recently I have been hearing about new methods of malware defense. One such product is "Malware Sentinel"
http://sniperforensicstoolkit.squarespace.com/ which I heard about on Brakeing Down security podcast.
http://brakeingsecurity.com/malware-and-malware-sentinel-with-michael-gough-pt1I won't spoonfeed too much, as if you are serious about not wanting malware, you will at the very least listen to a single podcast, read a website and decide for yourself. There was quite a bit I like when listening to Michael, the general attitude and thoughts they are putting into this made me decide to go and try it out.
It is in early adopter phase, it is free and I like the fact I have a small part to play in helping fight malware. I think the name has recently been modified to malware Sentinel, from Sniper Forensic Toolkit.
With the Sniper Forensics Toolkit, you can:
◾Identify never-before seen malware in less time than it takes to perform a traditional anti-virus scan
◾Analyze an infected system even if you've never used the toolkit on it previously
◾Use the tool on a single system or across thousands using the simple service based agent
◾Easily review results in your web browser
Once the installation has completed successfully, your computer will be scanned and analyzed in the background. Results will then be transmitted to our cloud servers where additional analysis will take place. You can generally expect your results to be available within 24 hours after installation, and you can access all of your information by logging back in to this web application. Thereafter, your computer will be scanned and analyzed daily so long as it has Internet access available to app.mi2security.com.
If none of this appeals to you, then at the very least you should be doing logging anyway...
http://sniperforensicstoolkit.squarespace.com/blog/◾Windows Logging Cheet Sheet document is something every IT Professional should read and keep handy.
◾Top 6 Windows events to log for to catch PoS malware (and many others) - Blog
You should study this and learn where these important file locations are.
http://hackerhurricane.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/latest-backoff-pos-malware-is-nothing.html a very good read.