Category: XP

Facebook Goes Phishing again

Paul

In one of my Previous articles about the Koobface Worm, I talked about the way they were infecting the systems and what you need not do.

It seems that Trend Micro has seen an even more rise in people downloading the WORM_KOOBFACE.AZ and Seems to be on the RISE. This is all done with a Social engineering and Has had some attempts before with this little worm on Facebook.

[ad#ad2-right]After your Infected with this new Variant, it searches for cookies and Sends out a message to people from:
* facebook.com
* hi5.com
* friendster.com
* myyearbook.com
* myspace.com
* bebo.com
* tagged.com
* netlog.com
* fubar.com
* livejournal.com

This seems to be a social engineering Nightmare for these websites and as yet are unsure what else it does but it says the same thing it did before by saying “This is a Video of You on the Street.” Which is bogus but none the less people click and think they have to download a codec or update their Flash. Social Engineering is on the rise and will be taken seriously. You should read the full report from Trend on what it does but you also should have an anti-virus and Firewall installed to prevent this from happening in the first place. The only true way of preventing this is not to be fooled, you should NEVER Download from a site you don’t know or trust. See all the Facebook articles for more information.

A Sneak Peak at the A600 3G Broadband Cricket Card

Paul

So I was doing a little research and found this nugget from my Affiliates Network:

Features:

Removable Memory Format:  microSD
Storage Capacity External memory up to 4GB
Text Messaging Yes
Contact Directory Yes
Language English/Spanish

Wireless Capabilities:

Technology CDMA
Mode Tri-Band
Data Transfer Speed 3G (EVDO Rev 0, Rev A) and 1x
USB Broadband Modem (A600) Looks interesting, and I am thinking this will be the next thing the company will start Advertising for. Right now though, it cost 119$ with a 50$ Mail in Rebate and you spend 69$. With a CDMA only USB Card like the UM100, you know the speed of that. Now According to Wikipedia for 3G and I’ll quote:

Thus users sold 3G service may not be able to point to a standard and say that the speeds it specifies are not being met. While stating in commentary that “it is expected that IMT-2000 will provide higher transmission rates: a minimum speed of 2Mbit/s and maximum of 14.4Mbit/s for stationary users, and 348 kbit/s in a moving vehicle,”

Now this is a much improved speed and I will be testing this in the future but for right now it is untested. I’ll have another article in the coming months about this. I also like the look of this but haven’t seen it first hand. The other thing I like is the the 4 Gigabytes of MicroSD memory. [intlink id=”3171″ type=”post”]I can see a whole range of useful programs you can install on the USB and make it Portable to a point[/intlink]. I’ll improve on that later on once I play around with what you can have on the card and what you have to have to use the USB modem. The Modem supports Windows 2000 through Windows Vista 64 Bit, also Supports Macintosh.

More to Come!!  (Check out the UM100 Review)

[ad#text-broadband1]

Rogue Fake Codecs on the Rise

Paul

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.

Microsoft Keynote CES 2009

Paul

[ad#ad2-right]

Some Key topics talk about in this Keynotes are:

Windows 7 — Lighter, Faster, and Reliability. Windows 7 Should boot quicker and faster, and enables cool new interface touch.

Windows 7 — Beta will be available Worldwide on January 9, 2009 and will be available for download on MSDN and Technet.  Also it will be available at : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7 For those who want to download it from Microsoft directly.

Windows Live Essentials — Windows live Messenger, Mail, and Photo Gallery works with Windows XP, VISTA, and Windows 7. It is available for download worldwide. Dell will also be putting this on their consumer and small business computers.

Windows Mobile — 11 Different Mobile phones.

Verizon Mobile —  Windows Live Search will be available through Verizon and it’s a partnership with Microsoft.

Demo of Windows 7, Live, and Mobile:

Windows 7 will have Windows touch and be able to use net books with Windows 7.

Windows 7 has been designed with the Touch DNA in mind.

Windows Mobile demo with an Panoramic display.

Windows Live Demo —  Various things they discuss here including Photo’s and Silver light.

Windows XBOX:

[ad#ad2-left]Halo Wars — Strategy game and will Available February 28, 2009. The Bungie Will have a demo version February 5, 2009 and will be available for download.

