Skip to main content

How to effectively deal with malware on the internet?


We all access internet in a never ending loop and in this loop what we find most annoying is the ads that we come across .We often deploy our best  fighters in the name of some extensions or addons to fight the cause. But what you dont know is that ads are just a dot of the bigger picture. Ads cant harm you directly unless you are dumb enough to click each and every adware that you come across.




What can actually cause real harm is the malware with which the internet is filled and the trackers that follow you everywhere.
So, how to get away from these malware and trackers without using any extensions or add-ons?
The answer is HOSTS files. Now you must be wondering what this host file is, never heard of this genius. Well you are not alone but i am here to guide you through it.

What is HOSTS file?


What you see above is what a HOSTS file look like.

When you try to access a previously unknown website on the internet, your web browser normally first checks the HOSTS file to see if the URL  have entered such as www.google.com or www.facebook.com has a corresponding IP address mapped to it before accessing the Domain Name System.

For example the IP address of www.facebook.com is 157.240.16.35 and the IP address of www.google.com is 172.217.166.174. Let's say we wished to point www.google.com to www.facebook.com. We would add the following line to the HOSTS file.

172.217.166.174 www.facebook.com

Now whenever you click a link to www.google.com or enter it manually in the address bar of your browser it will take you to www.facebook.com based on the IP address of Facebook being mapped to the hostname of Google in your HOSTS file.



Where is the HOSTS file ?


Windows 7 & Higher: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

Windows 2000: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC

Windows XP, 2003: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC


How will a HOSTS file will protect you ?

A custom made HOSTS file containing thousands of dubious URLs can be used to block all kinds of ads, Web bugs, cookies,etc., by stopping your computer from communicating with the ad servers. This way you may only block sites that serve unwanted content or any other site that you choose to block.

Note: Using a HOSTS file will not prevent ads that are served from the same Website you are viewing and also it will not work with URL's that begin with IP numbers.


But how is this achieved?

By using the loopback IP address of your computer i.e,127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 . "A loopback is a communications channel with only one endpoint. Any message transmitted through such address does not come from the original URL/server and typically the ads comes from URL's other than the one initially addressed ie., from a third party server. Often from the servers of large ad agencies whose business is providing various kinds of ads for the Websites. By putting a list of such URL's into the HOSTS file many ads can be blocked. In simple words , we will write 127.0.0.1 corresponding to all such malicious websites and thus they will be redirecting to this address which belongs to our own machine and thus the website would never get loaded and you will be surfing the web freely.

For example, an entry might be:

127.0.0.1 www.should-not-be-seen.com





Any request by your browser for the above hostname just gets sent right back to your own computer. Instead of ad-images you may just get a red x with a little bit of text or "The page cannot be displayed" message where the ad would normally appear or if it is an out and out malware site your browser will just show the "The page cannot be displayed" message.


How to set this up?

You can download the HOSTS file from the following websites :

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm


http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/index.php

https://www.hosts-file.net/?s=Download

After you have downloaded the HOSTS file , extract it to the following location :

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

Now just click Yes to confirm the replacement of the original HOSTS file that came with your Windows installation with the one you have downloaded.


Tada, now you are all set to surf the internet faster and adfree. Just check for updates every 15 days so that you have the  latest layer of protection.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hiding files inside an Image on Android

You can hide your files behind an image and this technique is called Steganography. So lets get started. What is Steganography Steganography is an art of hiding a file, message, audio, video, or image within another file, message, audio, video, or image. The word steganography comes from two greek words "steganos" (meaning: concealed) and "graphein" (meaning: writing). The basic difference between cryptography and Steganography is that in cryptography only the message is hidden, but in Steganography, the message and the secret communication are hidden. A lot of good steganographic tools are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but not that much for the Android operating system. Now lets see how you can do the same GETTING STARTED Here is how to hide any file inside any image file on android: 1. First, you have to download NiaStego and install it on your android device. 2. Open the app, then you will see a window as shown below. 3. T...

Monitor secret connections that your computer makes.

How to see which websites your computer is secretly connecting to? Has your Internet connection become slower than it should be?  There may be a chance that you have some malware, spyware,  or adware that is using your Internet connection in the  background without your knowledge. Here’s how to see what’s  going on under the hood. It’s worth noting that most third-party firewalls will probably give you  this same type of information as well as block things that are trying to  connect… unless the applications managed to add an exclusion already.  Better check anyway. So, how do you find out what the problem is? There is an easy method using the netstat  command from a command prompt window. This works with Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP.  If you’re still using XP, make sure you are running at least Service Pack 2,  and just assume that somebody already hacked your computer because your operating  system is now a te...

Fileless Ransomware - All you need to know.

Fileless Ransomware - All you need to know. Many global companies, banks, and even some government organizations are struggling to protect everything from the newest type of threat that scared the world — Fileless Ransomware. The new version of ransomware has arrived — it’s stealthy, almost impossible to detect and is forcing every vulnerable organization to pay the ransom to cyber criminals. These attacks are called “fileless” or non-malware ransomware attacks in which the attack executes malicious commands with Microsoft’s PowerShell. It’s really important to mention that Non-malware or file-less ransomware (unlike some traditional ransomware) does not use any of the files to encrypt your data, but instead it writes scripts/macros which originate from PowerShell to encrypt the files. Fileless malware is a unique type of software and it's really difficult to detect because the malicious code is embedded into the native scripting language or written straight in...