Computing Guide To Being Paranoid

They’re watching you. Literally. In a recent article posted at Ars Technia, it was reported that hackers have the ability to remotely take over your computer and install software on your computer that allows them to turn on your webcam. What? They do this using a RAT pack (Remote Administration Tool). In addition to that, we are hearing of new router exploits that give a hacker the ability to remotely access your router and gain access to your Local Area Network. If you think you’re overly paranoid about your computing you should be. This stuff is scary.

So now that you know that the whole world is out to get you, what can you do about it? These steps will help close some of the holes used to exploit computers.

Turn off Remote Administration – Remote administration in routers give users outside of your network the ability to access and control your router. In many cases, this is turned on by default. What? Of course the intention of this option is benign, but it can be used by a hacker to get into your LAN and see all of your internal computers, manipulate your firewall and do basically anything they want with your traffic.

To do this, you can navigate to your router’s admin page using your web browser. Normally, this can be done by typing http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1 into your browser’s address bar (not the search bar). Your router location may vary. You will also need to know the username and password of your router. If you do not know it, and the router was supplied by your ISP, you can check the physical device to see if the information is printed there or call your ISP for log in details.

Look for an “Advanced” or “Administrator” tab and make sure remote administration is disabled.

Turn Off Wake On LAN - While not necessarily an exploit, WoL allows your computer to be turned on when powered off from an outside source. Imagine this, ole paranoid one, if a hacker had access to your internal LAN and had the ability to turn on your PC whenever he or she wanted to perform whatever nefarious acts he or she wanted. Unless you have a specific need to have it on, go into your computer BIOS when booting and disable that wicked feature. Depending on your BIOS, it may not even be an option.

Turn Off Allow Network Traffic To Wake Computer – Similar to WoL, your network adapter has the ability to listen to network traffic and can allow your computer to be woken up while asleep.

To shut this down, go into the Control Panel, look for your network adapter, right-click it and select Properties. Under the Power Management tab, uncheck that option if it is checked.

Turn Off UPnP – Turn off Universal Plug and Play in your router. Universal Plug and Play allows programs within your network to automatically punch holes in your router. What? Us paranoids can’t allow this to happen! Imagin a virus on your network having free reign to open ports on your router to allow even more bad guys in. For most of us, having this feature off will not affect anything we do from day to day. For others, you may need to occasionally go into your router and manually open ports for programs or system that require them to be open–like game consoles, for instance. You can turn off UPnP in your router.

Uninstall Java and Adobe Reader – With Windows doing a better job securing the OS, hackers are seeking softer targets like Java and Adobe Reader, both of which seem to have some type of zero-day exploit a couple times a year. Most of us have these programs just sitting on our system, never being used and never being updated to the latest versions. If you simply must have them, be sure to update them frequently.

Scan Your Ports - The Gibson Research Corporation (GRC) has been providing a free online tool to scan your router for open ports for over ten years. This tool is called Shields Up and you can find it here. The UPnP Exposure test will check to see if your router is open to a new router exploit that gives hackers the ability to access and control your router.

If all is well with the GRC test, you will see the above image.

Run Your Browser In Privacy Mode – Private Browsing (which may be called something else depending on which browser you’re running) allows you to surf without the fear of a history being saved, and temp images, videos, files and cookies being stored on your computer.

In Firefox and IE, this is enabled by hitting CTRL+Shift+P.

In Google Chrome hit CTRL+Shift+N for Incognito mode.

Do The Basic Computer Security Measures – Of course, you should also make sure you are running a current antivirus–if your free antivirus from Symantec or Mcafee has expired, uninstall it and get another. If you do not have one, Microsoft Security Essentials is free. In addition, make sure your WiFi is encrypted in your router settings using WPA-2 so the whole neighborhood isn’t using your bandwidth. Make sure you have Windows automatic updates turned on. Make sure your Windows firewall is also enabled. Modern Windows Operating System will have these on by default, and if you’re running Windows 8 you also already have an antivirus called Windows Defender–built in.

If you have more tips for us paranoid folk, please be sure to leave them below so we can all sleep good at night.

I Spilled Liquid On My Laptop! Now What?

This may be your face when it happens to you. Every day, 1 in 20 Americans spill something on their laptop (Also, 48% of statistics are made up). So something liquid finds its way onto your laptop or smart phone whether by accident or angry significant other and now you must act, or weep in the corner.  With the steps outlined below, you will be able to confidently jump into action and try to keep the damage to a minimum.

