Computer games are not risk free. The AVAST Virus Lab has identified over 60 individual sites during the last 30 days that contained game or arcade in their URL address.
- Avast Security Software

Avast reports that they are seeing more and more reports of software infiltration and malware, coming from websites aimed at children. Specifically gaming sites such as cutearcade.com (who apparently refused to comment)

In the industry this has been noticed time and time again…

I really can’t say it often enough – Your children can kill your computers!

In my usual daily work I constantly battle with this stuff. Probably, on average, I get at least once a week I get a call from someone who starts with the immortal words “I let Johnny/Jenny play on the computer, now I cannot (delete as appropriate) get on the Internet/access my emails/access my files/do anything without adverts popping up/close this application; the list goes on…

The most often this happens is just after Christmas; less so after other major holiday periods too.

Sigh…

Have a read here: Hackers spread malware via children’s gaming websites
And here’s the Avast press release: Online game sites can be cute, pink, and infected

It’s a simple thing to correct though…

Don’t let your kids anywhere
near your business computers!

I hope that was obvious enough…

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For so long Apple owners have grinned in a smug manner at PC users, over the amount of security issues PC owners have to deal with, even though it is a fallacy that Macs are immune to malware; a fallacy that is being exploited more and more as time goes on.

In a blog post by security form Sophos on Monday, it was revealed that a new ‘sophisticated’ malware threat was targeted at Macs and downloaded via a legitimate image manipulation app. from a dodgy source.

This malware, known as ‘DevilRobber or OSXMiner-D’ was designed to steal and ‘mine’ the digital currency known as ‘Bitcoins’.

In addition to Bitcoin mining, OSX/Miner-D also spies on you by taking screen captures and stealing your user names and passwords. More-so it runs a script that copies information to a file called dump.txt regarding truecrypt data, Vidalia (TOR plugin for Firefox), your Safari browsing history, and .bash_history.

The post goes on to say “Clearly, Mac users – like their Windows cousins – should practice safe computing and only download software from official websites and legitimate download services. But, in addition to that, it’s becoming clearer every week that Mac users need to take malware protection more seriously by running anti-virus software.”

This is just another example of the increasingly more sophisticated, Mac assaults. Other malware threat discovered this month targeted at the Apple machines include ‘Tsunami’ and ‘FlashBack’.

The posting ends with “There may be a lot less malware for Mac OS X than there is for Windows, but many Mac users are making themselves an unnecessarily soft target by imagining that they are somehow magically protected from threats.”

We sell the Eset Security products which offer Mac versions – Contact us through the main site here to arrange a free 30 day trial…

 

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Computer security is a tricky business, and we get at least 10 calls a week, asking is something is legitimate or that a PC has been ‘infected’.

Thanks to many media stories about hacking this and data that, people are, quite rightly, worried about the potential of their PCs lack of security.

Sadly, there are people praying on that very sense of paranoia, and promoting ‘fixes’ for ‘detected threats’ – when in actuality there is no real threat but the awful fake software warning you.

This warning rapidly escalates in to many pop-ups about ‘Security risks’, ‘Detected virus activity’ or ‘Illegal content detected’ ~ then, miraculously, you can pay £££s to have all these issues fixed.

That’s exactly what the scammers are after. Your hard earned pounds.

In this case approx. £45 MILLION  of your hard earned pounds!

Many, many people have fallen for this scam ~ and I have to admit (having seen several versions of this very scam), it does seem incredibly legitimate ~ paying sometimes over £80 to get the fake fixes.

Finally the FBI have got involved and conducted raids in 12 nations, worldwide. These raids, dubbed “Operation Trident Tribunal”, and led to computers being seized and gaining control of 5 bank accounts used to hold the cash collected.

The solution is simple ~ and incredibly impractical ~ don’t use the Internet or put anything on your PC. That’s the best preventative measure you can have (one security expert said that the only way to completely protect a PC from threats, is to leave it in the box!). There is however, some more practical, preventative steps to take.

Firstly, you need a good anti-virus package ~ we use the Eset software, and have for many years. This software will warn you of potential problems before you get some nastiness in there. It will also clean  the badness out if you do get infected too.

Secondly, don’t click on any advertisements, some carry secret code to infect and infiltrate your PC.

Finally, avoid websites that are heavy in those self same adverts, this usually means ‘free’ gaming sites, gambling sites, or anything of an adult nature.

If you do have problems though – call us! 08456 340 599
We’ll get you clean

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I have spent most of the last couple of days sorting out some particularly nasty spyware infections.

Quite literally there have been clients queueing to get their machines cleaned of this little bit of nastiness.

It manifests itself as a spyware scanner called ‘System doctor’ and seems to perform a scan of your PC, resulting in many ‘infected’ files – it also changes your desktop wallpaper to a screen saying something about files not being deleted from your PC.

DO NOT BE FOOLED – this is a simple spyware infection and can be removed using freely available tools!

In our case, the clients involved ALL had contracts covering these types of eventualities and the removal procedures cost them nothing more than their machines being inaccessible for an hour or so.

We offer a simple clean-up service for £75 one off fee, a small price to pay for safeguarding your PC/Laptop

This spyware seems to be infecting peoples machines from legitimate websites so make sure you don’t agree to anything trying to run on your PC unless you know what it is.

Here’s the shameless marketing bit:

If you get infected – CALL US!!! 0845 634 0599

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One of my clients related a tale of woe today ~ he’d had an issue and (oddly) instead of calling me decided to go it alone.

Initially he’d had a problem with his Blackberry device after installing an ‘update’ which nuked his configuration.
He then decided to backup, reinstall and restore is current config ~ A moment of brilliance I might add. :)
After backing up, he uninstalled his software and reinstalled a later version ~ again, all good so far.
Once his software was installed he tried to restore the backup, with no success. This is where the problems start in earnest…

The error was reported as “cannot open file xxx.xxx, select a program to open this file with” (or some such), so he decided to find a program to open the backup file.
After tripping round some of the more dodgy ‘free’ software sites, and thoroughly infecting his system with spyware, he purchased the Pareto Logic driver fix tool ~ a mere $40.

The Pareto Logic software is a fake

Many hardware and software errors later I get an email detailing the problem.

Simon spends most of the afternoon backing up his data and rebuilding his laptop…

Sadly this will turn out to be a costly mistake

On the upside, his laptop is now a speedy little beastie!

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