All Posts by Paul

Why Norton users do it wrong with Passwords

Paul

I just read this blog post Phishing attacks on Facebook users point to efforts to mine login data for profit. After reading one of the suggestions on how to create a good password and I’ll quote:
< [ad]blockquote>1. Use complex passwords and unique ones for each site. My method? Pick one string of letters and numbers and then add the first letter from the website’s name. For example: if my password “string” were “abc123$” then my Facebook password would be “Fabc123$”.
Now I can see where this can be used to figure the password?  If people use this method they would still be able to figure it out over time.   Let’s say you use the same sequence of numbers and letters after each site you go to.  This would make it much easier for a hacker to figure out the other passwords.

I will keep saying this time and time again, remembering passwords for me is the past.  I’ve been using [intlink id=”2646″ type=”post”]Roboform[/intlink] for the past few months and haven’t had any problems.  I’ve also have them backed up to Mozy to help protect my passwords.  As long as you back them up with Mozy and Keep save a copy of it off your hard drive you will be much safer than trying to remember a good password.

If you would like to find ways to help backup your passwords or your valuable information please [intlink id=”3171″ type=”post”]check this out[/intlink].

Remember your Roboform passwords are stored at :

C:\Users\(your username)\Documents\My RoboForm Data\Default Profile (Windows Vista and Windows 7).

C:\documents and settings\(your username)\My Documents\My RoboForm Data\Default Profile (Windows XP).

Although Norton’s suggestions does help keep your a little more safer this can be easily used to brute force attacks because they probably have tried letters from the website just because they do think about these things. You should always have a really good password and [intlink id=”2646″ type=”post”]Roboform[/intlink] can do that for you and keep it safe.

Netspend sends out card that I didn’t order :

Paul24 Replies

netspendsite

I arrived home today with Netspend card in my Mailbox. The letter states that I ordered the card and it has arrived. So I am concerned because of the possible [intlink id=”2644″ type=”post”]Identity theft[/intlink] that could be going on so I call them to find out what the heck is going on.   I call to find out it who signed me up for this and to get some kind of information as to the people who had this information about me.   I ask for the financial service that “recommended me for this Card” because I want to make a phone call to them about the security concerns  about sharing my personal information.   I say that because they had my Name, my mailing address.  This isn’t totally hard to find had I had a Land phone but with me just having a cell phone.

[ad]I ask for the IP of the person who signed me up and they said they don’t have that information and they have no information on who did it.  This sounds  like a poor way  to offer pre-paid card that has a VISA logo.   I think this is poor security and if someone signs me up and uses my identity what ever happened to logs?    This is what is most concerning to me, because I would have expected if someone signs up they would at least keep the IP in case of some criminal activity to know if it was one IP that is making so many creation of cards.   This is a fundamental principle in financial institutions that hold our money.

I did a Google search for others who had this happened and I see a bunch of people complaining about the same thing.  Some of the more important topics were, Netspend Is A Fraud! and Unethical Pirates! I found some really concerning complaints from people around the US.  All these are concerning, I told them to close out the account and I will be watching my credit for the next 6 months.   I think this was unethical by both Netspend and the Financial service, due to the fact that I didn’t give the financial services permission to give out my information.   I don’t know if Netspend had my SSN but I didn’t activate the card so I don’t know but I am very concerned by the way Netspend did not keep logs on who and when something like this was done.   If I find out what financial service did this I will be contacting the FTC and BBB over this.   I want to hear if anyone else has had this happened?  I will advise everyone who has this happened to call immediately to close out the account and complain to appropriate people.  

Casino Spammers still user Yahoo for Spam : Could this be Malware?

Paul

It just shows you just how one Geocities was taken down by Yahoo who owns it, the spammers have to come up with more ways to get you to download there software.

[ad]In my previous post about [intlink id=”3199″ type=”post”]Casino programs[/intlink],  They were using Geocities to host the page for the link to the download.

casinosmartdownload

It seems to be linking to “http://bestwinscasino.com/SmartDownload.exe“.  From [intlink id=”3199″ type=”post”]previous post[/intlink] I talked about what that program did but I wanted to do another test with CWSandbox and see what has change. It looks like they must be having problems lately,  So If you want to do your own test and send me the link by all means.  I don’t know what is going on but, it probably is like the other post about wanting to do some bad things.  Virustotal has some anti-virus programs flagging this so I am unsure of the Harmlessness of this file but I wouldn’t install this software.  According to Avinti this program is a trojan dropper.  So Iwill let you decide on installing this software or not.

While the CWSndbox checks for malware, I went to Whois and looked up the domain.   Very interesting,  According to Whois this domain is located in China?  You don’t say, we’ve heard a lot of stuff coming from China from Graham Cluely Blog.  So it only makes me wonder what they are attempting to do now.  I do know never download a file you haven’t heard off

This is a good time to install some [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Free Anti-virus and Free Firewall [/intlink]software to better protect your system.

Microsoft Release MS09-017

Paul

Microsoft Today has released fix a Powerpoint Vulnerability:

[ad]Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000 Service Pack 3 (KB957790), Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2002 Service Pack 3 (KB957781), Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 Service Pack 3(KB957784), Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Service Pack 1 and 2* (KB957789).

It looks like this Powerpoint Vulnerability is in the wild so you should update your Microsoft Office. [intlink id=”2883″ type=”post”]Autopatcher[/intlink] will download the latest the Microsoft Office patches and help you update your office computers without being on the internet.

Other Software affected by this update is:

PowerPoint Viewer 2003 (KB969615), PowerPoint Viewer 2007 Service Pack 1 and PowerPoint Viewer 2007 Service Pack 2 (KB970059), Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats Service Pack 1 and 2 (KB969618)

All these should be installed as soon as you get a chance.  If you have several different version I would recommend [intlink id=”2883″ type=”post”]Autopatcher[/intlink] to do it for you.   While you at it you should also update your [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Anti-virus and Firewall software[/intlink].  You should schedule a time this week to update these important Microsoft Office programs.   You don’t want to clean a system that has a virus or trojan.   Hackers will want to jump on board and make your job even worse.  This update replaces MS08-051, so please update soon!

When not to post #twitterpornnames

Paul

twitterpornname-security1

I’ve heard others call this a scam:

twitterpornname-security2

[ad]Now Although I know PCworld has made everyone paranoid that this is a scam.  I want to remind people that it was probably just a for fun.   According to Graham Cluely’s blog, He points out why you shouldn’t tell people the important information.

I see no evidence this was done to gather your information but Pcworld has sent out the warnings and made people think this was a scam, or a Phishing attack.  Although this could be used to get the information needed for your Gmail or other accounts.

I do recommend deleting those tweets and reminding people that you are the only ones that can prevent identity theft.  Trend Micro talks about this very detail about the subject but again they don’t think this was conceived as a phishing attempt.   I’ll let you decide but remember tweeting that it is a scam will only keep it on the trends, your best advice is just go on with your life and tell everyone to delete that sensitive information.