Advanced Plus Security Lightning_Brian's 2021 Security Configuration

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

Norton 360 will be very hard to bypass in real-life situations. It’s possible to bypass it if you are a malware hunter, but under normal circumstances, it provides great protection.
VS might not be so beneficial.

 

[Lightning_Brian]

Why do you also have multiple password managers?

@Handsome Recluse Happy new year friend! Great question!

Answer:

I use different password managers for the following reasons:

1. Company I have
2. Personal Use
3. Backup use
4. Company I work for

I will not say which one I use for personal use, but I do recommend all of them in their highly locked down and secure state. I encourage you and everyone at MT to research their cool and innovative ways. FYI before someone goes all crazy and says "Brian you should use Bitwarden or LastPass" I will say that I have used those password managers and those are nice as well. I just so happen to like the ones I'm using for my own use cases.

Confirmed here on my personal testing recently some days ago:
Cloudflare's "Malware and Adult Content Blocking" blocks almost none URL delivering fresh malware!

Beside NextDNS, Quad9 seems to be the best DNS service to block malware, 3rd place for CleanBrowsing.

@silversurfer Happy New Year! Great points here. If I had to choose a DNS provider Quad9 would be my go to for usage. However, I think I failed to go deeper into my security setup to say that I use Windscribe on just about everything. My phone, computers, my network gear etc. is all set up to run through Windscribe in multiple hops. No I do not experience any slowdowns nor any issues by doing this. The hop locations are actually very close to me and my speed actually is a little bit better compared to what my ISP provides - yes my network gear helps a bit on this side too. Long story short so no one goes into loopy land the speed is just a few Mbps better not some crazy high number.

Some folks may not be aware they can set up their network gear to run on Windscribe. Here is the link to some setup guides: Windscribe

Norton 360 will be very hard to bypass in real-life situations. It’s possible to bypass it if you are a malware hunter, but under normal circumstances, it provides great protection.
VS might not be so beneficial.

@McMcbrad You are very correct about this! Highly unlikely that Norton 360 in the out of the box setup can be bypassed in real-life situations much less in my current configuration.

As per my note in my security configuration I don't always have VS turned on 24/7/365; however, in use cases I find it still very beneficial. I worked with Norton to confirm out a few things. @danb I'm sure you know Norton works well with VS. Hats off to your hard work there @danb !

Perhaps you @McMcbrad and others are correct that VS may not be fully needed. However, in use cases I can and do see a great want/need for VS still present on the system. As some would say - to each his own! I do not foresee VS going anywhere any time from my systems.

As you said in one of your postings @danb

VS has always been about making application whitelisting user-friendly for the masses.

I couldn't agree more! VS is very user-friendly for the masses. @danb Keep up the great work you are doing! You are helping the cyber security community and making a big impact too.

My question for all friends of MT:

Given the little more info about my network setup with Windscribe - do I need the DNS settings? I'm not a uber duber expert in all things VPN; however, my IT experence and saying 'no DNS setup isn't needed with Windscribe'. However, could it help??! Thoughts!?

Thanks!
Brian

 

[danb]

Norton 360 will be very hard to bypass in real-life situations. It’s possible to bypass it if you are a malware hunter, but under normal circumstances, it provides great protection.
VS might not be so beneficial.

I promise you, anyone who has ran VS for a while and has decided to uninstall it for one reason or another, will ultimately find themselves in a situation where they wish their computer was locked when they are about to click on something they are unsure of.

Automatically allowing unknown arbitrary code is foolish.

 

[danb]

Without damage so everything is ok

The source code was leaked. That's not damage?

 

[ForgottenSeer 85179]

The source code was leaked. That's not damage?

Where did you read that the whole code with millions of lines got leaked?

one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories

If these parts don't include weakness, no 0-day exploits can be used.

 

[Lightning_Brian]

What's yall' thoughts about uBlock Origin + Adguard for extensions for Firefox? I know the two compete and deal with the same things. Been a long time user of both, but mainly one at a time not together. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

On the topic of web browser add-ons any other recommendations beyond what I am using today?

