And today it’s Apple Mac — again
I really, really have to stop looking at tech news…
* What’s behind backdoor #3? Mac version of Mokes malware follows Linux, Windows variants
“The malware is programmed to swipe data and images from a victim’s machine, including screenshots taken every 30 seconds, audio and video captures, documents and keystrokes..” Read more..
This crap is costing us trillions.. each and every year.
(That we know about.. and that’s the tip of the iceberg.)
Please don’t think you’re safe because you have an antivirus. No security program is bulletproof. You simply must constantly exercise “paranoid common sense”, and turn off all curiosity. The bad guys want you to click their links, so don’t click (when on the Internet) unless you’re certain it’s safe, and you need to go there. Don’t ‘download’ and install a program unless you’re certain you need it. I’ll go further: if you don’t know what the word “malware” is, 3/4ths through 2016, get off the Internet altogether.
- The telephone has gotten almost as bad. No you didn’t win a free cruise. No, the IRS is not about to “file criminal action”. No, they are not “conducting a quick survey”.. etc., etc..
* * *
Today’s quote: “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” ~ Jack Layton
Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
More happy news for your Friday
(I hope you didn’t eat at a Wendy’s recently..)
Absolutely none of this should surprise you.
First up:
* Hackers Can Steal Your ATM PIN from Your Smartwatch Or Fitness Tracker
“As your day-to-day apparel and accessories are turning into networked mobile electronic devices that attach to your body like smartwatch or fitness band, the threat to our personal data these devices collect has risen exponentially.” Read more..
(There are Privacy concerns with those dang things too, BTW.)
And..
* Flaw Allows Attackers to Remotely Tamper with BMW’s In-Car Infotainment System
“The Internet of things or connected devices are the next big concerns, as more Internet connectivity means more access points which mean more opportunities for hackers. When it comes to the threat to Internet of Things, Car Hacking is a hot topic. Since many automobiles companies are offering..” Read more..
* This Android Hacking Group is making $500,000 per day
“The bad news for affected Android users is that Hummer is extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of, because the Trojan takes control of the phone at admin level, making it impossible for traditional antivirus tools to uninstall Hummer.
The dangerous part: It is impossible to delete the Trojan through a factory reset due to the fact Hummer comes equipped with up to 18 different separate rooting exploits that allow it to root itself on a phone..” Read more..
( Infecting a million phones each day…!!! )
And last but not least..
* Over 1000 Wendy’s Restaurants Hit by Credit Card Hackers
“The Popular fast-food restaurant chain Wendy’s on Thursday admitted that a massive cyber attack had hit more than 1,000 of its restaurants across the country. The burger chain did not speculate how many people may have been affected, though it did confirm that the hackers were able to steal its …” Read more..
So.. let’s see if I can come up with a good quote after all that news..
Today’s quote: “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” ~ Ernest Holmes
(And I’m thinkin’ it’s time to Just Say No to our current tech… All of us.)
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
A Special Day Indeed – SDAV 2011 License Giveaway
Folks, I Am Sincerely Pleased to Announce My Latest Holiday Software License Giveaway Drawing.
The folks at PCTools have generously donated 10 licenses for Spyware Doctor With Antivirus 2011 to me, to award to my readers. I sincerely thank them for that. So I am going to do a random drawing ¹ contest from those who “enter”. The contest will close at midnight (Pacific) Thursday, June 2nd, and the winners announced Friday.
I am going to start this out by telling you that I have a very high regard for the effectiveness of this anti-malware and Internet Security tool, (so high, I installed it on my mother’s machine) and have been using it for years now – since before they acquired the award-winning Threatfire heuristics engine. Not only is “SD” very good at detecting and removing viruses, trojans, keyloggers, etc., but it is also very good at blocking that *stuff* from getting onto your machine as well.
(And I have said many times: an ounce of malware prevention is worth a couple pounds of cure.)
From the publisher:
Editor’s Choice Antivirus and Antispyware in One
Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus combines two powerful engines to detect and remove unknown threats faster.
Antivirus guards against malicious PC threats.
- Antispyware prevents information and identity theft.
It defends your computer against malware attacks with multiple layers of protection using proactive, reactive and automatic anti spyware antivirus software protection to stop threats at every entry point. Now includes memory scanning, behavior profiling, and report cards to provide up-to-date protection and status monitoring for your PC.
Please notice in this slideshow, the various “layers’ (ten of ’em) of protection SDAV’s technology provides. (I hope you never have to use any of those last three.. )
SDAV 2011’s main features and improvements are:
IMPROVED! Detection, blocking and removal of threats awarded top ratings by independent testing labs and recommended by reviewers worldwide.
