Went to a website (madphilosophers.com) which had a big banner over its home page that said it was being hacked by cyber root. What does that mean in terms of visiting that site again and am I going to be hacked from going there while it was being hacked?
Congratulations on taking the first step in combating spyware
installing a good anti-spyware defense.
The thing about both spyware and computer viruses is that an endless game of cat and mouse occurs between the bad guys and the good guys. It goes like this: the bad guys create a nasty program that will steal your important data or destroy your computer files. The good guys learn about this nasty program and come up with a way to block it or remove it. The bad guys move on and either alter the nasty program or dream up a new one. The good guys discover the latest mutations, variations, or new infections and come up with yet another way to block or remove them. It goes on and on.
Security software developers are constantly discovering new threats and creating defenses against them - often on a daily (sometimes even more frequent) basis. When they discover new threats and come up with a valid defense against them, they must add the solution to the “database” or “definition database” and then get these database definitions to the people who count on them for protection.
Generally, these new updates are made available in several ways. First, update downloads are usually made available on the developer’s Web site. However, this requires action on the user’s part. The better approach is some sort of regular, automatic updating feature. Most good security programs provide such a mechanism.
Consider the following scenario. Y head down to the local Best Buy store and buy an anti-spyware or anti-virus program off the shelf and install it on your computer. You’re set, right? Wrong. Ask yourself how current the product’s database is. Chance are good that the software has been sitting on the shelf for a few weeks at least. During this time, all kinds of new threats have been introduced “into the wild.” This means that you may be protected from thousands of threats that have been previously addressed but vulnerable to hundreds of new ones developed between the release of your software and now.
That’s why the software immediately prompts you to connect to the database to retrieve the latest definitions. Do it. Once updated, go back into your anti-spyware or anti-virus program and setup automatic database updates so that you don’t have to worry about this ever again. In the past, an interval of several days was acceptable. Today, daily updates are a basic minimum requirement. You may even want hourly updates.
Keeping your security products current is just as important as buying the protection in the first place. Fortunately, you can automate the process and most developers include free database updates for the entire term of the subscription.
