Fake Antivirus Industry Down, But Not Out — Krebs on Security

Posted on August 4, 2011 by wjimenez275

Fake Antivirus Industry Down, But Not Out — Krebs on Security.

Many fake antivirus businesses that paid hackers to foist junk security software on PC users have closed up shop in recent weeks. The wave of closures comes amid heightened scrutiny by the industry from security experts and a host of international law enforcement officials. But it’s probably too soon to break out the bubbly: The inordinate profits that drive fake AV peddlers guarantee the market will soon rebound.

During the past few weeks, some top fake AV promotion programs either disappeared or complained of difficulty in processing credit card transactions for would-be scareware victims: Fake AV brands either ceased operating or alerted affiliates that they may not be paid for current and future installations.

On July 2, BestAV, one of the larger fake AV distribution networks, told affiliates that unforeseen circumstances had conspired to ruin the moneymaking program for everyone.

Filed under: Internet Items, PC Security | 1 Comment »

Google: Your Computer Appears to Be Infected

Posted on July 19, 2011 by wjimenez275

From KrebsOnSecurity

Google last week began warning more than a million Internet users that their computers are infected with a malicious program that hijacks search results and tries to scare users into purchasing fake antivirus software.

Google security engineer Damian Menscher said he discovered the monster network of hacked machines while conducting routine maintenance at a Google data center. Menscher said when Google takes a data center off-line, search traffic directed to that center is temporarily stopped. Unexpectedly, Menscher found that a data center recently taken off-line was still receiving thousands of requests per second.

Menscher dug further and discovered the source of the traffic: more than a million Microsoft Windows machines were infected with a strain of malware designed to hijack results when users search for keywords at Google.com and other major search engines. Ironically, the traffic wasn’t search traffic at all: The malware instructed host PCs to periodically ping a specific Google Internet address to check whether the systems were online.

For the rest of the article, please click here

NOTE: Unlike the scareware and fake anti-virus programs that “popup” on your screen, this is  a banner notice at the top of your search results. Use your own anti-virus programs to scan your computer as well as programs such as SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes

 

 

 

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Windows AntiVirus 2011 or Fake AntiVirus

Posted on June 12, 2011 by wjimenez275

There have been a lot of fake antivirus infections lately. I’m getting several calls  a week from people telling me that while they were searching the internet, windows started popping up all over their screen telling them they have viruses, trojans, etc. I used to spend hours cleaning computers with various antivirus programs, but then found that I could do it much quicker by using the following method.

When this problem comes up, I ask what the user has or hasn’t clicked on. What they say next is what determines my next course of action. The way these programs work is that they “offer” to clean up your computer if you buy their software. If you choose not to buy their software, and try to click out of the windows by clicking cancel or the red x to close the window, you’re faced with more windows because these options have been set up to download the fake antivirus program and install it on your computer.

So, what to do when one of these programs shows up on your computer? Don’t panic and start clicking things. Recognize that even though it may look like a legitimate Windows warning, if you have a virus, your own antivirus program will pop up telling you so. What you need to do is to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the Task Manager and then end the browser process. Once you’ve ended the browser this way, you can safely reopen the browser and continue your surfing.

If, however, you have clicked an option and these windows are just continually taking over your screen, reboot your computer. Just as it starts to come up and you see the opening text on the screen, start pressing the F8 key until you get a menu on the screen. Choose to boot into Safe Mode. The screen will look different from what you’re used to, but that’s okay. Once you are at the desktop, click your start button, bottom left of the screen. Go to Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. When System Restore comes up, choose to restore your computer to a point prior to when you experienced the problem. This could be earlier that day or even a day or two past.

This will not remove any files or data you have worked on or created in that time period, but will restore your Windows system back to a healthy state. Your computer will reboot once and tell you whether it was restored successfully or not. If it was successful, run a virus scan with your antivirus program, but you should be all set at this point.

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Ah, Cookies

Posted on April 29, 2011 by wjimenez275

Tracking cookies

The other day I noticed that I was running out of space on the hard disk of my computer. I went through and removed some programs and moved some data to an external drive to free up some space, but the next day, the space was low again.

I ran my normal cleanup software, CCleaner, SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes and found that I had a huge number of tracking cookies on my computer.

If you don’t know, most every website you visit downloads a small file to your computer, called a cookie. Cookies are set to stay on your computer for a period of time and contain information about the site you’re on. Often times, they will hold your login information to the site so that the next time you visit that site, you’ll automatically be logged in, or your preferences will be recorded and remembered so that you won’t have to reset everything time and again.

