KASPERSKY LAB Kaspersky Lab News Agent User manual KASPERSKY LAB NEWS AGENT User manual © Kaspersky Lab http://www.kaspersky.com/ Revision date: February, 2006 Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2. PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION ............................................................... 5 CHAPTER 3. GETTING STARTED................................................................................ 7 3.1. "Virus weather" ...................................................................................................... 9 3.2. Channels................................................................................................................ 9 3.3. News .................................................................................................................... 10 3.4. Subscription ......................................................................................................... 10 3.5. Notification ........................................................................................................... 11 3.6. System tray icon .................................................................................................. 11 3.7. Right-click menu .................................................................................................. 11 3.8. Kaspersky Lab News Agent window .................................................................. 12 3.9. Channel window .................................................................................................. 13 3.10. Toolbar............................................................................................................... 14 3.11. Application settings............................................................................................ 14 3.12. The General tab of the News Agent settings dialog box.................................. 15 3.13. The Connection tab of the Options dialog box ................................................. 16 3.14. Launching the application ................................................................................. 18 3.15. Closing the application ...................................................................................... 18 APPENDIX A. KASPERSKY LAB................................................................................. 19 A.1. Other Kaspersky Lab Products .......................................................................... 20 A.2. Contact Us........................................................................................................... 25 APPENDIX B. LICENSE AGREEMENT....................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Kaspersky Lab News Agent (hereinafter referred to as "Kaspersky Lab News Agent" or "the application") provides on-line delivery of news from Kaspersky Lab's news channels, and notifications both about "virus weather" and the arrival of fresh news. The application runs under the Microsoft Windows operating system. Kaspersky Lab News Agent performs the following functions: · · · · · · · automatically updates list of available news channels at specified regular intervals. monitors and displays the status of current "virus weather" status. supports subscription to, and unsubscription from, news channels. automatically downloads news from subscribed channels at specified intervals, and provides notification of new events. supports review of news from subscribed channels. supports review of the lists of channels and their status. allows opening pages of detailed news in your web browser. Kaspersky Lab News Agent can be used independently or it may be bundled with the integrated solutions offered by Kaspersky Lab. Attention! Kaspersky Lab News Agent handles all network communications using the HTTP protocol (port 80) and proxy server settings specified in your web browser. You can change the connection settings (details see section 3.13, page 16). CHAPTER 2. PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION Kaspersky Lab News Agent provides online delivery of news from available channels, and notifications both about "virus weather" (presence or absence of a virus epidemic and its severity) and the arrival of fresh news. At specified intervals the application connects to Kaspersky Lab's news server and reads a list of available channels, "virus weather" status and news from the subscribed channels. All communication with the server is performed via the HTTP protocol (port 80). You can change the connection settings (details see section 3.13, page 16). The "virus weather" status is displayed as an icon in the system tray and in Kaspersky Lab News Agent windows. The "virus weather" status has three possible states: Icon Meaning Clear Cloudy Danger! -- virus epidemic Table 1. "Virus weather" icons in Kaspersky Lab News Agent You can subscribe to or unsubscribe from channels using the Kaspersky Lab News Agent main window (see Fig. 1). Upon receipt of a channel list the application provides notification of the appearance of any new channels, which are then available for subscription. The application reads a list of news for every subscribed channel and provides notification of the arrival of any fresh news. Notification is provided by the application icon in the system tray, which starts blinking. Additional