securing your windows machine

Information Security, by Micke-fi

I just installed Windows 7 on my brand new laptop. My previous laptop was a Mac and at school I always use Linux, and I am taking the Windows-malware threat seriously. I read the article How to Protect your Computer from Malware and Hackers. Based on their suggestions and some googling, I ended up with the following configuration. Note that I am no expert on Windows or computers (tho I do have a PhD in Computer Science and really should know more than I do), but I figured I would share the fruits of my googling anyways. If someone more knowledgeable than me reads this and has suggestions, please let me know! Here's my security system:

• Windows Defender comes installed by default on Vista and Windows 7. I left it on.
  
• avast! Home Edition to protect against viruses. I've used avast for years, since it was recommended by a roommate long ago. It is free and awesome. The Security in a Box site has a guide for installing avast. I consider the McAfee 30-day trial that came installed on my laptop when I bought it in the same class as the Yahoo! toolbar every program is always trying to get me to install with other programs I want.
  
• Spybot Search & Destroy to protect against spyware. This program is not as automatic as avast, so I recommend reading the Spybot guide on the Security in a Box site. Vista and Windows 7 come with Windows Defender installed as well. Googling various combinations of "Spybot" and "Defender" did not give me a clear answer on whether Spybot is redundant given Defender or vice-versa, but I am lead to believe that they can both be installed simultaneously without conflict, so I opted for both. I did not install the TeaTimer option, as my understanding is that it is a resource hog, reports more issues than necessary, and that Defender is a more efficient way of accomplishing similar levels of protection. This means that I will need to run the update, scan, and immunize functions every once in a while to keep my computer up-to-date to the latest threats. Running the Spybot scanner, the only issues raised were cookies installed through Internet Explorer. I've set up Firefox to delete all cookies when I close Firefox, so Firefox cookies were not a problem.
  
• Comodo Firewall. So originally I decided that Windows' default firewall would be enough, but reading more about it, people seem pretty adamant that real firewall software is necessary. So, I turned off Windows' firewall and installed Comodo. I couldn't find anywhere to download just the Firewall program, so I ended up installing the Comodo Internet Security, and then disabling the Antivirus component. There are a bunch of configuration options. Here is what I chose:
  
  • In the Configuration Wizard, I chose to install the Firewall but not the Antivirus or LivePCSupport.
    
  • I then chose to install the Firewall with Optimum Proactive Defense. This installs the Defense+ component of Comodo. As far as I can tell from some quick googling, there may be some redundancy between Windows Defender and Defense+, but it is not clear to me that either is completely unnecessary, and both can run simultaneously.
  • I unchecked the "Install Toolbar", change your default search engine, and change your homepage options.
  • I chose not to use the Comodo SecureDNS Servers.
Comodo warned me about a number of programs once I restarted Windows, including services.exe which appears to be a Windows native program, and avast and McAfee (see below) programs. I let it know they were all okay (as far as I know). I will also note that Comodo, unlike Windows' Firewall, did not warn me when I tried to run NoMachine. Either it knew about Windows' original exceptions, or it knew that NoMachine was a-okay already.

• I set Firefox to remove all cookies every time I quit. I've used this setting for years. You can add exceptions for sites you trust. The number of cookies stored is always disturbing to me.
  
• Following the suggestions, I installed the following Firefox add-ons:
  • Formfox shows you where form information is being sent when you hit a submit button.
  • McAfee SiteAdvisor. McAfee (which I am wary of) maintains a list of safe and unsafe sites. This Firefox extension shows you the classification for sites you visit and adds a little icon to search results. I disabled the safe searchbox.
    
  • I chose not to install noscript, though it was recommended, cuz it sounds exceptionally annoying. Let's hope that all the other software I've put in place is enough!

Resource usage: I'm looking at the Windows Task Manager. In terms of memory, avast seems to be using about 22 MB in total, SiteAdvisor seems to be using about 4 MB, Spybot seems to be using about 3 MB, and Comodo seems to be using about 3 MB. They all seem to be using about 0% of my processor (I have an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz processor).

Oh yeah, Kyle recommended this article on setting passwords for the many accounts you have online: Fix your Terrible, Insecure Passwords in Five Minutes by my least favorite tech writer Farhad Mintjulep (the advice is good, tho). It took me *way* more than 5 minutes to fix mine. I've considered using Keepass, but it sounds like a pain if you want to log in to anything on a computer that is not your own (you need to carry around a usb stick with your Keepass database on it). Here's another article on how easy it is to hack various password types:
How I'd Hack your Weak Passwords.