You won’t make money from W32:Sality.ao

By Paul | Feb 23, 2009

People should be cautious of the making money because there is a variant out there trying to leverage the users into thinking they can make money.

McAfee Says “W32/Sality.ao is a parasitic virus that infects Win32 PE executable files. It infects files (*.exe and *.scr files) on the local, network and removable drives by overwriting code in the entry point of the original file and saving the overwritten code in its virus body. It then appends the virus body to the host file.”

Aliases for this Virus is:

  • Virus.Win32.Sality.y (Ikarus)
  • W32/Sality.AE (Norman)
  • W32/Sality.AH (Panda)
  • W32/Sality.AK (F-Prot)
  • Win32.KUKU.a (Rising)
  • Win32/Sality.AA (VET)

These links should help people understand it it.   You can visit my Malware Resources to help remove this virus.  Something to consider before removing this is to disable your restore points.

Remember there’s no easy to make money, the only real way is to work hard.  According to my research the Anti-virus companies have ways to remove this virus and as long as you update your database.

Using Skype with Cellular BroadBand Modems

By Paul | Dec 30, 2008

If your like me you will want to make sure you have the best possible speed and connection with your broad band modem. Here are a few articles to better help with you get the best possible speed with a broad band modem like a Cricket modem:

Some other things to consider are:

These will start to make it better for you to use a modem and get the best possible speeds from the modem.  You have to realize what your coverage area is.  There are many factors in regards to your modem speed but that is something that you will have to figure out how to get better speeds.

How do you use Skype with your Cellular broad band modem?

Somethings to remembers with your broadband modem is you won’t have a good connection no matter how hard you try.   Most cellular carriers don’t want you to us it with VOIP(Voice of Internet Protocol).   So you will have to pay close attention to how you use the bandwidth and what you are doing while making a VOIP call.

Signs of a Computer Infection!

By Paul | Dec 14, 2008

So I was thinking this morning what I missed and I totally missed on how you might be able to tell if you have a computer virus. It does me no good to talk about a virus if you don’t know you’re infected. I was thinking of the times I had a client who had trouble but wasn’t what I thought.

So How do you know?

Some people would say it depends on factors but here are what I call clues that make me suspect a virus:

  1. Slow or Sluggish computers –  Here is what I know if the computer is really slowing down and have a dual core or quad core.  If you are running a system and sees a lot of hard drive activity even when the computer is idle then it might be a virus or it could be a program doing what it is supposed to be doing.  So this is somewhat of an indication but not always.
  2. Slow internet connection on the computer or on the network — Due to the fact that most people have a router that is connected to all the computers and if you internet connection on all your systems are slower than normal then you could have a virus.  I use Speed Test website to help determine this.

Inside understanding of win32.netsky.q

By Paul | Dec 12, 2008

Netsky.Q is a worm that spreads through e-mail. It is distributed as a 28,008 byte Win32 executable, compressed with PEtite, which drops a 23,040 byte DLL file. It also distributes itself inside ZIP archives.

I saw this on on the net and through we should talk about and let people know how you could get that the worm off your computer. It seems to be a self-replicating worm, it will continue to send out fake messages to people with the subject lines Like:

  • Delivery Error
  • Delivery Failure
  • Delivery
  • Mail Delivery failure
  • Mail Delivery System
  • Mail System
  • Delivery
  • Delivered Message
  • Error
  • Status
  • Failure
  • Failed
  • Unknown Exception
  • Delivery Failed
  • Deliver Mail
  • Server Error
  • Delivery Bot

And with each message there is the reciepts email address at the end.  This worm seems to be spreading like wildfire today.   It is because people have not install

Internet Explorer still has a Vulnerability after Tuesday Patch!!

