How Fake Antivirus writers try to fool you

I went looking around and saw this:

As you can see they try to make this site look like it is real. It also make the user at first glance become relaxed because of all PC Magazines and site stickers as I call them.   You also get to see a list of  latest virus alerts and threats, all of this is done to make you feel like this is a real Antivirus site.   They also have the box look like Windows Vista and Windows 7 look and feel to it.  Everything you see here makes you more relaxed and almost gets you to buy the software but wait, I want to know more about this company.   No way to call or who they are?  So I download the file call “Installer2.exe” and AVG pops up with:

Not even AVG had the chance to say or do anything about this before Microsoft throws up this warning about it being a “Trojandownloader:win32/fakerean.gen!c”, I have got to admit Microsoft has been doing a little better job of identifying some of the threats.  Sites that all have this type of theme to them are:

Internet Security Companies Warn about Patch Tuesday and Valentines Day.

With Tomorrow being released some very highly rated Remote Code Execution to become Zero day in very short time. Some researchers are speculating about more viruses will be released in conjunction to Valentines day. According to this one post it will be likely to be E-cards being sent to try to lure you into downloading Malware.

Various security vendors, including CA Inc, MX Logic Inc., Trend Micro Inc., and Panda Security, have issued alerts about new Valentine’s Day-themed spam campaigns that try to dupe users into installing the Waledec bot.

Researchers note that many websites which are affiliated to Waledac e-card scam have been recently updated with content based on the Valentine’s Day theme.

Web sites distribute Trojan files which are commonly named love.exe; onlyyou.exe; you.exe; youandme.exe; and meandyou.exe and the list is not exhaustive.
[Via Express Buzz]

People coming from Sites that don’t exist

So I woke up today checking out my sites, and looking outside.   So As I was checking my Stats for my blog.  I cam across a referring site that brought Supposedly Two people to my site.  I looked at the URL for the site:

• http://trojan.fiftystatesclassifiedads.com/index.php

So after seeing the “trojan” Prefix and I am wondering if this was an attempt by Malware to infect my domain.   So I go check this domain out.   I got to it and I get a 404.  I then do a Cache Check with OPENDNS.  I also Then decided to see if it was even Registered domain by the doing a Whois.  So I am opening this up to people who might know.   I did do some research and here’s wha I’ve found out so far.

According to How2hack, they talk about how people want privacy and that it might be someone who does not want to be found.  I tend to agree with them, Privacy for Privacy sake is good but if you want to be private you would you even be checking out websites knowing people will want to find out who really is coming to your site.  The How2Hack site also talks about how this might happen and I see where they are coming from.

Twitter Spam bots are hot to trot: http://gentai.com/revenge1

Ok so I was curious why I all of the sudden got people joining my list. each one I look at just to see who these people are have only one twitter message saying this from two different accounts:

and this one also

and once you click that link it takes you to this website and see what they want you to do:

These people are trying to get you to click on there links and

Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

In this one I will talk about Disaster, it happens to all of us from time to time. A fire, a earthquake, a stolen laptop or any number of ways. So what happens to your data, is it stored on the laptop? Is it important very sensitive data? Could you get fired if you lost that data?

These are all questions you must ask yourself when you have laptop. How do you backup your data or even do you have a backup? Having seen this with my own clients, I must wonder if there are people out there who just don’t care. I had a client the other day who gotten a virus and this was a really mean virus. Deleted some very important files when you tried to clean the virus out. She called me in a panic because she couldn’t load up windows? I asked if she had any backups, she said “what’s a backup” . So I sat there discussing this with the client for over 20 minutes. Finally she started to understand, she said she had the OEM Backup DVD but nothing else. She also said she needed help with getting data off the computer. I told her that I would be able to come the next day and I was lucky the virus didn’t do anything else to her data. We were able to retrieve the data from her system. That is where I start my rant , Why would anyone not have backup of there most important data?

WordPress 2.7 is available.

Having installed the latest update, I must say this new dashboard is quite good.  I love the new dashboard.  So lets take a quick look at what you can do:

Click Image to View it in full screen!!

After I installed it, this is what it was like.   I then decided to change it around to show you what it looks like now.  You have the option of changing the right row and also the windows to where you want.  Like this:

Click Image to view it full screen.

As you can see you can change so much stuff on the dashboard it is like having your own very wordpress operating system on your system.   You can customize what you want where you want.   I like this new look.   I’d thought I show you the Wordpress 2.7 Dashboard and show just how nice this looks.   I want to hear everyone  thoughts on this new dashboard do you like it or hate it?