I’ve been in the repair industry for about 9 years now and have cleaned the following liquids out of laptops which then went on to live normal computery lives: beer(lager and porters), wine, milk, water, coffee, juice, cat pee (grosses one by far), “mystery white substance”( basically looked like a HAZMAT guy on that job), “mystery smells like human urine substance”(from a frat house), and a couple others I know I’m forgetting.  I haven’t been able to revive every single one of these without a hardware change out, but I have been successful in a good portion of them.  Follow these quick thinking steps below and you will stand a fighting chance!

Water Everywhere!

We are going to show you a quick “not-to-do” section here so you know what to avoid to not put yourself in danger of a possible liquid to laptop unwanted interaction.  See the pics below for a jump start on what not to do…..

Now the above is mostly for comedy’s sake but you can gather some good insight on what to stay away from as well.  Don’t go around swimming pools, lakes, beaches, or Atlantis with your laptop or smart phone. They are not designed to keep out liquids. They do a pretty poor job of keeping out solids for that matter too. There are too many holes and vents all over them to make them proficient at keeping most stuff at bay.

Don’t drink or eat around your laptop.  I already hear the whining and moaning about how you don’t have enough time in your day to do homework and eat or play WOW and function in normal society without having a soda or water right next to you.  Try and schedule yourself a couple minutes away from the laptop to munch down food and drink.  If you HAVE to have food or a drink around, look around and find a good place to set them so if they do get knocked over you wont be making up new curse words because your laptop just became water cooled.

It Happened! What do I do?

That dreadful time has come and your dog has just spilled a gallon of water all over the keyboard of your precious new Alienware RAIDed, super max GPU, RAMy goodness and you think you may be on the verge of a breakdown.  Now is not the time for panic!  **Immediately pull the AC adapter from the laptop and flip it over.  Quickly remove the battery and breathe a sigh of relief.  If you got to these steps without your laptop shutting down or making a popping or zapping sound, you stand a fighting chance.  Go grab a towel or paper towels and set your laptop, keyboard side down, on the drying apparatus.  Let it sit for as long as possible.  There isn’t a good rule of thumb for how long you should leave it sit like this because it could be anything from a drop of water to a 5 gallon bucket full that assaulted your lappy.

Personally, I would leave it for a day with a small fan pointed at it to help the evaporation process.  The next day gently lift it up and see if you notice any still wet areas.  If so, repeat the waiting game.  When it is fully dried out, to the best you can tell, is when you should start crossing your fingers.  Look over the laptop and see if you can see any residue pointing you to where the liquid may have came in contact.  Did it stay on the keyboard?  Did it make it to the touchpad?  Was it fully submerged in the Pacific?  If it only got a little on the keyboard, you may be at looking at worst a new keyboard.(About $25-$60)  If it was a lot, time to take it apart.  If you are not comfortable taking your laptop apart, take it to a professional.  If you plan on that, then you can skip the next paragraph.

Taking apart a laptop can be a challenge but if you are up to it, time to dive in and see where all of the liquid made it.  Heavily inspect the keyboard and touchpad circuit boards and their connectors.  If you see any wetness, dry it off with a non-conductive method such spray air.  Look over the motherboard and see if you notice that it made it that far.  If you see anything like the below picture, clean with alcohol or electronics cleaner and a soft toothbrush or Qtip.

This pic above is from one where the liquid either got to the board before it could be fully powered down or was something like milk/soda/juice/water and started to corrode the contacts.  Be careful when cleaning corroded points like this because if they have been this way long, they can eat at the solder joints making them weak.  If so, then you could dislodge a component and be in even bigger trouble.

After making sure the liquid residue is dried up and cleaned off can we finally see if what we had done above is going to pay off.  Plug in the AC adapter without the battery and try to power it on.  Hopefully it will power on and fully POST and boot.  If so, put the battery back in and try to boot again.  If both went smoothly then it is on to testing out all of the keyboard keys and the touchpad.  If they are sticky or stuck, you can try cleaning them with electronics cleaner.  My favorite is from the Blow Off brand.  If you want to make sure each button is being registered, run over to thiskeyboard testing site and try out each of your buttons.  If they both work, try your wifi, camera, and any other devices your laptop has to make sure everything made it out unscathed.  Hopefully by your quick actions you have saved your laptop and don’t have to replace any parts!

Conclusion

What have we learned from all of this?  First and foremost, don’t try and put yourself in the situation to possibly contaminate your laptop with a foreign substance.  Don’t eat or drink by it if possible.  Stay away from the beach or swimming areas and leaky toddlers as well.  If it happens, DON’T PANIC.  You now are equipped to minimize the damage done with these steps and quick thinking and acting.  The steps you take immediately after it happens could determine the fate of your laptop!