Why Norton users do it wrong with Passwords

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.

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

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

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!

Facebook malware sending people to junglemix.in Phishing!

fblightfacebookphish

It looks like this is the newest phishing attempt for the Facebook community.  According to Sans, there is malware trying to send out messages to go to “junglemix.in”.  I visited the site and it redirects me to “http://fblight.com/”.   This is a phishing site because you can see from the address bar.   As of writing this post, it has been flagged by Phishtank that this is a phishing site.  I am glad people are reporting these types of sites to prevent people from getting there account stolen.

Find out the other phishing attempts that have been talked about, keep yourself safe.  Also this is a good time to[intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”] install some free Anti-virus or Free Firewall[/intlink] software to help protect your computer from Malware.

Cellular Modem common problem — DNS LOOKUP

With Cellular Modems being used more and more, the common problem is:

Address not Found Address not Found

This is something that comes with any ISP the DNS lookup problem. In which your connection acts like a VPN connection, it connects to a cell tower and then gets transported to the nears server and then goes on the internet. The Server does the DNS lookup for you and send you to the right page. There seems to be a problem with my Cellular DNS server because it doesn’t have a complete list and if it doesn’t know where you to go you get that screen.

[ad#cricket-right-ez]So I found an easy way to fix this problem. I have been using my Host file to tell my computer the IP of the server that I am having the problem. So how do I find out the Ip of the server? This can be a problem to an extent.

I found that visiting the OpenDns.com Cache check will tell me the internet protocol of the server for the time but it could change. I just edit the host file manually and insert the need information by hand. Like I said the IP may change from time to time depending on where you are going or if it is a big server. The servers ip will rotate to help the bandwidth and keep it even on all servers, so this only works with servers that have a Static IP.

There is a program that will help you manage your host file it’s called Hostman and this does makes editing your Host file a little more easily. I have used this and I haven’t found anything that does do anywhere better than this. If you have a suggestion on a good Host Manager, please tell people in the Forums or leave a comment. I’d love to hear some good programs to help update the Host file more easily.