The Next big Wave of Layoffs is Sony. (9,000 workers)

In a report from Engadget, there seems to be more Layoffs going on.   One such one is Sony.  Here is what Engadget said:

The bad news from the Japanese consumer electronics industry continues. Sony just announced plans to cut about 8,000 global jobs from its beleaguered electronics business while making unspecified reductions to its seasonal and temporary workforce. The move, as Sony explains it, comes “in response to the sudden and rapid changes in the global economic environment.” Ominously, it looks like Sony will also be raising prices in the countries where “Sony makes significant sales” (read: US and Europe) if we’re reading this statement correctly:

[Via Engadget]

In Today’s economy, you need to be prepared.  So I thought I bring back some old Favorites of mine and talk about them.  To see the other layoffs that I’ve talked about CLICK HERE.   If you wanted to know what you can do to be prepared here are some great resources for people who are worried about there jobs:

• 5 ways to improve your chance of getting hired.
• Are you asking to be scammed? (Don’t get scammed while finding a job)
• Google : Job Resources
  

Facebook Virus strikes again

“Look you were filmed all naked!” read the subject header on one iteration of the virus-spreading message, which is being sent automatically from infected accounts to the “friend” list for that account. Clicking the link usually takes users to a page that looks like YouTube, and a pop-up message advises the user to download a Flash plug-in. The download contains the virus, which replicates by contacting everyone on the victim’s Facebook friend list and advancing the hoax.

[Via Boston Media]

This is a good social engineered attack, they seem to have you download a virus into your system.  I Keep talking about how you need to be careful with emails.  I also suggest that you do a complete Virus scan if you think you’ve been hit with this.  There is only one way to prevent yourself from getting this little facebook virus and that is not to click it. Some other things to consider if you found out this was a virus is to contact the person who sent this to them so they to could do a virus scan on their system.

Vista Sp2 Beta Still not up yet!

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.

Apple’s Immunity, Botnet sanctuary.

But is Apple projecting a false sense of security just to save face? Many experts repeatedly warn that all operating systems are susceptible to viruses, and as the Mac becomes more popular OS X will inevitably become a bigger target for malicious attacks.

[via Pcworld]

Having said that I feel the notion that Apple is trying to keep there reputation as a virus free system. I can only hope that they stay that way. Which as much as I know, Apple will most like start to be the main source for botnets, because of the lack of security.

According to reports on this blog, people are worried Apple stance on it being the safest and having so much immunity to viruses. Apple in the past has stated they have mislead people with there firewall. Yet Apple takes down that suggestion of having an Anti-virus(Quietly).

Everything I’ve seen suggest that virus writers and Malware writers will MOST likely start targeting the Mac OS X, they know Apple sense of security is Vulnerable to attack and they will exploit it more and more. So what does that mean for Apple, it just means that soon every hacker who has a botnet will want a piece of the Apple Pie and is right now.

Black Friday becomes Blacker!

There aren’t a lot of details yet, but news sources are saying that in Palm Desert, California, two people died after a shooting inside a Toys R Us. One story suggests that the shooting was the result of an altercation between two teenage girls. Apparently, a boy, listed as a juvenile, was responsible for the shooting and was detained.

[Via Gizmodo]

According to Gizmodo, two people are dead and I’ve looked at KMIR News 6 and There is no more information.  I do not like this years black friday it seems like Recession is hitting people harder than people thought!!  Not much else is known but this is going to be the worst Black Friday for a while.   I don’t think there has been any thing like this before.

Some good CyberMonday Sites to look at for 2008!

I was just getting done with that story about the Walmart Stampede, and thought I would encourage people to check these good sites for people to check out for great deals.   I have been looking through sites combing for some great sites to find the best deals and here they are:

• Dealio — Dealio will not only show you sneak peaks at Cyber Monday ads, but we will also send you directly to the store so that you can purchase the often limited inventory Cyber Monday deals before they disappear. Best of all, there is no need to hop from site to site – Dealio has all your Cyber Monday shopping covered.
• CyberMonday – Shop hot holiday deals from more than 500 merchants. All of Shop.org’s proceeds from CyberMonday.com support the Ray Greenly Scholarship Fund.
• Cybermonday Mahalo Deals — This Mahalo page collects links to websites offering information and discounted merchandise for Cyber Monday.
• Best Cyber Monday Sales –Well, I finally put together a list of the top retailers throughout the country with links directly to their Cyber Monday deals.

