Author Archives: John Barrett
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 …
DNSChanger trojan — the scam
I don’t know many malware able to give so many headaches as DNSChanger trojan. Briefly, beginning with 2007 year a cyber crime group based in Estonia, a former Soviet republic, starts to spread a malware called DNSChanger sniffing some financial gains. The spreading process started by tricking the unaware users to download and run a video codec(fake of course) or a special web browser(NetBrowserPro) that helps to watch online porn movies. When a computer is infected, the malware tries to change the DNS settings of the compromised system and of the home or small office routers if the default username and password used to configure it are not changed. There …
Wrestling with Online Privacy – Frugal Dad Infographic
I have received an email about an infographic related to online privacy threats and released by frugaldad.com, it shares in an easy to understand way the best tips for keeping users safe online. The graphic says it all, no more need of comments. Source: frugaldad.com
Can an opened email infects a PC? Is Driveby Spam the new Internet threat?
It’s just about opening an email, without clicking any links from inside or without running any attachments, can this action infects our PC? I have always recommended to my readers to not run any attachment nor to click any link contained in an unsolicited email looking like a spam, to avoid PC infections with malware, but it seems that the subject must be treated more in-depth. I have read an article written by a german email security company named eleven which claims: The eleven Research Team has issued a warning about a new and particularly dangerous e-mail-borne method to infect PCs with viruses and Trojans. This driveby spam automatically downloads …
Compromised WordPress based websites leading to Phoenix Exploit Kit
Sending bulk emails(spam), containing poisoned links is for long time now one of the methods used by hackers to infect computers with malware, everybody knows the reasons, to steal the user credentials or to use the infected computers in other nefarious actions as botnet. Generally, the scam emails are presented as a request from an institution, bank, other financial institution, Telephony or Internet provider to clarify a confused situation, asking for the user interaction. These fake emails are talking about large amount of money that must be paid possibly in error, trying to scare the user and determine him to act as soon as possible to rectify the situation. Other …
Critical vulnerabilities in Windows Media allow remote code execution
Recently Microsoft released several security patches for a vulnerability discovered in Windows Media components in their Microsoft Security Bulletin MS12-004 – Critical. The vulnerability affects more or less all Windows operating systems 32 and 64 bits starting with Windows XP SP3, ending with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and consists in allowing of remote code execution when a specially crafted MIDI file is handled by Windows Media Player or DirectShow. Affected Windows operating systems components are as follows: Windows Media Library and DirectShow components: Windows XP Service Pack 3 Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Service Pack 3 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 Windows Server 2003 …
