The suspect made about $60,000 by installing adware on some 400,000 compromised computers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. Among the systems affected by the botnets were computers at the Weapons Division of the United States Naval Air Warfare Center, as well as machines operated by the U.S. Department of Defense. Read the entire article Here.
Think your computer is secure? If the U.S. Department of Defense can have their computers compromised, what’s keeping yours from being infected with malware, adware, trojans or a zombie to someone’s botnet? Do you know how to protect your computer and if you do have protection, do you know how well it’s working?Are you using Windows XP’s firewall? Wanta see how well it’s protecting you?
Note: It’s just as important that your firewall does not allow anything to access the Internet from within is walls without your permission as it is to deny access from outside its walls. Test you computers firewall Here, but be sure to read the information on the page before doing a test. Steve Gibson is a well know and respected security expert. I trust his testing software without question and have used it for several years now and have recommended it to many that needed to understand how vulnerable their computers actually were and why their computers weren’t functioning as they should.
You can test how secure you computer is with Gibson’s Shields Up! online test. Be sure to explore the information before doing the test so that you understand the results as fully as possible.
You can also read Gibson’s report on a DOS (denial of service) attack and what he did to combat his attacker Here. I read it in late 2001 and up until then I didn’t have a clue about how secure my computer was, nor did I care. I was of the mind that there wasn’t anything on my computer that anyone would want. What I wasn’t aware of was what someone could do to someone else through my computer. I became much more concerned after ready Gibson’s report, which is very well written for such a dry techie kind of thing. How he resolved the problem is commendable, which goes well beyond his knowledge of technology and how to manipulate it. Read it, you won’t be sorry, even if you have absolutely no tech skills. I sure didn’t at the time I read it. I’ve gain considerable skills since then, though not nearly enough to be anything more than a want-a-be computer geek.
Gibson has uncovered many of Microsoft’s security flaws in the past. I wonder if Microsoft is going to make their next big product release a bit more secure out of the box?
Earlier this year, Microsoft intentionally infected a computer with an Internet worm which resulted in it being made part of a botnet. The operation then quarantined the machine and monitored it over a period of 20 days. During this time the zombie was contacted 5 million times by spammers. Read the entire article, Microsoft Takes On Spamming Botnets.
One can dream, can’t they?
A new type of attack on Internet Explorer has been discovered this week, and this attack works even if IE is closed! The way that it works is that a user visits an infected site, is given a pop-up window asking them to install an applet from Integrated Search Technologies, and if they agree, the applet downloads and installs a ton of spyware, which in turn opens up Internet Explorer and starts doing its thing.
According to Christopher Boyd of VitalSecurity.org, the attack works regardless of whether Internet Explorer is open or closed, and regardless of IE’s security settings.
Read the rest of this article Here
Three word comment: Don’t Do It! Just came across some very scary information on Windows IE and just how vulnerable IE really is. Actually, I should say that Microsoft’s products in general are vulnerable to hackers, crackers, and the not-so-smart script kiddies. If anyone reading this has closed their mind and eyes to the security issues of their Windows based computers, this article should open your eyes nice and wide! Internet Explorer Is Too Dangerous to Keep Using Be sure to click on page two and then read the related links to the right of the article, plus read the Talk Back, especially the one about spyware.
I have been using Mozilla off and on for a while now but keep going back to IE. It’s like an old friend, familiar and comfortable. I do have ActiveX turned off but I’m not so sure that’s enough to keep my computer out of the hackers hands. If you think all you need is an anti-virus to protect your computer from malicious viruses, trojans, and keloggers, then perhaps you should have another thought! Anti-virus software can not protect you from new viruses. If you’re lucky, you will update your virus protection before you get a bug but most people do not update regularly or they get the bug before the company that creates the anti-virus even knows it exists.
If your web site is hosted on a Windows server, your site is at risk of being hijacked and then sending malicious code to anyone clicking on your site, all without yours or your users knowledge. This new virus is actually a trojan and goes undetected by you, all the while it is sending all your information to remote computers and/or sending out packets from thousands of infected machines to bring down a server with a denial of service attack. And you are none the wiser, though your computer may slow way down and act a little funny but hell, we are all used to IE doing the big freeze when it gets tired, right!
So, my conclusion is that IE is just too dangerous to keep using, just like the articles title. Mozilla here I come. And the best part is that it’s free!
I have decided to offer some information on Internet security because I think it’s important and I believe that most users do not know that their computers are vulnerable to the less than honorable Internet users. There are all kinds of little bugs out there just waiting to infect your computer, bugs that no anti-virus or firewall can protect you from. I have decided to start with Spyware. A particularly nasty little snoop that is most likely living on your computer as you read this.
Spyware is a small script placed on your computer, usually without your knowledge, during software download operations, that tracks your movement on the Internet. It was originally designed to help marketers’ track advertising campaigns and create statistics on what works and what doesn’t work. The problem is that spyware also has the ability to collect and send all the personal information that’s on your computer-including your email address-to unscrupulous members of the cyber community, all without your knowledge. Spyware can also get into your computer via cookies (bits of data, placed on your PC by websites, that can be used to track your behavior and identity online). Even after removing the cookies, the spyware can remain and continue to track your movements on the Internet.
If you have ever downloaded freeware and installed it on your computer, you most likely have spyware hiding on your system and sending information without your knowledge or permission. Software companies that offer their products for free still need to make money. Many have banner ads or popup windows with advertisements in them that you see when you use the software. Advertising companies pay the software manufacturer to place the ads in their product, allowing the software manufacturer to offer their product for free to the consumer. An example of free software that has used spyware is Real Audio, although I understand they are no longer using it as of their 8.0 version.
Be aware that firewall software will not block spyware from entering and sending information about your surfing habits to its creator. I have used Ad-aware for several years now. It’s free and you can download updates for free. However, I have found that in the last six months or so that one spyware remover may not be enough, mostly because those writing the spyware programs are getting trickier. I’m going to put up a list of anti-spyware programs that I have used in the next couple of days, if not sooner. Some are free while others charge a small fee. Most allow you to download the software and try it before buying. Those will usually only show you what spyware was found living on your computer. They will not remove the spyware. You will have to pay for it before that function will work.
A word of caution: while I am fairly sure that the products I have used, and will recommend, are free from bugs and come from reliable sources, you should always use your own best judgment and do your own research before using them. And always backup everything on your computer before using any kind of software that will be removing anything, good or bad, from your computer. I made this mistake once and it cost me two years of writing!