- Built on award-winning Spyware Doctor™ antispyware technology.
- Advanced rootkit detection technology identifies and removes hidden threats from your PC.
- NEW! Memory Scanner helps eradicate threats lurking on your PC.
- NEW! Download Guard checks your downloads against a cloud-based network.
NEW! Multi-layered browsing protection against web-based attacks including phishing attempts, rogueware scare tactics and silent drive-by downloads.
- Uses a combination of reactive blacklists and proactive content analysis.
- Site Guard blocks you from visiting potentially unsafe or phishing websites and from downloading threats through your browser, IM or email.
- Cookie Guard automatically removes potentially malicious tracking and advertising cookies.
- Browser Guard stops automatic downloads, fake AV and malicious files from compromised or exploit websites.
Constant real-time IntelliGuard™ protection monitors for malicious activity involving spyware, viruses, tracking cookies, suspicious ActiveX® objects, browser hijackers, keyloggers, Trojans and more.
Quick links • Overview • Features • Accolades • Details
Spyware Doctor, in the years I have been using it, has never failed to earn my regard and respect. My (very few) critiques nitpicks have been minor. I consider it a most important tool in my fight against cybercrime. It is Top Drawer – period. (That’s my “review”.)
These 1 year (subscription) licenses retail for $39.99, and can be used on up to three of your PC’s.
How to enter? Residents of the US and Canada only 
may enter the contest drawing by simply clicking on “comment” (below), and entering a name and a valid e-mail (so PC Tools can send you a license key) in the form. Actually commenting is optional. And, I shouldn’t have to say this, but multiple entries will result in disqualification. (In this contest. Entry in prior contests doesn’t count against you.)
Again, the license can be used on up to three PC’s.
Note: SDAV is an antivirus; and you only want one AV on your machine at a time. It is also not a good idea to have more than one heuristic (behavior detection) tool onboard (active) so you may need to disable or uninstall some products before installing Spyware Doctor With Antivirus.
¹ All entrants will be placed into Random.org’s “list randomizer”, and the top 10 results will be the winners. A 30-day, limited-function trial of Spyware Doctor with AV can be downloaded here, Free 30-day trial. Try it out yourself. (And then leave a comment. You may just win one of these valuable prizes!)
Again, my thanks to the folks at PCTools for making this Giveaway possible!
UPDATE: This contest has concluded. The winners can be seen here, Spyware Doctor Winners. My thanks to all who partcipated.
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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If You Have An Android Phone, Read This
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has posted an article that all smart phone owners should be aware of, and Android owners should read very carefully. It contains a list of apps that have been poisoned to “root” your phone and steal all your info.. and maybe do more than that. Worse (scarier), these apps are on the app Marketplace. And, I may have downloaded one.
Stolen apps that root Android, steal data and open backdoors available for download from Google Market
“To many of its fans, the openness and freedoms offered by the Android mobile operating systems is one of its main selling points. But that openness come with a price – it makes it easy for nefarious types to sneak malware into apps. And that’s exactly what they are doing.”
I am going to provide his list of infected apps, but just because you don’t see one you recognize as having installed doesn’t mean you should skip reading his article (click here to read it). It contains info we all should know.
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Toward the bottom of his article is a link to another of his articles, which describes what you need to know to keep your phone safer.
Again, this is important enough that I am asking you to read the article (click here to read it) and forward it to all your friends and family who own smart phones. Android, and Google’s app Marketplace are not the only targets of the cybercriminals. Apple’s store is no better off, and they do not vet their apps for malware.
Makes me glad I haven’t used my phone to check my balance…
Related: Study: Cybercrime cost firms $1 trillion globally (that would be in 2010..)
Data theft and breaches from cybercrime may have cost businesses as much as $1 trillion globally in lost intellectual property and expenditures for repairing the damage last year, according to a new study from McAfee.
Make no mistake: the Evil Doers are going after all Internet-connected devices.
It’s a brave new world.
How nice. Someone is trying to send me a free computer. I like free computers.
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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Next Great App for Android, iPhone –> Rootkit
Rootkit, SMS text messages used to build a botnet of smartphones
The “hot” tech items to own these days are the (not inexpensive) iPhone and Android “smart phone” devices. (If you doubt that, ask yourself why does the news infotainment departments send reporters and camera crews to film lines of people standing outside the Apple Store when a new model comes out?)
These phones are really not phones anymore, but mini-computers – which happen to make cellular phones calls. They are Internet-connected, so they can send/receive e-mail, text and ‘chat’, and download files.. such as movies. They contain address books of your friends and family… In short, they have everything a cyber-criminal wants to target.