Tracking cookies, on the other hand, aren’t good. Websites sometimes allow third parties, such as advertisers and marketers, to also install what’s known tracking cookies on your computer. These cookies send information back to the marketing companies where your preferences are put in a database for future use. They don’t record personal information, such as credit card numbers or passwords but general information about your surfing habits and preferences. What they hope to do is to have the advertisements that you see on a page become advertisements that relate more specifically to you so that you’ll click and buy. The danger comes when that information, which is connected to you, becomes available to others.

So, what to do? You really need the main cookies a site saves because a lot of sites won’t work well unless you accept the cookies. Third party cookies, however, aren’t needed and should be blocked.

There are settings in each of the browsers that allow you to allow the main cookies and block the third party cookies. Here are the instructions to do so for the four main browsers:

Internet Explorer –

  • Open Tools, Internet Options | Privacy, click on the Advanced button.
    • Place a check in “Override automatic cookie handling”.
      Uncheck “Always allow session cookies“
    • Set “First Party Cookies” to Accept, set “Third Party Cookies” to Block.

Firefox –

  • At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options. On the menu bar, click on the Firefox menu and select Preferences…At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Edit menu and select PreferencesAt the top of the Firefox window, click on the Tools menu and select Options…On the menu bar, click on the Firefox menu and select Preferences…At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Edit menu and select Preferences…
  • Select the Privacy panel.
  • Set Firefox will: to Use custom settings for history.
  • Uncheck Accept third-party cookies.

Chrome –

  • Click the wrench icon on the browser toolbar.
    • Select Options (Preferences on Mac and Linux; Settings on Chrome OS).
    • Click the Under the Hood tab.
    • Click Content settings in the “Privacy” section.
    • Click the Cookies tab in the Content Settings dialog that appears:

o   Block only third-party cookies: Select the “Ignore exceptions and block third-party cookies from being set” checkbox. Even if you’ve added a site to the Exceptions list and have chosen to allow its cookies, the site’s third-party cookies won’t be accepted if this checkbox is selected.

Safari –

  • From Safari, select “Safari” in the menu bar, and then select “Preferences”
  • In the Preferences Dialog Box, select the “Security” tab
  • Make sure the “Accept cookies:” setting is set to “Only from sites you navigate to”. You can also set this option to “Never”, but this will prevent many web sites that rely on cookies from working.

Once I removed the tracking cookies from my computer, I actually recovered almost 200 GB of disk space. I then went through each of my browsers and blocked third party cookies from being installed.

Filed under: Instructional, Internet Items, PC Security | 3 Comments »

Here’s One Reason Why You Need to Password Protect Your Wireless Router

Posted on April 24, 2011 by wjimenez275

Or if you’re using your neighbor’s wireless connection, you may want to reconsider.

To sum up, an individual in New York found himself facedown in his living room in the morning with federal agents all around him. They were accusing him of being a pedophile and pornographer. They ended up seizing his computer, his wife’s computer and iPad and iPhone. He claimed innocence and after a week, was cleared. His neighbor, however, wasn’t as lucky. Seems the neighbor was leaching off the non-password protected wireless router and trafficking child pornography.

Always, always, always password protect your router, or if you’re leaching off your neighbor, and they’re involved in something illegal, it could come back on you as well. Now here’s the article –

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of “pedophile!” and “pornographer!” stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn’t need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.

That new wireless router. He’d gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.

“We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night,” the man’s lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, “Doldrum.”

“No, I didn’t,” he insisted. “Somebody else could have but I didn’t do anything like that.”

“You’re a creep … just admit it,” they said.

Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router.

via NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers – Yahoo! News.

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OMG! LOL: Internet Slang Added to Oxford English Dictionary

Posted on March 29, 2011 by wjimenez275

By Daniel Ionescu, PCWorld    Mar 26, 2011 5:59 AM

Time-saving online abbreviations like LOL, OMG, and IMHO are now part of the official English language. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) announced the addition of several acronyms to its dictionary, adding some interesting trivia behind the origins of these Internet-associated expressions.

OED explained that although “initialisms” like OMG (Oh My God), LOL (Laughing Out Loud) and IMHO (In My Humble/Honest Opinion) are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications, their origins are surprisingly predating the Internet era.

For example, OED found a quotation for OMG in a personal letter from 1917, and FYI (For Your Information) originated in the language of memoranda in 1941. Also, apparently the LOL expression had a previous life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (Little Old Lady).

