Author Archives: John Barrett
How to remove Qvo6.com “virus”
malavida.com is a spanish website offering freeware for downloading. The problem with it is that like many other websites offering software for downloading, it enforces you to download first their “downloader”, the old trick used to install additional and potentially undesirable software in your computer. If you check these days and try to download a freeware from their website, an executable of 159 KB with the name of the original application is downloaded first instead of the desired application, for example: skype-windows-downloader.exe cpu-z-windows-downloader.exe nero-windows-downloader.exe ares-windows-downloader.exe and so on. Let’s run the downloader in a sandbox and see what is the additional software installed. The screens tell the story: … … … …
CPU-Z, the free unwanted package
CPU-Z from CPUID is a very popular freeware program that gathers and display information about your installed hardware like details of CPU, motherboard, installed RAM memory, voltages and so on. On CPUID website you can find multiple download links of the same product, CPU-Z version 1.63, as an installation file containing both 32 and 64 bits versions or as a standalone executable either for 32 or 64 bits, the question is why to use an installation file when the program can run as a standalone executable so I’ve extracted the components of the installation file to see what it contains. I’ve used a X-UniExtract 1.6.1 rev4, a very good tool for extracting …
The fake VLC Media Player and serious business
Sometimes, navigating on the Web we find a link to a very tempting video which are demanding a necessary plugin to play, or a special player or simply a codec. Maybe we receive this link in an email, or somebody(not a friend that’s for sure) send it to us on Facebook or even we download a bogus video file which try to force us to download a certain player. No other player can play this video but especially that one. Well, this scenario is old and a lot used by evil persons or companies to trick us to run their malicious software. Trojans? Viruses? Not necessary, but adware, software …
What is in fact STOPzilla?
I’ll start this article with an excerpt from Wikipedia: STOPzilla is a PC security software for the Microsoft Windows operating system. STOPzilla utilizes a proprietary AVM Technology, a multi-layered malware detection system that detects complex malicious threats while using minimal system resources. STOPzilla’s AVM Technology constantly scans, detects, and quarantines malicious threats without affecting the PC’s performance. STOPzilla AVM protects the user’s computer from computer viruses and malware. The current version of STOPzilla, STOPzilla AVM 2013, incorporates iS3′s new AVM technology, which uses a multi-layered defense architecture, utilizing both heuristic and behavioral detection. STOPzilla can be installed in hostile environments where an infection has already occurred, and its built in anti-rootkit …
Win 32 Sality virus removal
As I said somewhere in this website, I don’t have installed any antivirus and I’m running Windows operating system a risky game some of you maybe will say, a true cyber-suicide other are saying. I have never recommended this test to anyone, my intention was only to have a very close look of reality of the threats that Windows are confronted with. Something at the frontier of stupidity and a malware lab. To reproduce exactly the wished environment, that’s an unprotected real computer(not a virtual machine because some malware are aware of it) and an unsuspecting user, my kids have full access to this computer to do whatever they want …
How to detect computer viruses in pirated software
The software, music, movies piracy is a reality of our days, we like it or not. Although it’s illegal, some argue the use of pirated software(warez) mentioning the high cost of it, the lack of money or simply is using it because “it is there”, on some warez forums or blogs, without thinking too much at legal issues. This article has not as topic this debate if the warez use is justified or not, it’s everyone’s responsibility how they answer to this question and what are their actions. Certainly, embedding malware, especially computer trojans in program’s setup files and spreading the links via warez forums is one of the different …
A mass infection system or a file sharing website? fileze.com
Maybe some of you have met the next weird situation: you want to download a trial of a program, a shareware, from a well established downloading site but when you click the download button instead of the wanted program, another little program is downloaded and executed in the computer, it’s the so-called “download manager” which in its turn downloads the desired program. Nobody fully understands this scheme, why is needed by this “download manager” instead of offering directly the wanted program but a lot suspect this program of “grey” missions. The concerns are raised when the antivirus software detect these “download managers” as adware or spyware and there must be …
