Malicious Spammers target Bank of America
Comments OffI’ve saw two different security firms talking about Bank of America and I wanted to share with you:
Picture from F-secure
It is also been known to be floating around in Facebook this spam. So if you get a link going to a site you don’t know about to see a video and it says you need a codec or the Adobe update you should turn right around and leave site. You should always type in the url of Your Bank and not go there through links.
From what they are saying it monitors Network traffic and Steals ICQ, POP3, and IMAP passwords. If you find network traffic going to Hong Kong IP, then it is time to check to make sure all your Virus definitions are up to date and you’ve installed an Anti-virus and Firewall. I would encourage users to report it to Phishtank so that any other unsuspecting user or person going to that site will be warned.
Thinking back to PIFTS.EXE.
Comments OffThinking to this very incident looks to something out of the movie “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events“. I won’t go into much detail but here is what I want answers to about the PIFTS.EXE. You see after I have read a great article talking in detail about this, I have also come to the conclusion something isn’t right.
Although, in Norton’s defense there seems to be a lot of information that they have to sort through. I’ll admit this information people are asking should be really simple to find in the Symantec Databases somewhere. I will not say they are hiding anything major but I do think something is going on that we are not aware of. Here’s some other thoughts to considers? If Norton needed to find out who was using Windows 7, couldn’t they of asked or even made a simple site redirect to find that information, after all anytime you visit a site you have that information sent to the stats. I could in theory find out how many visitors are visiting from Macs and how many are on older systems. That would be very easy to do with Google Analytics.
Fake Scareware Sites Popup after the Pifts.EXE Conspiracy
Comments OffThere Seems to Be a Fake site that are popping up today right after what happened with PIFTS.EXE. I just happen to Google it to see what people are talking about and this appears on the front page.
As you can see this leads to a server in Poland and once you go to it you see:
I will be reporting this to Phishtank. This is scareware which means there is no real VIRUS because and you
Should never believe the screens when you see something like this. According to Wikipedia:
[Via Wikipedia]
Are you Email domains being blocked by Cricket?
Comments OffSo I got this Tweet from Mai_ling on twitter and she said:
So I did some digging around the net and found it is something that is a common practice for ISP’s to block PORT 25. If you want to find out if Cricket is blocking your mail service you can easily follow these instructions to see if port 25 is actively being blocked. So what are some options in fixing this little problem.
You could set up your email client to receive on port 25 but send out on the SMTP server of Gmail. This would be useful for people who want to send mail out but not have to change there email address. People will still see it coming from whatevername@whatever.com. You can tell Thunderbird to send out on the port and yet use your domain as your email address.
Another possible solution that may work for some is to sign up for Google Apps. The downside of this is It cost 50$ a year but that is 4.20$ a month to be added on to your Cricket Modem charge. This looks promising and has a 30 day trial so, if it works then you will know before you have to pay for anything. This should be dealt with by Cricket, they should have a way for there customers to send and receive email without having to jump through hoops to send email and receive email.
Fake Emails about Windows Support spam!
Comments OffAccording to Trend Micro, Some malicious software is being sent to unsuspecting users about Windows SP1 andSP2 having a error that could damage software or even hardware. See Trends blog with the photos of the fake spam.
Microsoft sends e-mail messages to subscribers of our security communications when we release information about a security software update or security incident. Unfortunately, malicious individuals can and have sent fake security communications that appear to be from Microsoft.
[Via Microsoft]
So if you get an email from Microsoft you’ll probably want to delete it. Any Microsoft communications will be sent from the Update center. You should never install software that is from an untrusted website. If you are concerned you should check the web and find out what people are saying about the situation and see if it is a scam or true!! Remember only you can prevent a virus or Malware!
Getting to the A600 Program Files
Comments OffSo you want to see this screen when you plug in the A600 Broadband Card:


Uninstall THE USB DRIVERS for A600
C:\Program Files\Cricket\USB DRIVERS\Uninstall.EXE
Once you do that you will see need to reboot and then try to insert the A600 Modem into the USB slot. It should pop up with t hat screen or you should see the drive become available.
I’ve also took the drive and copied the program files into a sub Directory of the 4 Gig drive installed in the A600 and I decided to help everyone else out by uploading the self-extracting program to rapid share:
Cricket-A600-Program.exe Bit torrent file
This is the file I created on Memory card for when I need it. If you are uncomfortable downloading this because your worried about virus, then follow the directions on how to uninstall the software to get to your Cricket software for the A600. I did this to make it easier later on to re-install the software without having to uninstall software. Let me know if this helps. You should consider downloading Free Anti-virus Software and free Firewalls to protect your system if you haven’t already!!
Reviewing the 3G A600 Cricket Modem
So I got the Modem and wanted to test out the speed being stationary, So I go to my usual site Speedtest.net look at the speed, check below for speed.
As you can see this went fairly well. It does depend on your Cricket Coverage area. So you want to hear all about it.
First thing if you are upgrading from the UM100 Broadband Card, You’ll want to uninstall the Quicklink Software. To do that you can uninstall it by going to:
Computer > C: Drive > Program Files > Cricket > Quicklink > UNWISE.EXE
(This will uninstall the Quicklink software, I’d suggest after you uninstall it you reboot.)

