Author Archives: John Barrett
The new boot record viruses (TDL4) and how to fix the Master Boot Record (MBR)
Coming from the oldest computing times,the boot record viruses remain still one of the most preffered attack vectors. Like their predecessors, the Stoned computer virus(created 1987), Brain(created 1986 and the first PC virus !), Michelangel0(1991), Elk Cloner(1980), actual boot record viruses use the same method of infection: they replace boot record codes with infected code. For who does know what is a boot record Master Boot Record(MBR) or Volume Boot Record(VBR) the advantages of a such infection are obvious. For who does not know about MBR or VBR and their role, here are the details of an Windows PC boot sequence in a simplified form. When the computer is switched …
New scam Skype website
A new scam website trying to impersonate the Skype official website appeared on the Internet. The site is http://skype-downloads.ru/ and the details who own the domain are private. The website has a layout and colors(white and blue) trying to imitate the Skype official website and even the Skype logo is present. It has a .ru TLD and is in russian language. This scam website offers for downloading a fake Skype installer, named skype_setup.exe with 2.42 MB in size and MD5 hash: E4FA92CA336D545E7AF8E253F42F1EDB .This executable is protected with a packer to prevent it from being reverse engineered. If someone is fooled to download and install this rogue software,will be prompted …
Popureb.E trojan removal tool released for public
A free removal tool for the Popureb.E malware was released for public by Prevx security vendor, here is the download link. For who does not know, Popureb.E is a trojan that targets the Master Boot Record(MBR) on Windows XP machines. Until now Windows Vista and Windows 7 seems to be immune to this kind of infection. The malware add its code to Master Boot Record being in some fashion invisible to the operating system and antivirus software which are loaded later, after the trojan code. This malware made some waves a few days ago when a Microsoft engineer Chun Feng suffering for excessive zeal recommended an extreme solution to get …
Fake avast! antivirus website
A fake website for the well-known avast! antivirus is floating around the Internet trying to scam the users. Even if it is a subtle difference between the original domain of the avast! antivirus and the fake(scam) domain, you can notice it easily. http://www.avast.com – this is the original domain of avast! antivirus http://avast-download.com – this one is a fake domain for avast! The registrant informations for the fake avast! domain are private, the Whois Lookup reveals only: Domain avast-download.com Date Registered: 2010-9-21 Date Modified: 2010-9-21 Expiry Date: 2011-9-21 DNS1: 1.nseasy.com DNS2: 2.nseasy.com Registrant Private Whois Service Private Whois Service fp75akd4d95245d8b60e@oqjij874d9300d54bd95.privatewhois.net *******PLEASE DO NOT SEND LETTERS****** ****Contact the owner by email …
Top Ten computer security myths
I thought it is a good idea to make a list with the top ten popular beliefs but in reality misconceptions about home computers security, if you know more please let me know and I will re-entitle this article “Top Twenty computer security myths”. Failing to avoid these wrong ideas result in exposing your computer to a higher risk of infection with computer viruses, compromised online accounts and presumably financial loses. The most recent case was when somebody loses bitcoins worthing $500,000 from his account, due to a computer virus infection with a computer trojan. It was enough that only a single file, wallet.dat containing account informations to be stolen …
WOT (Web of Trust) — my review
Web of Trust, shortly WOT is a community driven system for websites ratings, aimed to help for a more secure and trusted web. The ratings components are : Trustworthiness Vendor reliability Privacy Child Safety The average of all these ratings forms a website reputation.This reputation system can be accessed through a browser add-on available for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, once downloaded and installed it will display next to the links a red circle for dangerous websites containing malware or scams, yellow circle for a questionable reputation and green for clean and safe websites. In this way the WOT users will know what websites to avoid and what websites are safe …
Computer security vulnerabilities
The security of an Windows machine has multiple lines of defense like a fortress and not surprisingly the first line of defense is our Internet browsers which are built with the security in mind. But, there was not yet produced a bullet proof computer program, although it becomes harder and harder to exploit an operating system or specific program vulnerability because the security patches are made available to the users quicker than before, this practice is widely used by the attackers and the browsers and their space are very often the “gate” for all kind of malware. First, at browser level are running a lot of third-party technologies aimed to …