OED notes that some expressions like OMG and LOL are used outside electronic communication contexts as well, including print and spoken use, in the form of more than a simple abbreviation:

“The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.”

If you’re not familiar with the online slang, you can always check out this Internet slang dictionary and translator. Just enter the text slang you want to translate and you’re done. TTYL

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I think my e-mail has been hijacked…

Posted on March 27, 2011 by wjimenez275

Lately it seems more and more e-mail accounts have been hijacked and are being used to send out spam. Most of these e-mail accounts have been web based accounts, like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and AOL.

What happens is that someone gains access to an e-mail account and begins to send spam to everyone in the address book. It doesn’t just appear to come from you, it actually is coming from you.

How do you know it’s happening? Well, first you might have a lot of undeliverable messages coming to your inbox. Then, you’ll have some people in your address book ask you if you meant to send what they just received from you. If this happens, what should you do?

First, don’t assume you have a virus on your computer, especially if you do your e-mail over the internet. However, that being said, it’s not a bad idea to do a malware scan with Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware. Then you should change the password to your e-mail account. This should stop the spam coming from you.

One of the big dangers of passwords is that most people use the same password for all of the websites they log into. If someone stole your password, they’d have access to every site you log into with that password. Always use different passwords for each and every site you sign up for. Fortunately, there are password programs, like Roboform and Keepass which will let you store your passwords on flash drives or locally on your computer and will also generate passwords for you for different sites and remember them so that when you access that site again, it will autofill the login so you don’t need to remember the password.

In general, it’s a great idea to change your password for various sites a couple of times a year anyway. These sites include e-mail accounts, social networking sites and banking sites. It may seem like a hassle, but compared to trying to clean up after someone has stolen your data, it’s a quick way of protecting yourself online.

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Latest News | T-Mobile | Q&A: More Information About AT&T Acquisition of T-Mobile USA

Posted on March 20, 2011 by wjimenez275

An agreement was announced under which AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA. The agreement is the first step in a process that, including regulatory approvals, is expected to be completed in approximately 12 months. Until then, we remain a separate company and continue to operate independently.

We know our customers, business partners and others may have many questions.

Here is some more information:

Will my service change?

  • There is no change in your service and we remain committed to ensuring you have the best experience possible experience using your T-Mobile USA products and services.

Will I now be billed by AT&T?

  • No, your billing remains exactly the same. T-Mobile USA continues to operate as an independent company. As always, you would receive advance notice to any changes to your services.

Why is T-Mobile USA doing this?

  • Bringing together these two world-class businesses will create significant benefits for customers. The merger will ensure the deployment of a robust 4G LTE network to 95% of the U.S. population, something neither company would achieve on its own. Also, because of our compatible networks and spectrum, the customers of T-Mobile USA and AT&T will experience improved voice and data service almost immediately after the networks are integrated.

Will T-Mobile USA’s quality be reduced?

  • No. In fact, the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile USA will offer an even stronger service to customers. Until the acquisition is closed, we will work hard to maintain our position as the value leader with America’s largest 4G network.

If the acquisition closes, will I still be able to use my T-Mobile USA phone?

  • Yes. Your T-Mobile USA device will operate the same in the future as it does today.

Should I wait to sign-up with T-Mobile USA or upgrade my phone?

  • No, T-Mobile USA offers the latest wireless devices that are affordable on America’s Largest 4G Network and the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile USA will mean even stronger service for our customers. Now is a great time to be a T-Mobile customer.

Is T-Mobile USA getting the iPhone?

  • T-Mobile USA remains an independent company. The acquisition is expected to be completed in approximately 12 months. We do not offer the iPhone. We offer cutting edge devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 4G and coming soon our new Sidekick 4G.

Will my rate plan change because of the acquisition?

  • We will honor all contracted plans that are entered into before the change of ownership.

Where can I express my opinion on this?

  • T-Mobile customers can utilize the company’s online Forums.

via Latest News | T-Mobile | Q&A: More Information About AT&T Acquisition of T-Mobile USA.

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Critical Security “Fixes” from Microsoft and Adobe

Posted on February 7, 2011 by wjimenez275

Microsoft plans to release fixes for twelve security bulletins tomorrow, three of which have been deemed “critical”. Those who don’t bother with the update could find themselves vulnerable to several remote execution threats. Security experts are referring to this Patch Tuesday as an important bit of “spring cleaning” on the part of Microsoft, but it’s not alone in providing vital fixes this week. Adobe will also be releasing security updates for its Reader and Acrobat ns on Tuesday.
If your computer doesn’t automatically do system updates, you’ll have to manually download and install the updates. To do that, in Internet Explorer, go to http://update.microsoft.com. You should be prompted to install critical updates.