How does the USB Modem work?
Once you do that you can then insert the A600 Modem into your USB. The Nice thing about this is the software for the Modem is on the Modem itself, so you don’t loose the CD for the modem. It currently only supports Windows and MAC OSX operating system but I have seen there is a work around to use the A600 Modem with Linux if your wondering.Once you insert it into the USB you’ll find you have a new Drive. It will say a Cricket CD Drive with 24 megs used. You’ll want to run that program on the Cricket CD and that will install the software.
I hate Snopes Spam
Comments OffAs you know Snopes is used to find out about urban Legend and Rumors:
I received a Virus alert from my RSS feed about Email virus warning. It even adds a Snope URL. The Author just copies and pasted the virus warning into the blog without even going to Snopes.
According to Snopes and I’ll quote:
Although the Postcard virus is real, it isn’t a “BIG VIRUS COMING” (it’s already been around in multiple forms for a long time now), it will not “burn the whole hard disc” of your computer, CNN didn’t classify it as the “worst virus” ever, and it doesn’t arrive in messages bearing a subject line of ‘Invitation.’[Via Snopes]
Now as you can tell the link described in the blog post was “http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp”. If you went there, you’d have seen this as a not really true and some parts of this might be but that part about burning your Hard drive or even consider the Worst virus isn’t true.
Some things you need to consider before forwarding anything is:
- Is it completely True?
- Is it Legitimate? (True blown warning about something like a product recall or something important like that)
Cracking and Warez sites are Host of Trouble!!
It is nothing to laugh at and should be understood that gamers have no freedom right now. That said this new Variant to Virux Trojan is in regards to Win32/Vitro Trojan. It seems tobe infecting .exe and .Scr files just like this.
According to Trend Micro:
The downloaded malware include variants under the FAKEAV, TDSS, and VUNDO families. Infection chains, however, are notable for the presence of VIRUT and VIRUX malware. VIRUX and VIRUT attacks were initially about the volume of infected PCs. The numbers are massive enough to worry Web users and security researchers: around 20,000 PCs are infected per day
Read more: “Crack Sites Distribute VIRUX and FakeAV“
Now it seems to be more and more sites with getting computer infected. It also seems the Malware writers are using these servers for helping infect essentially gamers computers. So for the time being, if you have a favorite game and you want to:
- No-CD Crack (This is good for those who want to play the game without the CD)
- Key Gen Cracks (This is used for pirated version of a game)
- Update Cracks (This is used to prevent CD checking or Also prevent Version Checking)
TINYURL being used by scammers and hackers — How to prevent it!!
Comments OffWith Phishing attempts going on with the TINYURL redirect website, I thought I would show you how you could prevent from going to a site you don’t want. Tinyurl.com has a great little feature, although it is a feature based on your cookies. It however will help prevent you from going to a site that you don’t know anything that about. It’s called the Preview Feature, and is available to any user who wants to use it.

As you can see if you enable it and you go to a click on a tinyurl, you will see this:

PolyMorphic Win32:Vitro Most Viraulent Virus
This seems to be an virus that is getting some people hit hard. I wanted to blog about this because of the nature of Virus and Trojans. I have read reports that this might be from Online Movies, and I have to say this is one reason why you must stay away from certain online movies. I am going to take a guess that this virus requires a special CODEC, and you downloaded it and installed it. It Could also be the update the Adobe Flash player idea to but still results in getting the Virus.
As I said before you take a risk when you go to sites you don’t trust or know anything about. You also should know that if you need a “SPECIAL” codec, you should just go on to another site. These sites that claim they need this special codec means only one thing they want to install something without your Knowledge.
So what is this Virus:
The Virut family of viruses uses polymorphism to hide from all anti-virus protection, it infects executable files. File infection makes it very hard to repair a system that has been infected. W32/Vitro injects code in running processes and hooks the following functions in ntdll.dll which transfers control to the virus every time any of these function calls are made.
ThePirateBay might be blocked in the US
Comments OffI was looking around on Google and thought I just for giggles check out the Piratebay complaints. I tried going to the site and here’s what Popups:
Offline Update 5.0, Clone of Autopatcher to Some!!
Comments OffOffline updater 5.0 has been released a couple months ago and I just realized it now. This is an excellent tool for IT professionals who want to keep all your Systems up-to-date with the last patches from Microsoft. The systems it supports are Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64, And Windows Vista / Server 2008.(32 bit and 64 Bit updates).