methods of notification can be specified within the General tab (see Fig. 4) of the application's Options dialog window. The application's main window (see Fig. 1), which can be opened by rightclicking the application icon in the system tray, displays the status of each 6 Kaspersky Lab News Agent available channel. Having selected a channel in that window you can open a Channel window (see Fig. 2) and read the news, which may contain links to web pages with details, indicated by hyperlinks in a news article. Click these underlined text to open the corresponding web page. You can navigate between the application's main window and the Channel news window using the same methods as in your web browser. In the application's Options window the following application parameters can be specified: · · · · frequency of server polling; automatic application launch at system startup; the method used for notification of appearance of new channels or arrival of news for subscribed channels; settings necessary for Internet connection through proxy servers. CHAPTER 3. GETTING STARTED When Kaspersky Lab News Agent is launched for the first time it retrieves the list of available news channels and the current "virus weather" status. The application's icon appears in the system tray, and its appearance indicates the current "virus weather" status. Clicking the News Agent application's icon opens Kaspersky Lab News Agent's main window (see Fig. 1), which lists all available channels. Figure 1. Kaspersky Lab News Agent dialog window The leftmost column in the list reflects channel subscription status; the middle column displays the channel's status, and the last column shows the channel's name. Subscription status initially may be either "unsubscribed" or "obligatory subscription". You can modify subscription status by clicking the subscription Status icon. The "obligatory subscription" status will not change after clicking on its icon. Kaspersky Lab News Agent updates news for all subscribed and obligatory channels whenever the list of available channels is updated, and provides notification when a new channel appears, or fresh news arrives for a subscribed channel. 8 Kaspersky Lab News Agent The user can select and combine the notification methods used (see section 3.12, page 15), however, the News Agent icon in the system tray will start blinking irrespective of the methods you have selected. Channel status icon reflects the current channel status: Icon Meaning The channel has just been added to the list of available channels No subscription to the channel The channel is currently being read Channel inaccessible ­ there may be no connection to the Internet Channel contains fresh news Channel contains unread news Channel contains read news only Table 2. Channel status icons Clicking a channel name opens a Channel window (see Fig. 2) that contains news. Each news article includes a line with the date and time of its publication and a short extract from the item. This line serves as a link to a page with the detailed text of the article. The short text contains underlined links, clicking any of which will open the corresponding web page in your browser. All application windows have a toolbar similar to a browser toolbar that is used for navigation between the channel list and the channel windows. Links to visited and opened channels are highlighted with in a different colour from those to unvisited channels. Getting started 9 Figure 2. Channel dialog window This toolbar also contains buttons that serve to open the application's Options window, and to exit the application. 3.1. "Virus weather" "Virus weather" is a term used to describe the world situation regarding computer viruses. While Kaspersky Lab News Agent is running, the "virus weather" status is indicated by the application icon in the system tray, and by the icon in all its application windows and by the application icon. You are advised to exercise due caution when the "virus weather" icon shows "danger". The range of states for "virus weather" are shown in Table 1. Attention! Changes in "virus weather" do not trigger a notification! 3.2. Channels Kaspersky Lab News Agent works with news channels. The channel's name reflects its source and specialization. Channel content is represented by a list of news downloaded from a server. 10 Kaspersky Lab News Agent You can: · · · subscribe to a channel; Kaspersky Lab News Agent will read news from that channel and inform you of the arrival of fresh news; unsubscribe from a channel to which you are subscribed; the application will discontinue reading news from that channel; refrain from subscribing to a channel. There are some channels, which are obligatory for subscription. Subscription status is displayed in the channel list within the application's man window (see Fig. 1). The application reads all subscribed channels at the interval specified in the General tab of the Options window (see Fig. 4). Arrival of fresh news for a channel changes its status and initiates a corresponding notification. Clicking any channel name in the Kaspersky Lab News Agent window opens a Channel window containing the channel's news. 3.3. News "News" means a published description of an event. Each piece of news has a date, publication time and a brief text description. "Fresh news" means news which a channel has not contained before but does contain now. The time at which news appears on a channel is independent of the publication date and time. Fresh news may have been published quite a long time ago but appeared on a channel only recently. A brief extract of the news item is generated by the news source in hypertext format, so that the text contains links to other web pages. Usually the extract is a summary of the information described in detail in the hyperlinked web pages. 