By Paul | Dec 11, 2008

I just read this on several blogs and thought I’d share the details with you, it seems that Microsoft didn’t know there was a problem with this Bug/Vulnerability.   Computer world has a great article and  says this:

“The updates Microsoft released yesterday do not address this possible vulnerability,” a Microsoft spokesman said today in an e-mail reply to questions, “but I can tell you that Microsoft is investigating these new public claims of a possible vulnerability in Internet Explorer.”


[Via ComputerWorld]

I can only hope that Microsoft fixes this Vulnerability soon, I would take a guess that they will try to get this out on the patch cycle if not they will push it out after.   Some things to remember with IE(Internet Explorer) is only use it with Microsoft Updates.   I also Suggest downloading FireFox and checking out my Anti-virus and Anti-Spyrware Page for ways to prevent from getting a virus.

Facebook : Beware Spam for breakfast. (Virus)

By Paul | Dec 7, 2008

In today’s society, we’ve been to complacent with people with people clicking links for the social group. In one such article on Channel Web, a nice little blog, says this:


The worm was discovered by IT security provider Kaspersky Lab, which said the threat, Net-Worm.Win32.Koobface.b, is targeting Facebook users by creating spam messages and sending them to the infected user’s friends via the site.

“Unfortunately, users are very trusting of messages left by ‘friends’ on social networking sites,” said Alexander Gostev, senior virus analyst at Kaspersky Lab, in a statement. “So, the likelihood of a user clicking on a link like this is very high.”


[Via Channel Web]

This seems to be a problem people thinking that a link someone sends them is a real good link but actually is a link to a video site. According to this article the links people are sending are actually a fake video link, telling you have to download some update to flash player, by downloading this program. The user gets involved with the virus and the fun begins. So how can you prevent this from happening, two ways one is a very good group of software to make sure you have the latest and greatest video codecs. That too can be something they’ll say you need and if you’ve already installed this list of codecs then you know they’ll not telling the truth and you can quickly get away from the site laughing.

Are you patched, Secunia Says NO

By Paul | Dec 5, 2008

Secunia BlogThink you’ve got nothing to worry about, according to Secunia 98% of computers are not fully patched and are vulnerable to some kinda of attack.

So I wanted to talk about this a little and give you a few good ways to make sure you are patched.  There are several ways to get your system up to almost 100%.

Some things to do is make sure you have your Windows systems updated.  This is easy to make sure, if you have an internet connection you can just check for updates.  If you don’t know how to do it, it is quite simple, Just go here.    If you have Windows Vista all you have to do is hit Start and type in the search box “Windows Update” and hit Enter and you will be taken to the update page.


If you have a system that is off of the Net you could use the Clone of Autopatcher Program to do it for you.   You also need to update all your secondary programs such as Audacity, Open Office, and other programs that you use weekly.

Vista Sp2 Beta Still not up yet!

By Paul | Dec 4, 2008

In my vista-sp2-dec-42008.html/”>Previous article I talked about how you could be in the Beta, and I just checked this morning. It looks like they took that article down. I don’t know if they are changing it around or what but it will be. I hope they fix this soon. I would like to start testing this on my Virtual Machine first before I install it on my real machine!!  I will update this when they do get it up and running.

Spying on Spyware.ISpynow!!

By Laforge129 | Nov 29, 2008

This is another Virus that is going around and thought I’d tell you about it:

Spyware.ISpyNow monitors files, network traffic, and keystrokes. This Spyware gives the person who installed it a Web-based interface with summaries of logged information on the host computer.

[Via Symantec]

Now this one isn’t to hard to figure out what happened.  You have to manually install it on your system to get infected.  Symantec has a great way on uninstalling this annoyance.  I also suggest checking out my other program list just in case you don’t want to buy Symantec Anti-Virus programs.  Some other things to check out is:

Microsoft issues Vista patches out of Monthly Patch Cycle!

