Digital Signatures

[Chris from Milwaukee]

Just a quick question, what is a broken digital signature?

Thanks, Guys!

[Dale H. Cook]

Just a quick question, what is a broken digital signature?

In what context?

[Chris from Milwaukee]

I was running my virus software and it got rid of a Trojan and it said that another application had a broken digital signature. Just not sure what that's all about.

[Dale H. Cook]

... it said that another application had a broken digital signature.

The digital signature is put into the application by the developer so that it is possible to verify that a file has not been altered (by, say, a virus). It sounds as if there is something wrong with that signature, though. Do you check your hard drive periodically at boot time with CHKDSK?

Which antivirus are you using? The free ones (such as the free version of AVG) are prone to false positives. Even the better commercial antivirus programs sometimes err on the side of caution and give a false positive (such as flagging executables packed with a pirated packing utility). You might consider contacting the developer or vendor of that application to see what they think.

[Chris from Milwaukee]

Currently using the Free AVG stuff. The "Creator" likes it and for the most part it works really well.

[radiowave911]

I switched to Avast! for Windows boxes. AVG got too bloated for me. Avast has a pretty decent track record, too.

[Tim Burke]

Microsoft Security Essentials is a pretty good choice, as well. And it's free...

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security ... fault.aspx

[bogointeractive]

Avast is working well for me. I even have some of the college IT peeps around here say they use it as well on their servers. AVG is bloatware these days. I would rather use something that is fast and simple. MS SE does an OK job but it does not seem to update itself like Avast does. I have to run windows update or something to get it going. I get it is an attempt by Microsoft to CYA but it fails for me. Avast is OK for now just like things to scan and run in the background without annoying the heck out of me.

[Deep Thought]

No problems with Microsoft Security Essentials updating here on five different computers running three different OS versions (Vista x64 and Win7 32 & 64).

[bogointeractive]

Just not a big fan of MS product. It just seems the product is not doing a good job like a good AV should be.

No problems with Microsoft Security Essentials updating here on five different computers running three different OS versions (Vista x64 and Win7 32 & 64).

[BroadcastDoc]

I agree with Deep Thought - Microsoft Security Essentials works very well. I run it on all my Windows machines. Fixed problems that Symantec couldn't.

[rockmanac]

I agree with Deep Thought - Microsoft Security Essentials works very well. I run it on all my Windows machines. Fixed problems that Symantec couldn't.

I run MSE on my Windows systems. Sophos on my Mac just b/c I'm paranoid!

[radiowave911]

Another nice thing about Avast - you can set the language to Pirate WHen it tells you the virus database has been updated, or other spoken message, it uses a pirate voice...

[bogointeractive]

I am using CA from Time Warner Cable now. A bit overkill on some stuff it has but so far it is OK for free to me. Now if I can just get my 3 radio streams on my 5 meg up to stay on all the time.