Podcasters are in up in arms over Ustream.tv

REVISED:

Podcasters and LifeCasters alike are not so happy with Ustream.tv right now. They have started to introduce there own ads overlay to where the lifecaster or podcast involved doesn’t get any revenue. One such Podcast right now is Mike Smith, Host of the Miketechshow Podcast, and Also Todd Cochrane, Host of Geeknewscentral.  In a Recent post from Todd, he stated he is going to leave Ustream.tv.

Mike Smith in his last Podcast talked about this subject and why he is really unhappy with Ustream.tv.  He says that the ads could possible violate his TOS with Techpodcast Network.  He also would like to share the revenue because he was one of the founding podcasters that started to use Ustream.tv.   He’s worried that there will be adult theme ads showing on his video stream and that He wants this to be family friendly.  He’s said before the show if he has to he’ll go to other networks.   Some of the networks that might help him out:

• Mogulus
• Stickam
• Ustream.tv
• Blogtv

Vista has a new Vulnebility!

According to Techworld.com,  Vista 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.

Looks like a scam to me : Personal Shopping Assistant!

Good afternoon!

We found your resume at _________________ and we would like to propose you a
position of Personal Shopping Assistant.

Imagine having an exciting job with incredible salary (up to $100,000/year) that
lets you use your creativity while being paid to shop. Welcome to the world of
personal shopping!

As we know shopping is the world’s favorite leisure activity, but in our busy
society an increasing number of people need to hire someone to do their
shopping. Thus personal shoppers are more in demand than ever before.

There are absolutely NO START-UP FEES and NO FEES for being employed at this
position. As long as you live in the USA, and you have a credit card or any
other line of credit, have 1 or 2 free hours during the day – you are eligible
for this job!

This is what you will have to do in short:
• Purchase the requested goods using your credit card.
• Send us receipts.
• Wait for us to issue a credit to your credit card in the amount of purchase
plus shipping fee plus your commission which comprises 10%.
• Ship out the goods.
• You are finished, come back for a new list of goods.

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

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.

A good free VPN Client — OpenVPN & more

I’ve been doing some research on what might be good to use in case, I was away from my home network.  I was thinking how safe am I at Starbucks or other places that I might doing my web.  So I did a little looking around to see which one I liked and I came to the conclusions that only one I need right now is:

The nice thing about this was the simple installation of the software and how easy it was to set it up. This service is in beta but seems to be really well done with regards to the end users. When you install this software and want to connect it uses the OpenVPN software with there configurations. OpenVPN, is a open sourced SSL VPN solution and is free to use. The way this this free is of Ad Supported banners. Now it is cheaper than paying monthly for a VPN service. The ones I’ve found so far are these few:

• OpenVPN (FREE)(*advertisement)(Linux, and Windows)
• Always VPN (Prepay) (5 GB to 80 GB limit) (Linux, Mac and Windows)*Out of Beta
  
• Hotspot Shield (FREE) (*advertisement) (Windows) (3 gig Cap)
  

Antivirus Professional 2008 uses Scare tactics

We came across a rogue today called Antivirus Professional 2008 that uses GeoIP Lookup as part of its scare tactics. This site uses Flash and script to create the effect of an online scan, that then attempts to push an installer at the visitor. The NoScript extension for Mozilla Firefox is an excellent way to mitigate against this kind of garbage.

[Via F-secure]

It seems that there is a site out there, that seems to be trying to scare you into downloading there software. If you have any questions about this site please feel free to check out what I’ve found out:

Registration Service Provided By: ESTDOMAINS INC
Contact: 1.3027224217
Website: http://www.estdomains.com
Domain Name: ANTIVIRUS-ONLINE-SCANNER.COM
Registrant:
N/A
Serento faloimitator@list.ru

Minskay str. 27-14
Kiev
Kiev 237293
UA
Tel. 044.2901732
Creation Date: 07-Jun-2008
Expiration Date: 07-Jun-2009
Domain servers in listed order:
ns2.antivirus-online-scanner.com
ns1.antivirus-online-scanner.com
Administrative Contact:
N/A
Serento faloimitator@list.ru

Minskay str. 27-14
Kiev
Kiev 237293
UA
Tel. 044.2901732
Technical Contact:
N/A
Serento faloimitator@list.ru

Minskay str. 27-14
Kiev
Kiev 237293
UA
Tel. 044.2901732
Billing Contact:
N/A
Serento faloimitator@list.ru

Minskay str. 27-14
Kiev
Kiev 237293
UA
Tel. 044.2901732

Is Vista just Windows 7?

