point – Paul's Tech Talk

Rogue Fake Codecs on the Rise

PaulFebruary 27, 2009

Panda Labs has been talking about Adware/VideoPlay and they are seeing a lot of variants on this. They even play a game, find the difference in the installation screen:

Now as you can see this look to be the same agreement in all those difference installation. Some things to consider Never install any software from a website that you don’t know Nothing about about.

Panda Labs also talks about these new variants in regards to what they do:

This file spreads by making copies of itself in the removable drives and it also creates an autorun.inf in order to be run when they are accessed. This file collects the data stored in the browsers, such as cookies, passwords, profiles, email accounts, etc, and connects to a remote address to send the information.
[Via Panda Labs Blog]

[ad#ad2-right]As you can see this makes you have very little security with your system. I talk about Identity theft, and why you should always worry about your identity. This however will make your passwords less secure and maybe even compromise you system to the point of having a data breach. You need to be careful when you come by this, some fake codecs have been know to be scareware. In which, the fake codecs installs a Trojan to tell you have a virus and try to make you buy a fake program to get rid of the Virus. In one of my recent posts about Codecs and Facebook, I talked about the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack and how that will prevent you from installing these sociable links from friends and family. The nice thing about this pack is it install all the really good codecs that you might come across on the web. If you have this installed and there’s a website that says you need a special codec, you’d know that it is either a fake codec or the author who made the video doesn’t standardize. In which case you will be more willing to leave that site without installing that codec.

If you follow these steps and also consider installing an Anti-virus and Firewall, you will be in a much better shape then when you first started out. Remember only you can prevent from getting a virus. You should also consider doing the registry edit that will prevent Autorun. As you can tell these new variants also are spread through USB and other removable media. This is the other way these programs are using to infect other systems.

Facebook Virus strikes again

PaulDecember 4, 2008

“Look you were filmed all naked!” read the subject header on one iteration of the virus-spreading message, which is being sent automatically from infected accounts to the “friend” list for that account. Clicking the link usually takes users to a page that looks like YouTube, and a pop-up message advises the user to download a Flash plug-in. The download contains the virus, which replicates by contacting everyone on the victim’s Facebook friend list and advancing the hoax.

[Via Boston Media]

[ad#ad2-right]This is a good social engineered attack, they seem to have you download a virus into your system. I Keep talking about how you need to be careful with emails. I also suggest that you do a complete Virus scan if you think you’ve been hit with this. There is only one way to prevent yourself from getting this little facebook virus and that is not to click it. Some other things to consider if you found out this was a virus is to contact the person who sent this to them so they to could do a virus scan on their system.

It is always going to be something to be hard, because these people are using social engineering. It seems they are trying to prove a point, even Macintoshes can be vulneble to this attack. If you get anything through you email from people saying they seen you naked or got pictures of your butt, I’d suggest, not clicking those links.

Apple’s Immunity, Botnet sanctuary.

PaulDecember 3, 2008

But is Apple projecting a false sense of security just to save face? Many experts repeatedly warn that all operating systems are susceptible to viruses, and as the Mac becomes more popular OS X will inevitably become a bigger target for malicious attacks.

[via Pcworld]

Having said that I feel the notion that Apple is trying to keep there reputation as a virus free system. I can only hope that they stay that way. Which as much as I know, Apple will most like start to be the main source for botnets, because of the lack of security.

[ad#ad2-right]According to reports on this blog, people are worried Apple stance on it being the safest and having so much immunity to viruses. Apple in the past has stated they have mislead people with there firewall. Yet Apple takes down that suggestion of having an Anti-virus(Quietly).

[ad#digg-left]Everything I’ve seen suggest that virus writers and Malware writers will MOST likely start targeting the Mac OS X, they know Apple sense of security is Vulnerable to attack and they will exploit it more and more. So what does that mean for Apple, it just means that soon every hacker who has a botnet will want a piece of the Apple Pie and is right now.

[ad#ad2-left]As PC Trojans go, the programming features of RSPlug.E look fairly basic. PC malware is more highly evolved and usually cleverer. But a programmer – probably a Russian – with knowledge of OSX had taken time to create a Trojan that hits Macs instead of PCs, James pointed out.

[via Techworld]

Which looks like it has already begun. So what can Mac users do, get an Anti-virus and maybe Apple will have to start backing down from the Virus commercials and actually admit it. Sooner or later someone will have to challenge Apple to get them to start admitting to it.

Google Now lets you Video/Voice chat!!

PaulNovember 12, 2008

After checking out some of what Google has been doing. I find out that you can now Video Conference for free. That is to say that you can conference with someone on line and do cloud computing. According to Google:

To Get this Video and Voice chat Click this link

[ad#ad2-right]Now I might not a lot but this will be most likely be used in association with the new Google Phone, the G1. So I thought about how this will be used? This will be used in several ways. To keep in touch with family, to make it easier to telecommute and to Video Conference with associates from work. Google Model is “DO NO EVIL”. There is a flaw to this I am sure, this is a Internet Protocol to Internet Protocol connection and in doing so you create so much possibility of a virus getting through. There is no doubt that this is using flash. It also is know to make the infrastructure of a business weak. The Intranet of the business would be compromised. I am sure there are vulnerabilities in this and we will hear them shortly. I’d give it a week or two, remember the problem with Google Chrome and how un-secure it is. These are just a few of what would cause security headaches to all who work in the IT field. I just want to bring that up to prove a point. Google’s mantra isn’t perfect, it is what it is.

Rumor: GE to be the next to layoff its workers!!

PaulNovember 9, 2008

GE to Layoff 11,000 Workers!! GE to Layoff it workers!

According to sources of friends close to me, their seems to be a consensus that there will be a major layoff coming from GE. My source is talking about it being a lot of people will be laid off and that it will start happening in the coming weeks.

According to Yahoo Finance saying this “52 week change of GE is -50.86% from last year. ”

[ad#ad2-right-1]Now last year this time there Stock Price was 38.38 a Share and now they are 18.60 a share. They dropped -19.78 over the year. The seemed to get close to the 38.38 a share on April 4, 2008 with making 37.56 a share. That was there highest this year, due to the fact that people were getting there income tax refunds in the mail. Also NYSE says they had a slight increase in July and Aug, that is due to the Stimulus package that we got in 2008.

Now I’m not a financial expert in the least. I just see what I see with stock prices. These could mean they are doing extremely well, or they could indicate that the company is planning on laying people off. I’m just trying to provide a background on why they might lay people off. We are getting to he point of becoming a Depression and no longer a Recession. What do you think?