3.4. Subscription The application's main window (see Fig. 1) displays all the channels which are available as news sources. News channels which are of interest can be individually selected. Additionally the obligatory channels are always selected. Subscription means that the news stream of a selected channel has been switched on. Kaspersky Lab News Agent delivers news, and notifications about fresh news, from subscribed channels only. Getting started 11 The subscription icons in the application's main window reflect the current status of each channel's subscription. You can change the subscription status of a channel, from "subscribed" to "unsubscribed" and vice versa, by clicking the application icon. 3.5. Notification The application will notify you upon the arrival of fresh news from a subscribed channel, or when a new channel becomes available. The default notification is that the application icon begins blinking. Alternate notification methods can be specified in the General tab (see Fig. 4) of the Options window. These include the playback of a WAV sound file or the display of a pop-up window displaying a custom message. 3.6. System tray icon The application icon in the system tray serves to display the "virus weather" status and open the application windows. Its blinking indicates the appearance of new available channels or fresh news for the subscribed channels. The possible variants of the icon are shown in Table 1. The application additionally displays the same icon in all its open windows and in the taskbar. You can open the application's main window (see Fig. 1), and review all available channels, by left-clicking the icon with the mouse. 3.7. Right-click menu Right-clicking the application's icon in the system tray opens a pop-up menu containing the following items: Menu item Channels Options Purpose Opens the application's main window Opens the application's Options window Refresh now Checks availability of news for the channels 12 Kaspersky Lab News Agent Menu item About... Purpose Displays the application's version number Closes News Agent. The application will be unloaded from the RAM Table 3. Right-click menu items Exit Figure 3. Right-click menu 3.8. Kaspersky Lab News Agent window This window (see Fig. 1) displays a list of channels as a table of three columns. The left-hand column in the list reflects channel subscription status; the middle column displays the channel's status, and the right-hand column shows the channel's name. The first column shows channel subscription using one of the icons below. Icon Meaning Subscribed Not subscribed Obligatory subscription Table 4. Subscription status icons for a channel Click the subscription icon in order to subscribe to an unsubscribed channel or to cancel an existing subscription. Getting started 13 You can hide channels to which you are not subscribed so that they are not displayed in the channels list. In order to do this select the button. Attention! Some channels are obligatory for subscription; you cannot cancel subscription to those. Their subscription icon looks like this: . The second column shows channel status (see Table 2). The channel name's colour in the third column indicates whether the channel contains unread news: · · · · Grey ­ no news in the channel (most likely an unsubscribed one). Red ­ news have not been read since an update during the current session of Kaspersky Lab News Agent. Blue ­ news have not been read since an update during a previous session of Kaspersky Lab News Agent. Violet ­ no unread news. The channel name in the third column is underlined when it contains news. Leftclicking the channel name will open a Channel window (see Fig. 2) displaying the news from that channel. For more convenient navigation through the list, you can arrange the channels in the order you prefer. The selected channel is highlighted with grey color and can be moved up or down in the list using the and buttons located on the toolbar. 3.9. Channel window The Channel window displays a list of news for the selected channel. Each news item consists of a header containing its publication date and time and a brief description of the event. The header line is a hyperlink to the web page containing the detailed news article. The brief news extracts may contain underlined links. Right-clicking a link will open the corresponding web page in your browser. Links to pages which have already been opened from the news viewing window are coloured violet, and links to unvisited pages are blue. 14 Kaspersky Lab News Agent 3.10. Toolbar The toolbar is located above the application workspace. You can click the toolbar buttons to initiate application actions. Button Purpose Check news availability on channels Browse back to the previous link Browse forward to the most recent link Display the application's