According to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols from Computer World, He talks about how Microsoft is scared on Linux and that people are flocking to remove Vista off there Machines. I say otherwise, you see according to some experts like Mark Hall from Computer World, he states Vista is better than Mac OS X. So why do people say one thing and do another?

Now I know Vista isn’t what people expected and that it had high expectations when they first released it.  I think that is due to the fact Microsoft tried so hard to make Vista seem more than it actually was.  Now According to Ina Fried from CNET her post was about Windows 7: A better Vista?. In her post she talked about the features of Windows 7, and how Windows 7 is almost like Vista. I tend to agree because of the look from screenshots I’ve seen to make me think it will be Version 2 of Vista. I don’t think it is anything that will change from Vista to Windows 7. It will however be more ready to boot up and shutdown that is according to what Microsoft said to Ina.

Micrsoft TerraServer, What are they doing today?

Just found this great way to get an aerial view of Los Angeles, Although the photos are old photos they still give you a sense of the area.   For example this one:

Corpus Christi, Texas, United States 1/15/1995

As you can see you can get a good look around the US.   If you want to check out your local area or maybe you know you Latitude and Longitude of where you live.  You can also enter that too and see it in the past.  It at least brings back memories for me.  For example, the Twin Towers, they still have that photo. You could also look at the White House before 9/11 also. Go check out the Micrsoft Terraserver and go have some fun looking at old pictures.

Toshiba Rolls out the Mobile Gaming Laptop!

o Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate (SP1, 64-bit7 version) (default)
o Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit version)
* Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor1 QX9300* 4096MB PC38500 DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM3
* 128GB Serial ATA SSD3
* 320GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA HDD3
* DVD SuperMulti (+/- double layer) with Labelflash drive
* NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS graphics with NVIDIA SLI technology 512MBx2, GDDR3 discrete graphics memory
* Atheros 802.11 b/g/n wireless-LAN

This looking so sweet, to get the full picture check out the Toshiba Gaming website : Qosmio: X305 Let me know if anyone wants to buy me one!! I wouldn’t mind one these myself!!

Some G1 Reviews and how they compare!!

I’m searched the internet for the most relevent videos and wanted to tell people about them so here they are:

Video: Daily Debrief: G1 soon to hit stores

I found some other sources and wanted to talk about them!!

The Daily Wireless also has a review on it on there site. I also found The Boy Genius talks about there review also. They all seem to look favorable to the G1. Engadget also talk about it looking at the expectations of the G1. So far everyone seems to love the G1. All in All, I think the Iphone is in for a rude awakening. There Seems to be a Good Video on what the G1 Can do so I wanted to also add this to my list of Information.  This is Coming from Wall Street Journal:

This all seems to be very interesting and I can’t wait to get one in my hands

Silverlight 2.0.31005.0 Is release today.

I woke up this morning and found there was an update.  I thought to myself this isn’t the second Tuesday, that was last week.  So I click on my update tab to see what it was all about? Wouldn’t you know it, an update to Silverlight 2.

I will be looking into the new Microsoft Silverlight.   I have heard on the wind, that this might be due to the PDC coming Oct 27-30.   This has something to do with Windows 7, I’m almost sure of it.   I am sure as you can see this is most interesting. I’m also sure this has to do with some security fix but why push it out now when there is no need too.  This update effects Windows Xp/Vista/and 2000  so we will see what they have in mind the coming weeks.

What’s with Google trends?

Having been going to the Google Trends and keeping watching.  I am starting to wonder something?  Take a look at this and you tell me?

Can you see how someone might use this to create a Goog-411 and use it to promote there website? It is all about the hits and getting what publishers like to say the eyes on a website. Now is that going to confuse people or make people not want to come to a site.  So how would people abuse this?

Very Simple, they’d watch what is trending and post accordingly.  Now you as a reader would click on the website expecting to see what you want to see but instead it would popup with advertisements and maybe malware?  Check these links to better understand it:

• Skype isn’t always safe!
• Some Important programs to prevent yourself from having viruses and Malware!!

Now even though these are just a few.  You can see how someone might want to abuse it and get there site up on Google trends and be able to infect several to even millions of computers before Google sees that or stops.  You could in theory take over a website high in Google rankings and do exactly that.