Holding Your Documents for Ransom

Well we’ve talked several times over the recent past of the evolution of the rogue anti-virus malware that has been working like a charm. It basically is malware that says your PC has malware and you need to buy their product to clean them. Well those behind these types of attacks have now started a nasty twist. It isn’t the first time. This has been done in the past.

They take all your documents in the “My Documents” folder (default doc folder for Windows) and encrypts the files. And for a fee, say $50 they will let you have your documents back. Pretty nasty trick I’d say.

Some of the things we’ve talked about in the past to combat these is to keep your applications such as your Windows updates current as well as RealPlayer, WinZip, WinAmp, QuickTime, Adobe Reader and Flash, as well as iTunes. Keeping these up to date will not allow the criminal attacker the ability to run code remotely on your PC. Check back on some of my previous posts that help you keep you PC humming along.

Posting this on Sunday and my KU Jayhawks rolled into the Sweet 16 in this year’s March Madness tourney. Good luck next weekend guys and lets keep it rolling! ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

 

Bad Guys Use March Madness as Bait

Leave it to the dirty rotten scoundrels who take advantage of people with current events. In the USA, March Madness is going on and many of you fill out brackets in the office pools.  Not knowing all the teams that have been selected, you end up researching on the Internet.  Showing up in some of the top Google searches as well as ASK.com are some malicious sites.  These booby trapped sites will attack your PC by running exploits against vulnerable applications like PDF, Excel, flash, etc.

The folks over at Websense have the details posted on their site that you need to check out. Just click here to read that story. Trust no one. Be careful what you click on. It may not be what it appears to be.

 

Adobe Patches Version 9.

Adobe has released a patch for the Adobe Reader/Acrobat for their version 9 of the software.  Coming soon are patches for versions 7 and 8.  If you have version 9, go patch.  Stay safe.

 

Why is MyWindows PC Slow?

I’m often approached by friends and family that they have a PC that is running sluggish.  So I thought I would publish a story that explains some of the reasons why this happens.

1)  Probably the number one reason a Windows PC starts running slower is because some type of malware (malicious software) has been installed.  More than likely you the user does not know this has happened.  This is probably the top reason why Windows PC’s start to run slower.

2)  Another reason Windows PC’s start to run slower is because when you purchased the PC, the amount of memory that was installed was not enough and as you purchase more applications to run, it just starts running slower due to lack of memory.  You may want to visit www.crucial.com and see about purchasing more memory.

3)  Many programs when you install them, have a service that starts up at boot up time.  Many times they are not needed and you may want to review those applications that start up at boot time.  Adobe, RealPlayer, and others can be eliminated from the start up.  You can click this link I wrote on CCleaner.  It has a handy tool that shows you what applications start up and gives you an easy way of deleting them.

4)  As time goes by, you’ve installed and uninstalled many applications and sometimes the Windows Registry can get sort of frapped up.  Once again, my previous reference to CCleaner, it has a tool that cleans up your registry.  Click here for that posting.

5)  Another reason that Windows PC’s perform sluggish is due to a too intrusive of an Anti-Virus application.  OK, I believe that Symantec’s AV product is too labor intensive for home users.  I personally use AVG’s AV.  Not as labor intense.

These are just a few reasons that slow Windows PC’s.  There are others but I consider these as the top ones that you can conentrate on.  Stay safe and have a great rest of the week.

 

Obama Has My E-mail Address!

OK, it really isn’t the real President Obama.  It is the work of social engineers who are trying to entice you into clicking on links that promise you money from the stimulus bill that was recently signed in to law.  Here is my friendly reminder to NEVER click on unsolicited links or attachments.  Don’t be a fool.

Spammers are always trying to figure out ways to get people to click on there tricks.  I actually have 3 identical e-mails from someone purporting to be the president and he has money for me.

Hope your week has started off good and I hear the warm weather is coming!  Stay safe.

 

ID Theft up in 2008

That headline shouldn’t be much of a shocker. The FTC has gathered statistical information on complaints received. Click here for the link to the original story from CNET. You can see each year it increases.

With data breaches like Heartland Payment Systems will add to those numbers in 2009 so protect yourself as much as you possibly can.

Kansas University Jayhawks put it the big hurt on the Missouri Tigers today. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

Stay safe and have a great week this week!

 

Adobe, Microsoft, Facebook

Well this week has been all about the Adobe Reader/Acrobat 0day vulnerability, but Adobe did release updates to Flash this week. Along with the 0day that Adobe has, word comes out that Microsoft has their own 0day vulnerability that is being seen in only targeted attacks. Really the best defense against these types of attacks is YOU. You have to decide if you are going to click on either a link that takes you to a document either through e-mail or a web site. Trust no one is my best advice.

Now turning to Facebook. This past week there have been a couple of apps that folks fall for. Both attacks are types of social engineering that try to get you to enter your login credentials. Folks, if you are already logged on to Facebook or whatever other site you are on and you click something that prompts you to login, DON’T DO IT!! Something is wrong with that scenario.

OK, hope you all are having a fabulous weekend and snow sucks. Stay safe and Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

 

Thursday, the folks at Adobe announced that there was a vulnerability that is currently being exploited in all version 9 and earlier. The security group over at Shadowserver.org has been seeing targeted attacks that exploit this vulnerability that allows an attacker remote code execution. That sucks.

Brian Krebs from SecurityFix blog has a write up that you can read more details. Brian does a fabulous job keeping folks informed of computer security issues. Click here to read his post about the Adobe vulnerability. Adobe has a write up on their site too and you can click here to read that post.

As always you should never click on attachments or links in unsolicited e-mails. Stay safe and have a fabulous weekend.

 

More Scareware, Rogue Security Software

The folks over at Silent Noise indicated there is yet another version of the fake anti-virus that has been plaguing folks for many months now. This version isn’t being recognized by anti-virus very well at all at this point. It is called AntispyKnight. Click here to read about Silent Noise’s write-up on this new.

Great game today by the Kansas University Jayhawks. They beat those nasty KSU Wildcats. Stay safe and have a fabulous rest of the weekend.

 

Spammers Ready to use Stimulus as Bait

OK folks. I’m not going to bring politics into too much of my blog, but this stimulus bill absolutely sucks. Spending money we don’t have. Well beware, spammers are already sending out spam for people to click here to get YOUR STIMULUS CHECK. OMG!!! Don’t do it! But you know some will. If you are a reader of mine, just dump this just like you do the other spam that arrives in your e-mail inbox.

Hope all is well with everyone and all of you remember those you love on Valentine’s Day. Rock Chalk Jayhawk. Hope we kick some Wildcat tail.