Windows® security- Terms and methods

Terms

Protocol-SSL
A set of established rules or etiquette in a language, code or custom. For example, in some cultures a hand shake is considered an appropriate & friendly form of greeting someone. Hence, the shaker following the right protocol will result in the shakee acknowledging with a reciprocal friendly shake.
In computer context, the hand shake rules states that a computer must first establish it's true identity and origin before being allowed to connect and conduct a friendly exchange of information. By following the rules of the SSL protocol, parties can establish true identity. A trusted third party can be used to provide authentication services and certificates to streamline the process.

Registry Fragment Files:
Most programs leave unnecessary entries in the Windows registry that can be viewed & recovered. Evidence of Internet site visits & programs you have installed are examples that remain until your Windows registry is rebuilt. One of the objectives of PitStop from Computer Associates is to clean out this huge registry file, which can range between 200 and 1,000 Mb. See additional details below on handling Registry Backups safely.

Cleaning and freeing up disk space- manually with Windows XP.
Scan Disk Temp Files (*.chk):
After one of your programs crashes, or Windows experiences a glitch, errors can accumulate on your drives. One of the common errors to appear on most drives over a period of time, is that Windows gets confused about the amount of free space on the drive. It can create a lot of *.CHK files at the root directory of drives. These files usually contain junk data and can be erased to help keep drives clean & to free up space. Use Windows "Search" from the Start menu and select all files & folders. Type in *.chk to locate these files & delete them all.

Disk Cleanup- From your Start menu in XP, Choose All Programs, select Accessories and System Tools, then Disk Cleanup. Let the program do the calculations, then check off all items and press "OK.
Please note, without a data destruction program, these files can be recovered, such as the ones found in your Recycle bin, deleted e-mails, browser history, un-installed programs, etc.

Disk Defragmenter- From your Start menu in XP, Choose All Programs, select Accessories and System Tools, then Disk Defragmenter. When the program opens, highlight the drives you would like to clean up & select Defragment. Please note that after a few minutes, you will have freed up some space and re-organized your disk for slightly better performance. In Windows Vista, defragmentation is an ongoing background process hidden from your view. To be able to have better control over this vital  maintenance (optimizes and reorganizes your hard drives) and as bonus security feature can re-write over disk tracks to make deleted files less recoverable). The use of a professional defragmentation program is much more effective especially if many people use or share your computer or disks. It is particularly important to people that use the Internet frequently since a very large of small files accumulate which slows down your drives considerably.

Temporary Files:
Windows creates temporary files in a folder named "Temp" that stores files used during installation of a program or files used while an application is running. In Internet Explorer, temporary files are created from browsing creating a pool of quick start pages form sites you have visited.

You can set the browser to empty these files in Internet Explorer 6 under Tools> Internet options> Advanced> scroll way down to Security and check the box marked "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser closes".

You can clear Temp files on the fly while in Internet Explorer 7 by selecting Tools> Look for Temporary Internet Files then >Delete files. This will prevent the next person that uses your computer from viewing your History. These files can build up considerably and slow your system down. (10,000+ small files is not uncommon after a few months of browsing- creating a huge file that needs to be sorted all the time by your hard drive). We select "Delete all" in IE 7 and tick the box for "...stored by add-ons" since these files are the meat for profiling and ID theft. A good data destruction program further eliminates all traces of these files which can be easily recovered.

Deleting your Activities

Address Bar- History files
The Address Bar is normally at the top of Internet Explorer, where you type the URLs to visit a website or sites you select after a search. A drop-down arrow on the right will show you all of the history of all of the URL's you have typed into the Address bar. To erase the contents, Click on the History icon, highlight the items you want to remove, then right click and press delete. The item(s) will be sent to the Recycle bin.

Should you wish to permanently delete these History files, use a data destruction to clean out the address bar & internet cache using the strong data destruction methods.The traces of browsing activities can not be recovered.

Downloaded Files
Files and file components that you have downloaded from the web are stored in directories on your computer. Some examples are Active X and Java Applets. Many times these files are harmless, though some can contain virus, spy ware, or ad ware applications. Be very selective about the source of these types of files. If in doubt, do not download them.

Favorites List
This is a list of all of the URL's or website addresses that you or others have been saved on your computer for easy referencing later on. To remove entries from your list- Click on Favorites at the top of your screen and a new box will appear on the left of the screen. Highlight the category or item you wish to delete> right click & select delete. The item(s) will be sent to the Recycle bin.

Plugins
Third party software applications (browsers, email, graphical editors, instant messaging, chat, P2P, image viewers, etc.) record activity like pictures viewed, websites visited, media played, and last used files. A plugin is a small piece of interface software, specifically designed for each application. Programs like, Window Washer allows your computer to erase this information.

Files & Logs:

Application Logs
Under Windows 98, logs are kept on how often you run all of your your programs.

Common Dialog History
Common Dialogs are the standard Windows file open/save boxes that most programs use to open and save files. Some versions of Windows maintain hidden history lists for these boxes.