Halo 3 ODST — Will be available in the Fall of 2009. New Characters, new events and will be like Halo 3.

Various stuff about Xbox Live 360

These were just the main things that I thought was important to let people know what was mainly the important highlights of this keynote. I will recommend everyone to go and watch it for yourself, I am sure I’ve missed something that someone would consider very important and understand that. This however is a personal and will be different in everyone. I watched this and am excited and can’t wait for windows 7 to be released so I can get my hands on this and see how it fairs with a Vista CPU and GPU. So only time will tell. I hope you enjoyed this little run down. Please feel free to leave a comment and talk about this or anything else in the Disqus community.

Disaster preparation — 103 Hidden Partition

Paul

What is an OEM?

Many laptops or Desktops now a days have this hidden partition that is used for OEMS.  An OEM or original equipment manufacturer for those who don’t know is a company that sells a system with it’s own branding or services.  It varies from company to company just what they sell to the consumer.   Having Said that, let’s talk about this Hidden Partition.

Why do I have a Hidden Partition on my drive?

[ad]To simply put it, most likely it is there for a emergency backup for your Operating System.   It can be accessed through your boot up.  Most of the time if you press f11 or f12, some key combination to go to this hidden partition and restore the system to the  factory settings.   Now I tell you this to warn you that you don’t ever want to delete this partition because you need it to verify that in case you need a driver it might be there.     Now a days, most laptop and desktop sellers don’t want to include a backup CD or DVD in the box so they expect you do make one.   This is where the hidden partition comes to play.   This also used to make DVD or CD of operating system.

How big is the Partition?

That isn’t a simple question because most OEM’s like to vary partition to prevent them from being used in other OEM systems.   Now not saying it is hard to find out.  There are several tools used to backup this hidden partition but can cost to get to it.  Like my system, it takes up around 8 gigabytes of space on mine.   Others, I’ve seen, only take up 4 gigabytes.   It varies from branding to branding.   Also keep in mind that you want to backup this important partition just in case there is a problem with the Hard Drive.   This is really IMPORTANT: the Hidden Partition is only good for the hardware you have right now so it can only be used with that particular system.   Should you try it on another system, may have trouble or not work at all.

How do I back up this Hidden Partition or Even transfer it to another Hard drive?

If you wanted to change out your old laptop or desktop hard drive and put in a bigger and better hard drive.  You’d need to copy the old partition of the drive first to put in the new drive.    How do you do that?   Most laptops only have room for one Hard Drive so you might need to buy a cable for that laptop.   It’s call a USB to Sata Adapter and it allows you to hook up a second hard drive so you can copy from the original source.   This one I am showing you is good for both Laptop and Desktop it’s got all you need to make a back up or even copy the data off.

What software do I need to copy this Hidden partition?

There are several programs that will help you do this.   Each of them have there own look and feel to them.   These companies will support people who are wanting to backup there important Operating system.   Yes the operating system is important if you didn’t have that the hardware would just sit there.   Although there are free operating systems they do come with there own problems and solutions.  So let’s begin talking about the commercial backup software:

  • Acronis True Image — Backup your entire PC: Acronis True Image includes our patented disk-imaging backup technology. You can copy your entire PC, including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data. In the event of a system or disk crash, virus attack, or other fatal failures, you can restore the entire disk contents in minutes–no reinstallations required!

  • Norton Ghost 14.0 — Protects your computer with advanced backup and recovery: creates full system and file backups, restore from system failures, and back up based on schedules and events

  • Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 Personal — Partitioning, Manage disk partitions, Optimization and Defragmentation, Boot Manager, and Simple Backup Wizard

[ad#ad2-right]I will add more to my store when I find others that work well with doing the hidden partition.   You will also not that these are are the best to use when you want copy the hidden partition because they know about the hidden partition.  Other software might only copy the visible partition and ignore the hidden.  So that is why I talk about commercial software because there’s a person on the other end who could help you out.

These are just a few that will work for you, if you want to go find the free software by all means but I must warn you the free software doesn’t come with any warranties or someone who could help most of the time.  It is a pot shot with free software, some work well and others just make a mess.  There are some free back up software but most of the time they only copy the visible and not the hidden, so if you must go looking.  Go looking for the ones who say they can copy the hidden partition.   These are the ones you need use to back up your operating system.