By Laforge129 | Nov 26, 2008

KB957321,KB959108,KB959130


Microsoft issues Out of cycle patch for Vista.   These patches are as Followed:

Kb957321

An update rollup is available for the Microsoft Windows Imaging Component (WIC) in Windows Vista or in Windows Server 2008. This update rollup resolves the problems that are documented in the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

954708 An update to add support for the serialization of complex Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data types in the Windows Imaging Component

945060 There may be inconsistencies in the Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) and Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) values for an image file in Windows Vista and in Windows XP

The Windows Portable Device (WPD) API collects and transfers Software Quality Metrics (SQM) data to Microsoft servers. The SQM data is collected only on an opt-in basis through the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program. An update is available that disables the collection and transfer of SQL data to Microsoft servers.

This update affects Windows Vista-based computers, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)-based computers, and Windows Server 2008-based computers that are in the Microsoft Windows Media Player Customer Experience Improvement Program.

Google SearchWiki dies after two days!!

By Paul | Nov 22, 2008

According to Techcrunch Google Pulls the Google SearchWiki.  Unsure as to way  but here’s what they said:

Users are reporting that the recent changes to Google’s search engine, called SearchWiki, have simply disappeared from the site. It’s certainly gone from my account.

User reactions were mixed but weighted heavily towards “this is lame,” and there was no way to turn off the features other than to conduct Google searches without being logged in. Another way to turn it off was to switch search engines.

[via TechCrunch]

I’ve got my theory on this, and it’s quite a good theory.   I think it was a making search results come up wrong or not at all.   The last two days they’ve had that going my page views have drop BIG time.    According to my Stats I’ve had 236 Unique Visits for Thursday, and 232 Wednesday.   My Friday stats show that I only got 185 Unique Visits, dropping 40 to 50 people.  My stats for today which is incomplete shows that I’ve only gotten 136 unique visits.  Although that is complete you can see where I dropped drastically.   I think Google was getting yelled at by websites due to the stats dropping.   I am guessing people could tell if they wanted to go to a site just by reading the comments.  This will hurt every site, including TechCrunch.   I will say this is only a theory and this might or might not be the case.

Google Creates the ultimate Search Wiki!!

By Paul | Nov 21, 2008

Google has started to do let people rate the searches and help find the better articles. Google is calling it Searchwiki. Here is a screen shot:

You can now help judge and rate search results.   You can also X out the ones that are not right.   I am going to play around with this even more.  It started out on Google Trends and Now people are all wanting to know more about this.   This could help my site even more.   I want to know what others are thinking about this?  Is this Good or can this be good for the spammers?  You decide.

Some other Websites talking about this are:

These are just a few but I wanted to let you see what other websites are talking about this new feature. I do want to hear what you think about all this and what is likely to come later on?

How to disable autorun the easy way!!!

By Paul | Nov 21, 2008

I read a report from Cnet about USB devices spreading Virus and I will quote:

The bad guys are intentionally developing new flavors of malware designed to propagate through USB devices,” said Gunter Ollmann, chief security strategist for IBM’s ISS security division. “They are today’s floppy drives.”

An infected computer can spread a virus to a clean USB thumb drive that is inserted. That USB drive will then be spreading the virus onto other computers if the operating system on those machines has an AutoRun-type feature enabled. The AutoRun function in Windows launches installers and other programs automatically when a flash drive or CD is inserted. The Mac has an equivalent function, according to Ollmann.

[Via Cnet]

In order to disable “autorun“, which in Vista is called Autoplay. In order to disable Autoplay from starting when you insert media into your computer here is how you do it:

You will need to be Logged in as Administrator before this can be done:

Next click start and type “Autoplay” without quotes. It will bring up a screen but all you have to worry about is this:

Vista autorun

Vista has a new Vulnebility!

By Paul | Nov 20, 2008

According to Techworld.comVista has a new Vulnerability that could let a hacker infect a Vista machine with a rootkit.  The talk from them is quite intriguing.   I will quote it to better let you know what the Vulnerability is:

The vulnerability could allow a hacker to install a rootkit, a small piece of malicious software that is very difficult to detect and remove from a computer, Unterleitner said.