In addition, Microsoft has issued a formal warning that all versions of the Windows are vulnerable to a new exploit. The vulnerability could allow attackers access to sensitive data (such as passwords) after a user unknowingly clicks on a malicious web link. The flaw is related to the way online content is viewed via the web browser Internet Explorer (IE) but not Firefox or Chrome. Microsoft late last week admitted that the vulnerability exists and that it affects every version of Windows, from Windows XP to Windows 7. For those committed to using Internet Explorer, Microsoft has posted a temporary FixIt solution. Microsoft has assured IE users that the workaround will not dramatically affect the way the browser performs.

Adobe is planning to release updates for Adobe Reader X (10.0) for Windows and Macintosh, Adobe Reader 9.4.1 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintos, Adobe Acrobat X (10.0) for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Acrobat 9.4.1 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh to resolve critical security issues. Adobe expects to make updates for Windows and Macintosh available on Tuesday, February 8, 2011.  You should be prompted by your program to do the update.

 

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Shopping Online Safely

Posted on November 22, 2010 by wjimenez275

With the upcoming holidays, there will be many of you who will be doing your shopping online. It’s convenient, often times cheaper, and you can have items wrapped and delivered directly to the recipient. In fact, it’s estimated that 25% of holiday shopping this year will be online.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind when you’re shopping.

  • Start by making sure that your anti-virus program is up-to-date. If you do web searches and click on the results, you may find yourself at a site that doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Along those lines, make sure the site you are visiting is trustworthy by using WebOfTrust (WOT). Now when you perform a search, the results will have a green, yellow or red symbol letting you know if the website is safe or not.
  • Once you’re done selecting what you want to purchase, you’ll be taken to your shopping cart where you will be entering personal information: name, address, e-mail address, credit card information. It’s critcally important that before you enter any of that information that you are on a secured page. How can you tell? To begin with, check the web address in the address bar. It should start with “https:” instead of the normal “http:”. The s shows that you’re on a secured site. The other thing to look for is the golden lock.
    There is a de facto standard among web browsers to display a “lock” icon somewhere in the window of the browser (NOT in the web page display area!)  For example, Microsoft Internet Explorer displays the lock icon in the lower-right of the browser window.
    The Lock Icon is not just a picture! Click, or double-click, on it to see the details for the site’s security. This is important to know because some bad sites are designed with a bar at the bottom of the web page to imitate the lock icon of your browser.
  • Unless you’re planning on doing a lot of shopping at a particular site, if the site offers to save your information for future shopping, don’t let them. It may be convenient, but the fewer places that have your personal information, the better.
  • When paying for the items in your shopping cart, many people feel good about using their Debit Card as opposed to racking up charges on their credit cards. However, when it comes to fraud, debit cards fall far behind credit cards. That’s because your liability limit under federal law increases the longer you wait to report any unauthorized activity. Be sure to check with your financial institution for their policies on fraud protection.
  • Credit Cards – many credit card companies have $0 liability policies. This means you won’t be held accountable for any fraudulent purchases. You can dispute purchases that were either made without your consent or where the goods don’t match the descriptions. You’ll need to check with your credit card company for the specific steps to dispute a purchase and their policy on fraudulent purchases.
  • Single-Use Credit cards. Many credit card companies and banks will allow you to use single-use or virtual cards. You get a unique account number that can be used once, or for a short period of time. That way, if someone were to steal the account number, when they go to use it, it will no longer be valid.
  • Print out your receipt. You’ll have a record of the purchase to compare with the charge in case the vendor adds additional charges or charges you twice for something.
  • When giving your e-mail address out, check the page and read the privacy policy of the site. Many times there is text stating that they will or will not share your e-mail address with others. If you have the option to opt out of allowing them to share, do so. It will eliminate spam. Additonally, you may want to set up a free or additional e-mail address that you use strictly for online registrations so that any spam gets sent to that address and not to your main e-mail address.

Read the rest of my monthly newsletter for information on ways to comparison shop and links to Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials. AskBillFirst November Newsletter

 

Filed under: Instructional, Internet Items, PC Tips and Tools | 1 Comment »

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