Warning Signs of Hard Drive Trouble
Comments Off
For every computer there comes a time when you have a problem with hardware or software. This is for those who want to learn the signs of possible fixes for having hard drive problems. Although if you know you’re hard drive is dieing then you better back it up as quickly as possible. You will of course need to get the back up software to protect your data. If you have special drivers you will need to backup yours drivers. If you have an OEM system then you will need to backup the Hidden Partition.
So what are the warning signs of a hard drive failure:
- Unexpected freezing of Windows — When Windows Locks up and you have to reboot or getting a Blue Screen of Death. You have no choice but to restart because you can’t do anything with windows.
- Losing data files — if you seem to see files being lost or deleted without your direct input. It might be a sign of a computer virus or it could be a damaged hard drive.
Microsoft released KB960714 to fix THE IE Problem
Comments Off
Signs of a Computer Infection!
Comments OffSo 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:
- 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.
- 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.
Cricket Wireless Broadband Card — How to get better speed!
After buying the card last month, I did a quick review about the broadband card. I wanted to talk about the speed problems that I had when I first used the modem. Here is how to possibly getting better speeds when you use your card. First off, you will need to disconnect from the internet and go to your quicklink mobile application:

You will click on “Tools” and then hit ‘Activation’. If you have it fail on your the first time you should reboot your system then try to do the activation after reboot that should fix the activation problem.
As you can see after I did the activation of the modem, my speed went way up from the last review. I thought I should talk about how you could possibly fix this. I called tech support over this to get a better speed.
Internet Explorer still has a Vulnerability after Tuesday Patch!!
Comments OffI 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.
Fix Shutdown Problems in Vista!
Comments Off
In the Patch Tuesday update, Microsoft quietly released the patch to fix Windows Vista machine shut problems. This patch should of came sooner.
Update for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista
Install this update to resolve a set of known application compatibility issues with Windows Server 2008. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
This was not a critical update and it seems to resolve so many issues with compatibility. One thing it seemed to fix on my system has been the shutdown time. It is now quite fast, it would normally take me 2 to 3 mins to shutdown, now it does it in less than a Minute. So if you’ve not installed this update please install it soon. I would like to know if people are seeing the same thing I am. I’ve found a great resource on fixing it if you are still having problem, it talks about how to check your system performance. Although this is been doing it lately with these programs not loaded or even running, they still seem to cause problems so now I get the feeling it has to do with legacy programs. This should fix most of the problem with older programs.
The Important Windows patches Released Today
Comments OffAs many of you know we talked about the Non-critical patches that Microsoft will release today. IF you want to read those please go and check it out. I’ll be talking about the REALLY important ones that Microsoft has kept tight until now. These are the more important ones but I will list the ones that I previous talked about to better help people recognize the non-important ones:

These are just the tip of the iceberg. although this list are not A lot. I’d wanted to let people know about what people coin “Exploit Wednesday“. I really don’t know if this is a Myth or actually does exist but I’d figure we discuss the problems associated with installing the critical updates and try to tell you which ones should be installed As soon as possible. Though people have in the past used a Virtual Machine to see if there is any problem, that should be your first step if you don’t want to have any problems with these updates. I don’t suggest testing it more than a couple days. Here are some good Virtual Machine software to try out yourself:
Facebook : Beware Spam for breakfast. (Virus)
Comments OffIn 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.
trojan.zlob removal tricks!!
Comments OffAliases:
Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Zlob.qyl (Kaspersky)
Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Zlob.qzs (Kaspersky)
Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Zlob.qzn (Kaspersky)
Trojan.Zlob.CPP (BitDefender)
Puper (McAfee)
SystemDefender (Symantec)Trojan:Win32/Zlob.G is a component of Win32/Zlob that downloads rogue security programs, adware, and additional Win32/Zlob components.
[Via Windows Live OneCare]
GTA 4 Causes fatal error mma10, how to fix it!!
Comments Off
Podcasters are in up in arms over Ustream.tv

REVISED:
Cricket USB UM100 Broadband Wireless Modem Review.
The UM100c is No Longer Available, Please check out the Cricket A600 Modem Review Or the UM185 Broadband modem. The UM185 modem might be a replacement to the UM100.
After a full week of playing around with this USB wireless, I wanted to talk about it. So let’s break it down into pieces.
- (USB Broadband A600 Modem card for Free after Instant online rebates and Mail in rebate Free shipping & first month free! Shop today.)
- Installation – The installation of the USB was not to difficult. I did have to do some more steps than this: Install the Software, then hooked up the USB device to the USB port.
- Manual Activated the Broadband – For some reason in my area they had several people have problems with the broadband activation. So I had to activate it manually!!
After that all went well, I was on the internet just a cruising along. I did however wonder why I was getting such a slow response speed. When I went traveling I thought I would share some of my local results with you to better show you my speed. All these test were done at
Vista has a new Vulnebility!
Comments OffAccording 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.
Did the Xbox Experience break netflix on Demand activation?
Comments OffAlthough this is just a few that talks about the experience and Netflix problems there are going to be more tonight when people start to come home from work wanting this service. I would bet over 100$ it will probably go down because to many request to sign up!! I hope they have the IT guys ready for this tonight or it will be a long night!!
You have an undelivered UPS/FEDEX Package. (Virus)
Comments OffFrom 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.
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.
Google Now lets you Video/Voice chat!!
Comments OffAfter checking out some of what Google has been doing. I find out that you can now Video Conference for free. That is to say that you can conference with someone on line and do cloud computing. According to Google:
To Get this Video and Voice chat Click this link
AVG Detected a False Positive
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]
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