Index.dat Files
There are multiple Index.dat files in different directories that keep a copy of whatever there is in that folder and they continue keeping those records even after you have deleted the contents of those folders. These files can be very hard to find and erase. If you are in Windows, even with "Show hidden files and folders" enabled, these files are not visible and cannot be found if you do a search for these files. The reason that these files are so invisible is that they are not just hidden, they have been designated as "system" files. System files and folders are treated differently in DOS and Windows and are effectively cloaked from casual searches.

Windows Media Player History & Playlist
If you have Windows Media Player installed on your system, "Most Recently Used" (MRU) lists and playlists are stored on your computer. The MRU lists contain links to the last 5 or 10 items that have been used and are found in Windows Media Player application under the OPEN, SAVE AS, and other options. Playlists will display recent files used- played, viewed, etc. These files can be cleared in the player under Tools> Options> History- Clear History & CD/DVD History. And in Media Player 11 Tools> Options> Privacy> Clear History and Clear Caches.


MS Office MRU's
If you have MS-Office, the "Most Recently Used" (MRU) lists are stored on your computer. The MRU lists contain links to the last 5 or 10 items that have been used and are found in MS-Office applications under the OPEN, SAVE AS, Insert Picture, and other options. These lists show the MRU for Word, Excel, Access, Photo Editor and PowerPoint. For example in Word, the MRU list can be set from none to 9. Go to Tools> Options> General. Look for the check box - Recently used file list and un tick or alter the number of entries to reflect your personal preferences.

Recently Opened Documents List
On your Start Menu, the last 10 or 15 documents you read are stored in the Documents folder. These can be deleted by right clicking on each file name. Please note, you do not get a chance to recover these files from the Recycle Bin or to take further action to make sure they are recoverable form the disk. Window Washer cleans the complete history in one swoop & the files can be destroyed if sent to the Recycle Bin instead.

Recycle Bin
This is a special area on your computer that holds all deleted files until they are permanently deleted from your computer. When you empty the bin, a shadow copy remains on your magnetic media. It can be recovered fairly easily with the right software unless overwritten with data destruction software such as Window Washer.

Registry Backups
These are special directories containing backups of the registry entries. It is recommended to make a backup of the registry files prior to any tinkering by always include the Registry in your backup routine (System State) and export the key you plan to edit before attempting a change. You are not protected when you add a key since a backup restore ignores the new key. Once a change or deletion is done, you can not restore it automatically, like System Restore. The changes can do permanent damage to your Windows files to the point the system will not even start or boot . A program like PitStop will analyze your registry and come up with suggestions. It is not unusual for this registry files to grow quite large. Do not delete the original.

Please note Windows 95/98/Me users, these backups contain information relevant to your historical user activities, such as last pages visited, files or computer searched, etc. A method to insure they are erased afterwards is to use Window Washer, and clean up all user data prior to re-booting your system. If not, Windows will create back- up copy with traces of your activity. Simply cleaning the registry and powering off your computer off will not eliminate the registry back-up copy.

Registry Fragmented Files
Most programs leave garbage in the windows registry that can be recovered. Evidence of Internet sites visits is one example that remains until your Windows registry is rebuilt using a registry repair program. See Registry backups.


Scan Disk Temporary Files (*.chk)
After one of your programs crashes, or Windows experiences a glitch, errors can accumulate on your drives. One of the common minor errors to appear on most drives over a period of time, is that Windows gets confused about the amount of free space on the drive. To help fix these files, the Windows utility Scan Disk can create a lot of .CHK files at the root directory of drives. These files usually contain junk data and can be erased to help keep drives clean.

Start-Menu Click History
There is a hidden encrypted database in the system registry which remembers a wide range of information about what you have clicked on your start menu. The dates and times of mouse clicks are stored with the names of programs started.

Start-Menu Order History
When items are moved around on your Start Menu, it makes a separate memory of their names and their positions.

Swap or Paging file
A swap file is an area on your hard disk used as virtual memory for improving speed. This file contains data and information that has been accessed and written to your hard drive, for example info & programs that will not fit into your computer's RAM memory. You need to be aware that if you are handling some very sensitive information opened in RAM (like a word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) you can not prevent it from being written unencrypted back to this swap or paging file. Though in Windows XP, you can turn off the swap file capability for these types of occasions.
The same is true should you be working on a file and the system is set to go into hibernation mode. When it does, the current content in memory will be saved to a hibernation storage file. Therefore, turn off hibernation mode while working on very sensitive information.

Temporary Files/Directories
Windows creates temporary files in a folder named "Temp" that stores files used during installation of a program or files used while an application is running. In most cases, these files can be deleted to save disk space. You can find out where these temp files are by doing a search. Start> Search> All Files & Folders. In the "All or part of the file name box", type in "*.tmp" and press Search. The computer will search you main drives and provide an extensive list of files. If you want to delete them to save space on your drives, highlight them all then right click & Select- Delete. Note these files will end up in your Recycle bin that needs to be cleaned out with Windows or better still, a data destruction program.

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