What I am using today:

Firefox: HTTPS Everywhere, AdGuard AdBlocker, Windscribe VPN, and NoScript

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
~Brian

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

First with Firefox HTTPS Everywhere is redundant see HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox below:

HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox | Firefox Help

Learn more about HTTPS-Only Mode which forces all connections to websites to use HTTPS.

support.mozilla.org

uBlock Origin and AdGuard together is a waste of resources IMO, they both try to do the same (and like you I like them both).

uBlock Origin is lighter on resources and its real plus are the advanced modes, but since you are also using NoScript I don't think the advanced modes add something for you.
About advanced blocking modes: gorhill/uBlock

AdGuard is a good AdBlocker and IMO parses the cosmetic filters a little better, so you have a cleaner filtered webpage. Its plus comes from the stealth mode.
About stealth mode: In-depth features overview: AdGuard Browser extension

So, IMO loose HTTPS Everywhere and turn its functionality on in Firefox. Choose for yourself between AdGuard and uBlock Origin and use one of them together with NoScript.
Or use uBlock Origin in medium mode and you can even loose NoSctipt... it's up to you

 

[Cortex]

I promise you, anyone who has ran VS for a while and has decided to uninstall it for one reason or another, will ultimately find themselves in a situation where they wish their computer was locked when they are about to click on something they are unsure of.

Automatically allowing unknown arbitrary code is foolish.

With full & total respect to you and your opinions, I have never found myself in that scenario you have described - I found VS a pain in the posterior & don't miss it at all - Maybe I don't click on things I'm unsure of?

 

[danb]

With full & total respect to you and your opinions, I have never found myself in that scenario you have described - I found VS a pain in the posterior & don't miss it at all - Maybe I don't click on things I'm unsure of?

It's cool, thank you for letting me know! How long ago did you try VS? Do you install a lot of new software? Do you change a lot of settings from the default? Do you remember what kind of blocks you were encountering? The vast majority of users (mainly novice and intermediate) do not install a lot of new programs, so they rarely encounter a VS block. The reason I know this is because I still service a lot of endpoints for local clients, most that are running VS, and I like to review the logs to see what was blocked.

If you ever get a chance to try VS again, please let me know what blocks you encounter. There might be a chance that we can further reduce unwanted blocks. Obviously, we want to reduce the unwanted blocks as much as possible, but also ensure the computer is secure by blocking items that need to be blocked.

 

[Lightning_Brian]

First with Firefox HTTPS Everywhere is redundant see HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox below:

HTTPS-Only Mode in Firefox | Firefox Help

Learn more about HTTPS-Only Mode which forces all connections to websites to use HTTPS.

support.mozilla.org

uBlock Origin and AdGuard together is a waste of resources IMO, they both try to do the same (and like you I like them both).

uBlock Origin is lighter on resources and its real plus are the advanced modes, but since you are also using NoScript I don't think the advanced modes add something for you.
About advanced blocking modes: gorhill/uBlock

AdGuard is a good AdBlocker and IMO parses the cosmetic filters a little better, so you have a cleaner filtered webpage. Its plus comes from the stealth mode.
About stealth mode: In-depth features overview: AdGuard Browser extension

So, IMO loose HTTPS Everywhere and turn its functionality on in Firefox. Choose for yourself between AdGuard and uBlock Origin and use one of them together with NoScript.
Or use uBlock Origin in medium mode and you can even loose NoSctipt... it's up to you

Thanks @Gandalf_The_Grey ! Good recommendations that helped solidify what I was thinking too after playing around with some stuff today!

Any other recommendations for extensions for the world of Firefox and or otherwise?

Thanks again,
Brian

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Thanks @Gandalf_The_Grey ! Good recommendations that helped solidify what I was thinking too after playing around with some stuff today!

Any other recommendations for extensions for the world of Firefox and or otherwise?

Thanks again,
Brian

Any time
No not really any other recommendations, I try (but sometimes fail) to keep it simple and light.
Does Norton 360 add an extension to your browsers, and do you use or deinstall them?
IMO and adblocker and a password manager are the most important.
I also use (but in Edge) Microsoft Editor (spelling and grammar check) and the extension installed by the AV I use or if there is none installed Bitdefender TrafficLight.

 

[Lightning_Brian]

Any time
No not really any other recommendations, I try (but sometimes fail) to keep it simple and light.
Does Norton 360 add an extension to your browsers, and do you use or deinstall them?
IMO and adblocker and a password manager are the most important.
I also use (but in Edge) Microsoft Editor (spelling and grammar check) and the extension installed by the AV I use or if there is none installed Bitdefender TrafficLight.

Norton has its 'bloat' that I don't install or use at all. My password managers - I don't even install those for various reasons (call me paranoid). I use the secure copy and erase from clipboard functionalities.

Any other recommendations that you'd like to recommend?

Anyone have any other thoughts for my setup?

Thanks for all of the help!

~Brian