed on your computer.

Browser Hijack
A large amount of spyware will attempt to take over your web browser and modify the hosts file that determines what uniform resource locator is used to correlate to major search engine websites such as Yahoo, Bing, and Google. They will also force your browser to open rogue websites that pretend to be security centers of major providers online. The hijacked websites will then download computer malware to your computer and result in further infection.

Keyboard Logger
Keyboard loggers are one of the most dangerous variants of Spyware. Their sole purpose is to steal your private information and send it to a hacker for further use. This can be anything from your bank records, to email, to any other site that requires a login and password.

Modem Hijackers

Less prevalent today in the age of broadband connections, Modem Hijackers are still dangerous to computer users who have to use dial-up to connect to the Internet. A modem Hijacker will call a phone number that has a high per-minute charge and will run your phone bill up.

Adware is considered to be any computer software that will display, download, or automatically play advertisements on your computer while the parent application is being used. Some adware is designed to violate your privacy and acts as a benign form of Spyware and is considered privacy-invasive. Many variants of Adware can also bog down your computer with the number of advertisements and increased bandwidth usage if they are designed to display contextual advertisements on your computer as well as work in conjunction with other computer malware to negatively impact your computer. 

Adware Applications

Adware is typically bundled with other software that you want to use. Developers that include adware with their applications use it as a means to help make additional money on the cost of making the software and many say it allows them to reduce the cost of their product. Many users see adware as an uninvited interruption or distraction from their computer work. This is even after a lot of adware embedded applications include in their End-User License Agreement a statement to the effect that the user agrees to the installation and display of advertisements with the software product.
Adverse Effects of Removing Adware
Before you start removing all adware on your computer, you need to take a look at what application is the culprit for the ads. If it is a free, or low cost version of you favorite program, putting up with the Ads may be the “cost of war” for using the reduced cost version of the product. Conducting a basic search on Malware Dictionary or Google to see if the Adware is listed as a rogue program or not. If it is benign, you may find it more useful to keep using the shareware with the Ads than to lose the program altogether. Many bundled applications will cease to work if you remove their Adware component. Good adware will also typically let you remove it through the “Add/Remove Programs” feature in Microsoft Windows.

Trojan Viruses take their name from the lore of the Trojan Horse. A Trojan virus is computer malware that is disguised as something useful that encourages you to download or open the file or program which contains the malware. Once opened, the Trojan virus infects your computer. They are capable of downloading or containing “payload” applications that are other computer malware which can do harm. A Trojan Virus is not able to self-replicate like a computer virus, but rather relies on other malware or computer users to spread the infection.

Trojan Virus Payloads

Many Trojan Viruses are designed to allow a hacker to have remote access to your computer. Once you have a Trojan installed on your computer, potential operations that a hacker can perform are:

- Using your machine to help conduct a Denial of Service attack against another website or service.

- Stealing your personal information (banking, credit cards, passwords, etc)

- Installing other computer malware

- Deleting or modifying files on your computer

- Keylogging and screen captures of your activities to send back to the controlling hacker

- Uploading of files to your computer

Methods of Trojan Virus Infection

Trojan viruses normally spread one of two ways: 1 – By being combined with a legitimate looking software program that the user will download and execute on their computer, and 2- disguising themselves as a useful file such as a MP-3 or movie file. They are also known to be sent via email, and sometimes directly injected by hackers through security holes in Web Browsers and Operating Systems.

Trojan Virus Trends

Trojan viruses have increasingly been used as a gateway to other computer malware on the Internet. Hackers have grown savvy to the lack of anti-malware software being used by the general public and have been taking advantage. The majority of Trojan virus infections could be prevented if computer users would simply update their operating system and anti-virus software. Hackers have also been using social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, etc to spread Trojan viruses through peer-peer games, message attachments, and DirectX attacks to upload Trojans to unsuspecting computer users.

Computer worms are made to infect other computers through using the Internet to spam copies of themselves to spread. Most computer worms are damaging through their negative impact of system and network resources through their rapid and mostly uncontrolled spread. Some worms are coupled or combined with other computer malware in order to maximize their impact.

Methods of Computer Worm Infection

A lot of computer worms are made with the sole intention to spread and not cause harm to networks and users computers. Examples of worms with benign intentions such as this that resulted in unintended network disruptions were the Morris Worm and Mydoom. Other worms will carry a payload meant to do harm. The ExploreZip worm will actually delete files on the targeted computer. Some worms will encrypt files in an attempt to extort the user to remove the encryption, and others will install a backdoor on your computer in order to allow it to be used to attack other computers, websites, or computing systems. Many times email spammers are found to be behind computer worm infections that are coupled with a payload to make a user’s computer open to being taken over for sending spam email. Other means of spreading by worms are making use of backdoors opened by other computer malware. The well-known worm, Doomjuice uses the backdoor that is opened on your computer by Mydoom. Other means of spreading are through infected email attachments and multi-media files.

Current Trends of Computer Worms

Robert Tappan Morris is credited with accidentally creating the first computer worm in 1988. The “Internet Worm” as it was known, used the sendmail function, finger, and rsh/rexec to spread itself to other computers on the Internet. The SQL Slammer Worm came out in 2003 and used a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 vulnerability in order to spread across the Internet. The Blaster Worm took a similar route in the 2003 by using a Microsoft DCOM / RPC to spread. Well-known email worms that have emerged over the past decade have been: 1 – The Melissa worm of 1999, 2 – The Sobig WOrm of 2003, and 3 – Mydoom worm in 2004. These worms shared features with a Trojan Horse in that they encouraged the end-user to open the infected file attachment in order to spread. The MyDoom worm, however, was the first of a number of computer malware programs to use peer-to-peer file sharing networks to rapidly spread. MyDoom was originally spread using the KaZaa file sharing network and had variants which used payloads to launch denial of service attacks againstMicrosoft and SCO.