In the interest of making the world a better place, “a researcher at ShmooCon DC this weekend will demonstrate a smartphone botnet spewing spam, and unleash proof-of-concept code that builds a botnet out of Android and iPhone smartphones.”
Yes, that’s right. A “researcher” will show us all how it’s done, and provide the code.
Georgia Weidman, an independent researcher, says her botnet attack evolved out of work she did on making an Android application send SMS text messages transparently such that the user didn’t even know it was happening from his or her smartphone. “As I did more research, I [realized] if I did this in the base operating system instead of in ‘userspace’ where most apps are, it would be a better way to do it,” she says. “If I can remotely control someone’s phone, it can be part of a botnet.”
While there has been plenty of smartphone research that pits one smartphone against another in an attack, she says, a more likely attack scenario would be a user unknowingly downloading an app that contains malicious code. “I think the majority of malware installations will come from a user downloading infected apps,” which can easily be rigged with rootkits given the lack of sufficient vetting of most smartphone apps, she says.
Well.. now that all someone has to do is copy>paste the code, yeah, she’s right. Invisible viruses that turn your smart phone into relay stations for spammers — sending us come on’s for V1@gra and C1al1s, and virus-laden links and attachments are only, I estimate, weeks away.
… and before you get too angry at this particular person, there is a whole industry of people doing this “research”, and several conventions have been going on for years. I believe that (some of) these people actually believe they are doing a good thing.
And maybe they would be.. if they only released the code to the affected device (or software) manufacturers and developers. But you don’t get rich or famous for that. (Maybe you heard about the “teen hacker” who got hired after writing viruses that attacked Twitter? There’s a lot of that kind of idiocy in tech..)
Here is the entire Dark Reading article, Researcher To Release Smartphone Botnet Proof-Of-Concept Code. I suggest you read it. Particularly if you own a smart phone.
In case you don’t know what a “botnet” is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet…
Or why a “rootkit” is the worst kind of virus, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit
Does your smart phone have an antivirus? A firewall? Maybe you want those things?
Maybe it’s important to know that the apps at the app store are not checked (aka “vetted”) for malware? Doesn’t that *smell*?
IMHO, there is something wrong with this whole deal. Top to bottom.
Related:
* iPhone Users Are About to Be Screwed Over. The addition of the NFC chip to the iPhone isn’t for easy credit card purchases, but so the phone companies can control your financial transactions. Be warned. ~ By John C. Dvorak
“There has been a lot of talk about the addition of an NFC (near field communication) chip to the next-gen iPhone. This will allow the phone to be used as a swipe-it-yourself credit card. I consider this technology to be the most onerous ever.”
* CNet’s roundup of security apps for Android.
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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How To Cure A Malware Infection
3 Easy Methods
What do you do when your PC is displaying all the signs of having been infected and/or hacked but your antivirus and anti-spyware scan reports come back clean.. or fail to remove the infection?
This was the case for a fella who called me for advice recently. He had done things ‘right’ — and by that I mean he has a firewall, he keeps his antivirus definitions up to date, 
and he runs a couple of anti-spyware applications — but suspected his machine had been hacked anyway.
He couldn’t do things he was used to doing (like deleting a file) and his machine was “really slow.” But according to his scanners, his machine is in perfect shape!
He was right, btw, he was infected.
Tip of the day: If you should find yourself in a similar situation there are several steps you can take to help resolve your questions and (hopefully) fix your machine without taking the drastic step of wiping your hard drive, formatting, and reinstalling Windows.
The first step is to use a scanner that isn’t installed on your machine. Here’s two ways to do that: one, if your antivirus allows it (and most of them do these days), follow its instructions and make an antivirus recovery disk. This is a bootable disk that scans your system before Windows loads.
[note: for a quick method to create an AV disc, keep reading..]
To use one, put it in your CD tray and restart your machine. A plain-text sentence will appear* telling you to “press any key to boot from CD…” When you see it, hit your spacebar or, well, any other key, and then follow the instructions. When it’s finished, remove the CD and restart your machine again. (* If you don’t get a “press any key” prompt, you need to set the boot order in your BIOS. For instructions, click here.)
[note: you may also use a properly prepared USB thumb drive. Click here to read my article on how to do that.]
A second method is to use an online scanner. I have a list, with links, of several good online scans on my website, here. (My reco is Housecall) Quite a few of the online scanning tools will try to sell you their full application, but you’re under no obligation to buy. The big advantage to these two methods lies in the fact that they have not been compromised, or altered, and the files and scanners on your machine may be– the modification being done by the virus or hacker specifically to thwart your removal attempts.