version number Open the Options window Hide/Show unsubscribed channels Move selected channel up in the list Move selected channel down in the list Exit the application Open the Help system Table 5. Toolbar buttons 3.11. Application settings To change interface parameters, select the Options item in the rightclick menu or click the window. icon in any Kaspersky Lab News Agent Getting started 15 The application will display the Options dialog window (see Fig. 4). Using the General tab, you can configure the News Agent to start at the operating system startup, select the font size for displaying the news, configure the notification method and specify the server polling interval. Using the Connection tab, you can configure the method of using the proxy server and the proxy server settings. Figure 4. Options dialog window 3.12. The General tab of the News Agent settings dialog box In order to access general settings of the News Agent, select the Options item from the shortcut menu. This will open an Options dialog box on the General tab (see Figure 4). 16 Kaspersky Lab News Agent Using this tab you can configure the following settings: · · · Launch the program at operating system startup ­ starts the News Agent when you restart your operating system. Font Size ­ select the font size to display the news (small, medium or large). Check every ­ select a time interval for checking for available channels and news on the channels you subscribed to. The internal is specified by selecting a required value and the time unit (days, hours, minutes). Notification ­ user notification about a new available channel or news on the channels you are subscribed to: · · Task bar icon ­ the user will be notified by the blinking News Agent application icon in the system tray. Sound ­ the user will be notified by playing a specified .wav file. If this option is selected, specify filename for the sound file you would like to use for the notification in the Sound File dialog box (in order to use a File Select dialog box, press the button located to the right of the option). Popup Message ­ the user will be notified by a pop-up window in the system tray area. Enter the text of the notification message in the Message Text field. · · The icon in the application tray will start blinking irrespective of the notification method you selected. 3.13. The Connection tab of the Options dialog box In order to switch to the connection settings, perform the following: select the Options item from the shortcut menu and switch to the Connection tab in the window that will open (see Figure 5). This tab is used to configure the proxy server settings. By default the network settings will be copied from Microsoft Internet Explorer. If, for any reason, you do not use this program or if you wish to modify these settings, you can use this tab for this purpose. Getting started 17 Figure 5. The Connection tab of the Options dialog box You can select one of the following options: · · Do not use proxy server ­ work without using the proxy server. Use proxy server settings from MS Internet Explorer options ­ use a proxy server with Microsoft Internet Explorer settings in order to connect to the internet. This is the recommended mode for using a proxy server. Use custom proxy server settings ­ use a proxy server with the following settings in order to connect to the internet: o o o Address ­ proxy server name of IP address. Port ­ proxy server port. Use proxy server authorization ­ proxy server user registration mode. If you use this, mode, enter the following registration data: o o · Login ­ username for the proxy server. Password ­ user's password for the proxy server. 18 Kaspersky Lab News Agent 3.14. Launching the application If the Launch the program at operating system startup checkbox is enabled within the General tab of the Options window (see Fig. 4), then Kaspersky Lab News Agent will launch automatically after system startup. If the checkbox is disabled or you have closed the application, you can launch it again manually. To launch Kaspersky Lab News Agent: 1. 2. Click the Start button in Microsoft Windows Taskbar and select Programs in the Microsoft Windows menu. Select the program group corresponding to Kaspersky Lab News Agent (by default it is Kaspersky Lab News Agent, but it can be changed during application installation). In the next menu select Kaspersky Lab News Agent. The icon of Kaspersky Lab News Agent will appear in the system tray to indicate that the application has started. The application can also be run directly from the location where it is installed. To do this, open the application directory of Kaspersky Lab News Agent in Explorer (its default path is C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\KL News Agent). Find the file KLAgent.exe and double-click it with the mouse. 