Computer Security guide

life-rockz SG

This is an computer security guide with information about protecting your password on RuneScape, and info on stopping viruses and trojans from getting onto your computer.

Quick Links
Basic Information
Fake Emails
Scams
Entering Your Password
Sites to Trust
Why Not to Use Autoers
What to do if You Have a Virus
Bank PINs
Reporting
Security Programs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Basic Information

A 'virus' is a program made by somebody to mess up your computer. Once they are clicked on, or sometimes run automatically, they cause damage to your computer. This damage can be deleting information, etc.

A 'trojan horse' is a program pretending to be something else. a Trojan/Trojan Horse can destroy things on your computer, delete lots of information, sometimes even stopping your operating system (the program your computer uses for everything) to load up. Trojan's can also send information on your computer to the creator of the trojan.

A 'keylogger' is a program which sends every key you press to the programmer of the keylogger. These are used to get peoples passwords and other secret information.

'Spyware/Adware' are programs used to keep track of websites you visit and what is done on them, etc.

There is all these horrible types of things and more, But by using this guide you can stop a lot of them happening. Make sure to scan your computer for virus's every few days, Using a good virus scanner such as AVG Anti-Virus. And use programs to get rid of other bad stuff, such as Ad-Aware.

Anyway, Lets get on with the guide!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fake Emails

You might receive an email one day. It could be something like 'You are now a player moderator' or 'We need your details to upgrade your account' or something. Now, whatever email its from, even if its from [email protected] or [email protected] or something that sounds official, delete it. I am serious. They may sound like a Jagex Moderator but they are not!

I got this email a few days ago:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jagex Mod
Subject: Your character status updated
Date: Nov 03 2005 10:46

Greetings, adventurer!

You have been chosen by Jagex Staff moderators for the role due to your past record in the game, your RuneScape character have chance to be changed to a Player Moderator!
You are trusted by the Jagex staff and so can be equally trusted by you. After you will accept your new status you will have Silver Crown next to your name.

To accept your Player Moderator status and read new rules please login to your account and follow the instructions.

Sincerely, Mod Ash
Jagex Mod

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And another one:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Runescape player,

We tracked you a time ago and saw that you're a big fan of the game.
You'r one of the thousand selected players who we wanted to reward because of there nice and fair playing.
The prices are:

Non-Member:
-50.000 coins cash
-Full rune set

Members:
-Full Zamorak, Saradomin or Guthix set
-500.000 Coins cash
-15 Dragon longswords

To get you'r price we need some info from you'r account, please fill in these things:

Caracter Name:...........
Caracter Pass:..............
Bank Pin (if you have one):....

Thank you for filling in these details.
You'rs faithfully,
Jagex Staff
--------------------------
Warning: If they give you a link, do NOT click it! The link will either contain keyloggers or a virus or will be a scam website where you enter your username and password and bam - they have your account. Also, in the second fake email, it asks you to enter your information. That's not good guys, not good! Don't trust these emails, no matter where there from.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scams

1). Some guy in RuneScape might private message you and start saying: Hello. I am a jagex moderator blardy blardy blar or something of the sort. Do not listen to them Unless they have a Silver Crown next to there name. Players with silver crowns next to there name are Player Moderators, which means they are more trusted by Jagex. They can mute people, ban people etc.

People with a gold crown are Jagex Staff! Personally i have never seen one and you have 1 out of a million chance of seeing one because they usually either come on different accounts or get player moderators to do the testing.

2). Some guy in RuneScape might say "Oh look RuneScape's new update stops you from typing your password in look ******* you try!" Then when you try it doesn't block it and the hacker gets onto your account, changes your password and recovery questions, then bam.. he has your account. Don't fall for this scam!

3). Somebody in RuneScape might say 'FREE ARMOUR TRIMMING!' Then ask you to give them your armour so they can put gold on it or whatever. Do not trade your armour! They steal your armour and you never see it again! Armour trimming is not possible in RuneScape. You can get trimmed armour, it comes from members treasure trails and is tradable to free players, But please, remember, neither free players or members can trim armour! Nobody can! It can only be obtained from treasure trails or buying it from somebody else. All trimmed armour originally came from a treasure trail!

