ZERO DAY EXPLOIT OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS 6, 7, 8

Over the weekend Microsoft confirmed that they were working as fast as possible to fix a security hole affecting those 3 versions of Internet Explorer. If your PC becomes infected it could be taken over by the hacker. Other stories tell of security holes in Adobe Flash being used to infect computers using those browsers have been reported as well. Full story HERE.

'Nuff Said,
Brian

THERE'S A NEW BAT IN TOWN...

Nope, it's not Batman, but a very destructive Trojan designated "TROJ_BATWIPER.A". If you guessed that the "wiper" part of the name is bad, you are correct - in fact it is "Very, very, very BAD". You can get this Trojan either by directly downloading it [ed. - under another name of course], or, by getting infected by other malware which then opens the door for Troj_Batwiper.A to drop into your computer for a visit. 

The "visit" is worse than your Aunt Matilda's Christmas fruit cake, and if that it not enough to scare you [ed. - ANY fruitcake should scare you, in fact, there should be a law put in place where children under the age of six cannot be shown a fruitcake for fear of scarring their childhood and possibly the remainder of their life. But, I digress...]

Sometimes graphics are easier to explain what happens, so I'm borrowing Trend Micro's picture shown below:

[CREDIT: TREND MICRO]

There is no file recovery - you lose it all. While it's not running rampant through the Internet, it is out there and you face the possibility of getting it. Please read Trend Micro's "Threat Alert" HERE.

'Nuff Said,

Brian

TIME TO CHECK YOUR COMPUTERS...

To make sure that your version of JAVA is no less than 7, provided you haven't un-installed it completely as I did many months ago.

Why?

Because Oracle will be giving JAVA 6 the boot, issuing one last security patch on February 19th 2013, and after that - no more support.

Stay ahead of the curve and upgrade to 7 - if you haven't done so already. Article? HERE.

'Nuff Said,
Brian

DO YOU OWN A SAMSUNG GALAXY ?

[IF SO, THIS POST IS FOR YOU]

There was a bug discovered and announced recently (this past weekend) about a bug in Samsung's Galaxy S III which could let someone (i.e. - hacker) get total control of your phone! Samsung is working to patch things up, but be aware, and read the article.

RECENT SECURITY NEWS

We've all read about "Bots" and/or "Botnet", and usually it applied to Windows based computers. Basically once a computer is infected with the Bot, it then joins the collective [ed. - anyone else thinking "BORG"?] Botnet, linking millions of computers together for some nefarious task.

The IDG News Service reported something new this week: The discovery of an Android phone botnet! Although I hear stories, read articles, and watch news reports about security and cell phones, many of the people I come in contact with on a daily basis seem unaware of the dangers. If you happen to have an Android based phone it wouldn't hurt to read this article HERE.

For anyone using Microsoft's free anti-virus "Microsoft Security Essentials" you should read this article. When it first came out it was actually a fairly decent A/V solution which continued last year, but this year it's not in the same ballpark.

Finally, I'll leave you with one more article to digest. This one predicts what 2013 will bring us as far as malware, ransomeware, etc. Hopefully Android users next year won't see another 300% increase in malware like they did this year.

'Nuff Said,
Brian

RANSOMWARE

By now most of you have heard, or read about Trojans that are called "Ransomware", like the infamous FBI screen currently infecting computers. They call it ransomware because they have kidnapped your computer under the pretense you have, or, are now doing something illegal on the web.

The only way to get access again, according to the ransomware screen is to pay the amount of money they are demanding. If you think about it, to some extent this beats a real kidnapping -

• You don't have take out a loan to pay it.
• No wiretaps or having to come up with enough food to feed all the police in your living room.
• And you won't have to meet in some remote or seedy part of town not knowing for sure if you'll come back alive.

But some things don't change; you get the FBI screen and the ransom information on that screen while your mind begins to race...

"Did someone hack my wireless network and do something illegal?"

"I know the government needs money, but is this their alternative to raising taxes?"

and finally, those dark, grim thoughts...

"I hope they won't hurt my computer"

"What if I pay the ransom and find out after-the-fact that my PC is dead?"

"What about the Stockholm syndrome? Will it's memory be damaged?"

Now ransomware has taken it up a notch and actually speaks to you, in whatever language you speak! [ed. - Hmm, I wonder what happens if you're bilingual? Will it alternate languages after each word?] Now that is scary, and you should read Computer World's article about it HERE.

In the meantime, I hope you all realize if your computer does become kidnapped/ransomed, not to pay it. Call someone that can remove it from your PC, like.....SugarlandPC! [ed. - I don't know why, but that's the first name that popped into my head].

Surf safely -

'Nuff Said,
Brian

ANSWER ME THIS "BATMAN......"

 WHO IS GETS INFECTED MORE - CELL PHONE USERS, OR, PC USERS?

Ah, that tricky Riddler, always up for some Q & A with the caped crusader. Seriously though, if someone asked you who got more malware infections: cell phone users or PC users, what would you answer. I would think that instinctively most would answer "PC USERS", and quickly find out that their answer was not correct, but that it was the cell phone user who was most likely to get infected - not any cell phone user, but someone who used an Android OS phone would end up being the top pick. Surprised? Not me.

The latest security paper released by SOPHOS shows that 10% of all android-based phone users have been infected, compared to 6% of PC users in the US. This has to get your attention at some level because many of you have been infected recently by Malware on your Windows-based computer, and a large percentage of you have android cell phones. "So", you ask, "What's the worse thing that could happen to me if my cell phone gets infected?"

Here are just a few examples:

• Apps that track your location
• Apps that can listen in on your phone calls
• Apps that can make your phone dial expensive phone numbers that charge per minute.
• Apps that can steal your contact list
• Apps that can do most of the above in one App

And here I stop, because the list is endless. IF you have an Android-based cell phone then pa-Leeeeze get some protection! What about iPhones? Yes, there are many iphone users out there, and except for different versions of the iPhone, there is only one iPhone to be hacked and APPLE keeps a tight fist on their APP store, trying to weed out the bad (no pun intended) apples. 

I read an article on how Android phones had captured the market and were THE number one cell phone purchased, with APPLE coming in second. I think the author of that story was a tad slanted towards Android Phones, because as all of know, everyone but APPLE make a bunch of different phones using the Android OS, whereas APPLE sells one phone, and no one else has the rights to market a build of their own.

So there you have it, with HTC, Samsung, Motorola, LG, Sony-Ericsson and others making 2, 3, or 4 different models using the Android system it's a no-brainer that Malware writers are going to choose that group to spend most of their time writing nefarious APPS that will end up filling their pockets with your hard earned dollars.

'Nuff Said,
Brian
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