There used to be a time when our society was built and maintained by blood, sweat, and hard work. Today, however, our world runs on information and communication. With the ever growing amount of digital information that we create, modify, and share on a daily basis the need for ensuring the security of that information also increases.
One of the most common methods in today’s world for transferring our important data from one place to another is the ubiquitous USB memory key (or Thumb drive, or Memory stick, or little magic contraption of wonderfulness). With the current availability of high capacity, small form-factor USB flash memory comes a universal availability of inexpensive storage devices. Don’t believe me? Go to your local computer store (heck even Wal-Mart) and look for the USB drive section, if there is not an entire aisle in the store dedicated solely to these little titans of data migration then there is definitely a large section of one.
This universal availability comes at a cost though, more of us every day are loading Gigabytes worth of personal, corporate, or even government related information onto these, for the most part, COMPLETELY unsecured devices. There is also a growing trend, in all forms of consumer electronic devices, towards making everything as small as the laws of physics will allow. How many Über-micro cell phones have you lost? When’s the last time you set that Ipod mini down and couldn’t remember where? Now compare the size of most modern electronic devices to your USB drive, it’s virtually invisible isn’t it? So what happens when you misplace your memory key (which, incidentally, I did this morning. No idea where that thing is.) that contains all of your personal photos, hours of music, or top secret plans to take power from your boss and rule with an iron fist? Your only option, in most cases, is to hope that some Good Samaritan finds it, realizes that you’re the only geek in the place, and returns it to you. That’s a pretty scary “disaster recovery plan” if you ask me.
A question was asked recently that stopped me in my tracks. The question was,
“Why is grammar and spelling important on the Internet? I can understand if you’re writing a paper for school, but on forums and boards, I never bother”.
What? I thought one of the reasons we were taught grammar and spelling in school was so that every sentence we wrote, whether online, in a paper, or a letter to our grandmother, would be clear and understandable. This means not only correct spelling and grammar, but the ability to convey one’s idea or question so it can be understood. In my opinion, writing correctly when online is more important, not less so, and I can give several reasons why.
To many Windows users, it sounds all too familiar. Attempting to watch a video online, a prompt directs them to download a codec to enable viewing. However, the download is malware, and it infects their computer.
Now this popular, and successful social engineering technique is being used to spread a Mac OSX trojan, OSX.RSPlug.A. At this time spam is being flooded onto Mac forums trying to lure users to the sites where this is employed. The pornography sites present a still image of a video. Clicking on the image to play the video returns the following message:
Quicktime Player is unable to play movie file. Please click here to download new version of codec.
After that page loads the malware is download as a disk image (.dmg), and launches an installer. The installer requires the user to enter the admin password. If the password entered then the malware infection is complete. This infection alters DNS setting to redirect web pages, and advertisments for porn sites. However, it could just as easily be used for phishing attacks, or search redirects.
While the Geek Squad may be getting most of the bad press recently, it seems other home computer repair companies may not be fairing much better. CBC Canadian television news called 10 on-site geeks into a house with hidden cameras to repair a simple hardware problem. How many got it right? Watch the short video below to find out:
The original story and a much longer 25 minute video, including the performance of some big box retailers and a notebook system, can be found on CBC.ca Marketplace.
Is your system infected with a backdoor trojan, or remote access trojan? Maybe you received a warning from your antivirus, antispyware application, or someone helping you? What is a backdoor trojan, and why should you be concerned?
A trojan is a malicious application that appears to do one thing, but actually does another. Like it’s name sake, the mythical Trojan Horse, malicious code is hidden in a program or file that appears useful, interesting, or harmless. Popular examples are video codecs that some sites require to view online videos. When the codec is installed, it may also install spyware or other malicious software.
A backdoor trojan differs from a trojan in that it also opens a backdoor to your system. They’re also sometimes call Remote Access Trojans (RAT). These are the most widespread and also the most dangerous type of trojan. They are so dangerous because the have the potential to allow remote adminstration of your system. As if a hacker were sitting at your keyboard, only worse. There’s almost no limit to what they can do. Some common uses:
In case you haven’t noticed, Google and Microsoft are facing off in a lot more categories than search. Google has been making strides in offering online applications, often free and ad-supported. While Microsoft has traditionally been a retail, shrink wrap software company. With every product that Google announces in perpetual beta, they seem to be encroaching more on Microsoft’s turf. Now Microsoft may finally be pushing back.
Google has had some moderate success with applications like gmail, Picasa, Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Talk, and their Google Pack. Microsoft’s Live has been widely viewed as the answer to Google’s web application threat. Today Microsoft announced Windows Live Suite. A bundle of beta web applications in one convenient download and with a common installer:
This suite of software includes e-mail (Windows Live Mail), photo sharing (Windows Live Photo Gallery), a great publishing tool that lets you post directly to your blog (Windows Live Writer), parental controls (Windows Live OneCare Family Safety), a new version of Windows Live Messenger (8.5), and more.
This is some very cool image resizing technology. Adobe, the publisher of Photoshop has hired one of the guys that worked on this project. Watch the video, it just keeps getting more impressive!
Merijn, the creator of HijackThis™ recently sold the popular application used to remove malware to Trend Micro™. In addition to improvements like support for Windows Vista™, they’ve added a deceptively titled “AnalyzeThis” button. While the average user likely thinks the AnalyzeThis button provides helpful information for diagnosing their log, it’s main purpose is to send the HJT log data to Trend Micro. Unfortunately, unless you carefully read the Trend Micro End User License Agreement, you would probably never know that the AnalyzeThis button submits the data from your HijackThis log to Trend Micro for use by them and their partners… (read more)
Unless you’re a hardware enthusiast, you may have missed the fact that Intel significantly lowered the price on it’s quad-core CPUs this weekend. A quad-core CPU has four processing units on one chip (this first quad-core from Intel is actually two dual-core CPUs on the same chip). With the price drop, a quad-core CPU can now be purchased for just a little more than a high-end dual-core. Four CPUs for the price of two. Sounds like a good deal, right?
Well, not so fast. Unlike clock speed increases, multiple cores don’t scale linearly. While a 2ghz CPU is twice as fast as the same CPU at 1ghz, a quad-core CPU is not four times as fast as a single core. Like most desktop technology, quad-core CPUs have migrated from the server market. Comparing server performance using round numbers, a dual-core CPU offers about a 50% performance over a single core (not 100%), and there are diminishing returns. A quad-core CPU is only about 25% faster that a dual-core CPU.
Congratulations wannabe1 for making the 1,000,000 (one millionth) forum post! I honestly never thought this little hobby site I started would ever grow so large. Thanks to the hundreds of staff members, and the hundreds of thousands of members that have made it possible. You deserve all the credit. Here’s to the next million! 😀
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There used to be a time when our society was built and maintained by blood, sweat, and hard work. Today, however, our world runs on information and communication. With the ever growing amount of digital information that we create, modify, and share on a daily basis the need for ensuring the security of that information also increases.
Is your system infected with a backdoor trojan, or remote access trojan? Maybe you received a warning from your antivirus, antispyware application, or someone helping you? What is a backdoor trojan, and why should you be concerned?
In case you haven’t noticed, Google and Microsoft are facing off in a lot more categories than search. Google has been making strides in offering online applications, often free and ad-supported. While Microsoft has traditionally been a retail, shrink wrap software company. With every product that Google announces in perpetual beta, they seem to be encroaching more on Microsoft’s turf. Now Microsoft may finally be pushing back.
Merijn, the creator of 
Unless you’re a hardware enthusiast, you may have missed the fact that Intel significantly 
Congratulations 