Phion notified Microsoft about the problem on 22 October. Microsoft indicated to Phion that it would issue a patch with Vista’s next service pack. Microsoft released a beta version of Vista’s second service pack to testers last month. Vista’s Service Pack 2 is due for release by June 2009.
[via Techworld.com]

The way they could do this is through the Device IO Control which in turn could corrupt the Kernel of Windows Vista.  Now we all know that Microsoft will release a patch quicker than 6 months away.  According to this article, people are already looking for the exploit and want to know more about it.  I would be willing to bet they will have a patch out sooner than later.  Probably January or Febuary, which will be a big deal because no one will expect it.  I would also imagine hackers will start trying to figure out how they could install software as quick as possible before Microsoft pushes out the patch.   So what can you do to protect yourself, Get a firewall, a Antivirus and learn how to protect yourself to prevent yourself from getting a computer virus.

You have an undelivered UPS/FEDEX Package. (Virus)

By Paul | Nov 12, 2008

From what I’ve seen so far. There seems to be a new rash of email going around with the heading that makes it look and feel like either UPS or Fedex. Saying that you have an undelivered package from them and to either print the order confirmation or to click a link. I will say this once, if you get this delete it. Fedex and UPS will never hide the link and tell you have an package waiting in the email. They will leave a note your door. You must ask yourself how Fedex/UPS found out your email address to tell you have a package waiting? They don’t and they won’t, just a fact.

UPS/FedEx Delivery Failure : Snopes

TROJ_DLOADR.GG and TSPY_ZBOT.NM Trojan, which will Monitor and try to steal your data. The other one is a ZBot and will try to steal you data also. If you need help removing this virus, I’d suggest checking out my other virus article Avg detected Trojan Horse Generic 12.htc?. There are a lot of ways to remove this virus but the first step is never click on any links in your emails. I also wrote about Some Important programs to prevent yourself from having viruses and Malware!! This will help prevent and fix the common virus problems you might have.

AVG Detected a False Positive

By Paul | Nov 11, 2008


According to Security and The Net:

An update for the AVG virus scanner released yesterday contained an incorrect virus signature, which led it to think user32.dll contained the Trojan Horses PSW.Banker4.APSA or Generic9TBN. AVG then recommended deleting this file; this causes the affected systems to either stop booting or go into a continuous reboot cycle. So far, the problem only appears to affect Windows XP, but there is no guarantee that other versions of Windows don’t have the same issue.

[Via Security and The Net]


I bring this up because this is a false positive according to AVG. AVG since sent out another update to there Database and you can go and update the database to get rid of this problem. If you need to restore that DLL check out the article Security and The Net, they got some excellent suggestions on fixing the problem.

If you’ve not been affected by this yet, you probably won’t be. It is yet unknown how many people have been affected. I’m blogging about this to tell people about this and to warn people that not all of warnings from AVG are true and that is why you should always ask before you delete or do anything to your system. I always USE google when it comes to these types of questions

Did you Recieve a Check from Shadow Shopper? (Scam)

By Paul | Oct 28, 2008

I just got done checking my sources and here what I know and I will quote:

Will ShadowShopper.com ever send a job to me via regular mail?
Never. We will always contact you via email. If you do receive a letter in the mail claiming to be from ShadowShopper (with a realistic looking logo) and asking you to mystery shop by cashing a large check THROW THAT OFFER AWAY. It is a Nigerian check scam ring pretending to be Shadowshopper. The scam is run out of Canada and the UK, and the check will bounce. Remember, ShadowShopper provides you with hundreds of job opportunities, and for your protection, we do it only via email and our website.

[via Common Questions]

It is a Scam to send you money Via the postal mail and that is why you must not believe what you get in the mail. This is in response to someone telling me they got a check with a different name but for the same reason to cash the check and send money to them.

Bad Behavior has blocked 889 access attempts in the last 7 days.

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