[note: most modern malware blocks access to these sites. If that happens, do the repair found here, Can’t Download? Reset IE, and then try.]
Another thing to do is scroll down to my “Today’s free download” and download HiJack This!. Run it and dump the result into a .txt file (there’s instructions for this) and then register on one of the HiJack This! forums (there’s instructions for this too) and post your results there. Before too long, an expert anti-malwareologist [don’t bother looking: I just now made that word up] will have looked over the intricacies, and will post their analysis and instructions. These folks are really, really good at what they do, and you can trust their answers. These volunteers get a big tip of my hat.
Hopefully these efforts will be rewarded with a rejuvenation of your machine, and you will be back in business again. If not, you have my sympathy. You may have a rootkit and then your best solution is to re-format your hard drive and reinstall everything, or enlist the aid of a professional. There’s no shame in that last — the modern versions of viruses and worms are devilishly difficult to remove.
Today’s free downloads:
HijackThis™ is a free utility which quickly scans your Windows computer to find settings that may have been changed by spyware, malware or other unwanted programs. HijackThis does not clean infections, but creates a report, or log file, with the results of the scan. A large community of users participates in online forums, where experts help interpret the scan results to clean up infected computers.
Avira AntiVir Rescue System This is a small download that, when launched, will create a self-contained anti-virus disc with the latest definitions. All you have to do is insert a blank CD. (You may have to go to an un-infected machine to do this..) It will boot even if your machine won’t load Windows. Avira gets a big tip of my hat for offering this free tool, too!
Today’s recommended reading: How to Protect Your Child on the Internet
Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix
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Getting Rid Of Malware, Step 1*
What do you do when your PC is displaying all the signs of having been infected, but your antivirus and anti-spyware scan reports come back clean?
This was the case for a fella who called me for advice recently. He had done things ‘right’ — and by that I mean he has a firewall, he keeps his antivirus definitions up to date, and he runs a couple of anti-spyware applications — but suspected his machine had been hacked anyway.
He couldn’t do things he was used to doing (like deleting a file) and his machine was “really slow.”
But according to his scanners, his machine is in perfect shape.
Tip of the day: If you should find yourself in a similar situation there are several steps you can take to help resolve your questions and (hopefully) fix your machine without taking the drastic step of wiping your hard drive, formatting, and reinstalling Windows.
The first step is to use a scanner that isn’t installed on your machine. Here’s two ways to do that: one, if your antivirus allows it (and most of them do these days), follow its instructions and make an antivirus recovery disk. This is a bootable disk that scans your system before Windows loads.
To use one, put it in your CD tray and restart your machine. A plain-text sentence will appear telling you to “press any key to boot from CD…” (if you don’t see this, click here.) When you see it, hit your spacebar or, well, any other key, and then follow the instructions. When it’s finished, remove the CD and restart your machine again.
[note: you may also use a properly prepared USB thumb drive. Click here to read my article on how to do that.]
A second method is to use an online scanner. I have a list, with links, of several good online scans on my Website, here. Quite a few of the online scanning tools will try to sell you their full application, but you’re under no obligation to buy. The big advantage to these two methods lies in the fact that they have not been compromised, or altered, and the files and scanners on your machine may be– the modification being done by the virus or hacker.
Another thing to do is scroll down to my “Today’s free link” and download HiJack This! Run it and dump the result into a .txt file (there’s instructions for this) and then register on one of the HiJack This! forums (there’s instructions for this too) and post your results there. Before too long, an expert anti-malwareologist [don’t bother looking: I just now made that word up] will have looked over the intricacies, and will post his analysis and instructions. These guys (and gals) are really, really good at what they do, and you can trust their answers.
Also run CheckDisk with the “r” “f” switches (this probably will require a reboot) to make sure the problem is not your hard drive.
Click on Start >Programs >Accessories >Command prompt. In the white-on-black window type “chkdsk /r /f” (no quotes, and be sure to include the spaces). You may be told that certain files are in use, and asked if you want to “schedule this at the next reboot Y/N?” Type in a “y” and restart your machine.
Hopefully these efforts will be rewarded with a rejuvenation of your machine, and you will be back in business again. If not, you have my sympathy. You may have a rootkit and then your best solution is to re-format your hard drive and reinstall everything, or enlist the aid of a professional
Today’s free link: HijackThis™ is a free utility which quickly scans your Windows computer to find settings that may have been changed by spyware, malware or other unwanted programs. HijackThis does not clean infections, but creates a report, or log file, with the results of the scan. A large community of users participates in online forums, where experts help interpret the scan results to clean up infected computers.
Copyright © 2007-8 Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
post to jaanix
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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