3.15. Closing the application To close the application, select Exit item from the right-click menu or press the button of the application toolbar. Closing the application window does not unload it from random access memory. The presence of the application icon in the system tray indicates that it is present in computer memory too. APPENDIX A. KASPERSKY LAB Founded in 1997, Kaspersky Lab has become a recognized leader in information security technologies. It produces a wide range of data security software and delivers high-performance, comprehensive solutions to protect computers and networks against all types of malicious programs, unsolicited and unwanted email messages, and hacker attacks. Kaspersky Lab is an international company. Headquartered in the Russian Federation, the company has representative offices in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, USA (CA), the Benelux countries, China and Poland. A new company department, the European Anti-Virus Research Centre, has recently been established in France. Kaspersky Lab's partner network incorporates more than 500 companies worldwide. Today, Kaspersky Lab employs more than 250 specialists, each of whom is proficient in anti-virus technologies, with 9 of them holding M.B.A. degrees, 15 holding Ph.Ds, and two experts holding membership in the Computer Anti-Virus Researchers Organization (CARO). Kaspersky Lab offers best-of-breed security solutions, based on its unique experience and knowledge, gained in over 14 years of fighting computer viruses. A thorough analysis of computer virus activities enables the company to deliver comprehensive protection from current and future threats. Resistance to future attacks is the basic policy implemented in all Kaspersky Lab's products. At all times, the company's products remain at least one step ahead of many other vendors in delivering extensive anti-virus coverage for home users and corporate customers alike. Years of hard work have made the company one of the top security software manufacturers. Kaspersky Lab was one of the first businesses of its kind to develop the highest standards for anti-virus defense. The company's flagship product, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, provides full-scale protection for all tiers of a network, including workstations, file servers, mail systems, firewalls and Internetgateways, hand-held computers. Its convenient and easy-to-use management tools ensure advanced automation for rapid virus protection across an enterprise. Many well-known manufacturers use the Kaspersky Anti-Virus kernel, including Nokia ICG (USA), F-Secure (Finland), Aladdin (Israel), Sybari (USA), G Data (Germany), Deerfield (USA), Alt-N (USA), Microworld (India) and BorderWare (Canada). Kaspersky Lab's customers benefit from a wide range of additional services that ensure both stable operation of the company's products, and compliance with specific business requirements. Kaspersky Lab's anti-virus database is updated every 3 hours. The company provides its customers with a 24-hour technical support service, which is available in several languages to accommodate its international clientele. 20 Kaspersky Lab News Agent A.1. Other Kaspersky Lab Products Kaspersky Anti-Virus® Personal ® Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal has been designed to provide anti-virus protection to personal computers running Windows 98/ME or Windows 2000/NT/XP against all known viruses, including potentially dangerous software. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal provides real-time monitoring of all sources of virus intrusion - e-mail, internet, CD, etc. The unique system of heuristic data analysis allows efficient processing of yet unknown viruses. This application can work in the following modes (that can be used separately or jointly): · · Real-time computer protection - anti-virus scanning of all objects run, opened on or saved to the user's computer. On-demand computer scan - scan and disinfection of the entire user's computer or of individual disks, files or folders. You can start such scan manually or configure an automatic scheduled scan. Kaspersky Anti-Virus® Personal does not re-scan objects that had been already scan during a previous scan and have not changed since then not only when performing real-time protection, but also during an on-demand scan. This considerably increases the speed of the program's operation. The application creates a reliable barrier to viruses when they attempt to intrude ® your computer via e-mail. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal performs automatic scan and disinfection of all incoming and outgoing mail sent or received using POP3 and STMP protocol and provides highly efficient detection of viruses in mail databases. The application support over 700 formats of archived and compressed files and provides automatic scan of their content as well as removal of malicious code from ZIP, CAB, RAR and ARJ archives. Configuring the application is made simple and intuitive due to the possibility to select of the preset protection levels: Maximum Protection, Recommended and High Speed. The anti-virus database is updated every three hours and its delivery to your computer is guaranteed even when your computer gets temporarily disconnected from the internet or the connection has been changed. ® Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro This package has been designed to deliver comprehensive anti-virus protection to home computers running Windows 98/ME/2000/NT/XP as well as MS Office 2000 applications. Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro includes an easy-to-use application for automatic retrieval of daily updates for the anti-virus database and the program modules. A second-generation heuristic analyzer efficiently detects