4). Somebody may say 'Free Item Duplicating!' They say if you trade them an item, they will give you double of what you gave them - back... for free. But once you trade them an item, they steal it. Or often you will trade them like 1 gold, they will give you 2 gold. Then you'll trade 2 gold, and they will trade 4 gold. Then you will trade 4 gold, and they will trade 8 gold, etc. But, Once you get to trust them and think that they really are duplicating your gold/item, you will trade a very expensive thing and they will steal it. Or, the other way: Somebody tells you to drop the item you want duplicating and press ALT + F4, then you will get double the items you dropped. But if you press ALT + F4 it quits you out of your RuneScape window, and the scammer steals your items you dropped! Watch out!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entering Your Password

When you go to http://www.runescape.com, just incase a keylogger is on your system, you should follow these tips and tricks:

1. You should enter your password letter by letter. For example, my username is baconboy30 and my password is 44129. I would enter it by clicking in the username bar and typing:

B (click on password)
4 (click on username)
a (click on password)
4 (click on username)
c (click on password)
1 (click on username)
o (click on password)
2 (click on username)
n (click on password)
9 (click on username)
boy30 (click on log in)

2. When you go onto runescape and enter your password, make sure you ARE on runescape.com! The only sites you should ever trust with your runescape password are:

http://www.runescape.com
http://www.runescape.net
http://www.miniclip.com
http://www.mofunzone.com
http://www.jagex.com
3. You might want to check out a password generator. A good one that has been checked for trackers etc and had none on is Jeremyemery's, found here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sites to Trust Your Password With

Only trust these websites with your account. They are websites owned or affiliated with Jagex:

jagex.com
runescape.com
jagex.co.uk
runescape.co.uk
runescape.net
runescape.org
miniclip.com
mofunzone.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why Not to Use Autoers

An autoer is a piece of software that is supposed to help you gain levels unfairly in the game. For example an auto miner will mine for you while you're not there. For starters, these are completely illegal, stated in the Jagex rules. They have an auto detecting system and you will be banned straight away.

Another reason why you shouldn't use autoers is because most of them don't help you, they have keyloggers or other malware on them and will usually steal your password.

In other words, don't use autoers or you'll lose your account, one way or another.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What to Do if You Have a Virus

I recommend using AVG Antivirus Free Edition. Its free, and good. You can download it from http://www.grisoft.com. Once you have downloaded the program you should install it and open it up. First, check for updates. Then set it up to how you want to use it.

You should scan your computer regularly. I do mine every night, but you dont have to do it that much. Once every 4 days should be good, as long as you scan everything you download. To Scan your computer, run AVG Anti-Virus and click on test center. You will then get another menu come up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bank Pins

RuneScape now has a feature called "bank pin." Basically this is a 4-digit numbered code like 1024 or something. If you would like to know how to create a bank pin, please visit the Bank Pin Guide.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reporting

If you find another RuneScape player breaking the RuneScape Rules, then you can report them. Using the report abuse feature. To use the report abuse feature, you need to click the button under the chat bar:

Then a bar will pop up:

Replace 'Rule Breaker' with the person who has broke one of the rules, and then click on the rule they have broken (offensive language, item scamming, etc).

Then in the chat bar it should say 'Thank you, your report abuse has been sent' - If it doesn't say that its either because you typed in the name wrong or it has been over 60 seconds since they broke the rule.

The moment you see somebody breaking a rule, you must report them instantly. When you report somebody to Jagex, it sends the last 60 seconds of activity from what the player has been doing. So if the report is sent after sixty seconds they wont see the scamming part.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Security Programs

Firewalls

For a firewall I recommend Sygate Personal Firewall. Its great, easy to use. When you first install it every time you load a program etc, it will ask if you want to allow the program to run. If it is a program you know then select always do this action and click allow. However, If you have never heard of it just click Disallow.

For a AntiVirus program you should use AVG Antivirus. Its a great program, No annoying questions that pop up that you don't understand. Easy to use, And will destroy just about everything bad. You need to check for updates regularly, Once in a while it will check automatically but if you don't check yourself then you might get a virus and because AVG isn't updated it wont recognize it, and by the time it automatically checks it could have completely wrecked your pc. So yes, other than that there's no work to be done at all. It automatically comes on at startup so you don't even need to think about it all the way until shutting your pc down.

For Spyware removal you definitely need SpyBot - Search and Destroy. It gets rid of everything!

Another Spyware Remover is Ad-Aware, which needs to be updated regularly once again though.

Mozilla Firefox is much faster than Internet Explorer and other browsers. It's also a great deal safer, as it does not allow many types of malicious software to load. The development team is also very active and if any security issues arise, they will usually be fixed within 24 hours. Trust me... use Firefox!