Category: Twitter

The Register Goes down, People are asking is it the Conficker Worm?

Paul

twitterregister1

I’ve heard stories from other Twitter Folks about it being Denial of Service attack:

twitterregister2

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Now it is possible to have[intlink id=”3236″ type=”post”] Conficker to all botnets[/intlink] to try to go to the site but I am not certian it is the Conficker.  It could be as simple as someone misconfigured a server and no one can get to it.  People who want to check out what people on twitter are saying can search for it and see for yourself.    I’ll update as needed when I find out more, but it will probably be a couple of hours before the site is back up, according to some reports.  I’ll know more later today, so keep tune.

Update at 6:30pm EST

We speculate that the source of the problem may have been a large scale Denial of Service attack against UltraDNS, or an internal operations problem. When we were able to sucessfully query UltraDNS servers, responses were slow to come back, or largely timed out. The problem began to clear itself up around 10:00 am Eastern, when we saw DNS responses returning quickly again, and our favorite sites coming back online.
[Via DynamicNetwork Service Inc.]

It looks like this might of been the cause for Amazon, and some other sites including the Register. I’m not quite sure what happened but someone talks about it on Redidit:

Wed Apr 01 | 14:37:03 >: nslookup xxx.xxx.com ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
Edit: Just got off the phone with Register.com support. The technician admitted to me that they have had a “server failure” and the problem is affecting all of their customers.

Although this post suggest they had a server failure, I am not quite sure what happened but I am going to let you figure that out!! This is some really good information go on Twitter. So you can try to figure it out some more for yourself.

Oh a side not, I’ve gotten the right RSS feed working, if you want to subscribe to my site and get automatic updates with full text just subscribe to my feed.

Mac Users aren’t Immune, so stop broadcasting “You’re glad you have a MAC”

Paul

With the Conficker going on right now, I am seeing more and more Tweets about Mactwitconficker and

twitconficker

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Now I might not know a lot but this type of Smug confidence will be the downfall of the Mac’s in the coming years.  I have to ask do you not expect to get a virus at ALL?    You see when a company like Apple starts to get above a certain degree in the eyes of the hackers.  They will become a target, not a big target but a target.

In one of my post I talk about [intlink id=”2173″ type=”post”]Mac’s and Botnet[/intlink], you should really read it.  It talks about why Apple will become the next fail whale.    Some other Articles to Consider are:

And So I went into Google to see the trends for “Mac Virus” and Here is what I seen:

Mac Virus Google Trend

As you can tell Mac’s Virus and Maleware are on the rise.  This doesn’t mean you have to worry about the Conficker worm, but you have to Worry.  Most Apple Users are over confident that they will never get a virus or maleware on there system to the point that they will install it because they think they won’t get it.   I’ve seen in the past where Mac users are [intlink id=”2801″ type=”post”]download programs illegally[/intlink] just because they think they are not going to a Virus or Maleware.

It just gets me going when I constantly see people post about how they have a Mac.  I guess that Mac Ads are working but soon very soon they will change.    Although the mentality of the Mac not getting a virus is so god like that one day something like the Conficker worm will hit Mac’s exclusively because of the attitude of users.  Should Mac’s get anti-virus software, has been asked so many times in the past months that it makes me wonder.  Who has made this happen in the first place?  I’d have to point to Apple.  I don’t agree with there MAC Tax when it comes to buying a computer and will never pay for a mac.  So the next time I see people broadcasting they are glad they have a mac, I’ll just have to send them to this page!!  No Operating system is 100% secure or safe, even Linux systems can have viruses.

Setting the Record straight with Twitter and Cricket phones

Paul3 Replies

I found this video online and thought I would post it:


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As you can tell you won’t be able to use Twitter with Cricket phones but they are working on it. I however have been use [intlink id=”3065″ type=”page”]A600 Broadband Modem[/intlink] with Twitter without a problem. I have been using Tweetdeck as my platform of choice to use Twitter.

Although you can use the web based version Twitter, you won’t be able to SMS with Twitter just yet. I do hope they fix this really quickly, because I’d like to be able to use my phone to receive important updates.  I expect them to fix this in  the coming months when they bring out some new phones.  [intlink id=”3620″ type=”post”]Recently Cricket has let out the Smart Phones, with the Email capabilities[/intlink].   These phones, that have the email capabilities, can be used in conjunction with Twitter.  I talk about ways to use the newest phones to connect them with Twitter.

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The Seriousness of the Twitter Vulnerability?

Paul

twitter_110 The main question is how much do you want to know about this?  Yes I am talking about a Vulnerability that could risk your twitter account or even yet inject malious software into the computer.

[ad#cricket-right-ez]We’ve seen that there have been [intlink id=”2650″ type=”post”]twitter phishing[/intlink] in the past, and [intlink id=”3008″ type=”post”]Facebook phishing[/intlink] have made people wonder out much do we depend on Twitter.

Lance James and Eric Wastl have provide Proof of Concept for this vulnerability, according to Information Weekly:

James cautions that XSS vulnerabilities should be taken seriously because they can reach beyond Web pages. “A lot of people think XSS is limited to the Web,” he said. If there’s another vulnerability in the victim’s browser, the Twitter flaw could be used to launch additional malicious code, he explained.

As you can see there is more to this problem then meets the eye.  For one using the [intlink id=”2980″ type=”post”]URL redirects[/intlink] could be one way this could be used.  No telling what other vulnerabilities lay for the client side twitter programs.   Twitter has a long way to go to be security minded, and yet Twitter hasn’t said what they will do to fix this problem.

I for one would like to see this problem fixed just as quickly as possible due to the security risk involved to me, the consumer.  Twitter needs to jump on this and fix it to prevent any more attacks against there twitter audience. Although it doesn’t hurt to have [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Anti-virus And a good firewall[/intlink], it all depends on End user to prevent this for the time being.

Come on Twitter, Fix this problem.

Oh My I got the Presidents Attention!!

Paul

I just got an email telling me:

Barack H Obama (PresidentBarak) is now following your updates on Twitter.

So I go to the click the link and I see this:

barakobamspam

Wow, I didn’t know I was this influental to get the Presidents attention(NOT).

barakobamspam1
http://www.economygrantprogram.com/

After checking out the profile I see that it has a link to a site that basically asking for your personal address and your email account. After I go check the site I see in really small catch you have to pay 3.95 for Shipping and Handling. Well You know what they say, nothing ever is Free. This looks to be a way to get email addresses to spam in the long run. I wouldn’t give them any information because this is looking to be a scam and I hate scams. You best bet is to go on with your life and report this spam to twitter. This however got my attention because of the who it was, and that is probably why they chose the name. It is however quite funny. 🙂