Barack Obama isn’t leaving the White House!

Paul

In a story from Sophos, some e-mails are going around saying that Barack Obama is not going to be president or that he will not be inauguration.   Sopho’s also makes a great comparison for the two sites and it does try to look like the official site.

obama-fake-blog

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Which if you click on the “Continue Reading” link it will try to send a file “Speech.exe” which is W32/Waled-Gen or Mal/WaledPak-A.   It is a fake site to look like the real site, it is never a good idea on clicking on links that looks real. For those of you who want to watch the Inauguration online I would suggest Hulu:

You can watch it happen when it happens. So sit back relax and enjoy the show!!

How Serious is the Downadup.b/Conflicker Worm?

Paul

In there latest post F-secure has updated how many people are infect and I’ll quote:

Today’s calculation is a total of 8,976,038 infections worldwide and 353,495 unique IP addresses.

That’s a quite a big difference compared to our last number — there will be a follow up post coming soon to explain the methodology.

[Via F-secure]

F-secure has noticed it went up from 3,521,230 infections worldwide. This Worm has doubled in over a day.  So I have done some twitter searching to see if anyone has recently tweeted about this and I find this one comment:
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WTF? suddenly my antivirus is popping with warnings about a W32.Downadup.B … but I havent received any attachs or installed anything!

[Via Twitter Mklopez]

I’d thought I show you how important it is for you to get ready for a very hard fight ahead of yourselves.  You see this hasn’t even begun with this worm.

Here’s are some of the tweets:

2 customers, have this conflicker.worm problem and we are trying every possible solution but nothing turned out to be solved

[Via Twitter  Candegger]

@carnal0wnage Hey happy new year, what malware one of my clients just had a large outbreak of the conflicker virus, pretty good virus

[Via twitter MarcoFigueroa]

[ad#ad2-right]This worm doesn’t need to be downloaded because it will use exploits that are currently unpatched in the systems .  This worm seems to be spreading by USB sticks and you should really turn that off. If you think you’ve gotten this virus, please check out my Malware Resources and also some of the other post about this worm:

I hope these resources help you fight that worm and help people get your system back to normal.

Check out my other Posts about Conflicker/Downadup Worm.

Does Apple’s Steve Jobs Have HIV?

Paul

After a sudden announcement that he was taking a leave of absence from Apple due to all the controversy of his health?  We must ask our selves why?   I came across a website with a picture of Steve Jobs results about having HIV.   I must ask Is this likely?

With any operation, There is a chance of?

As you know when you have an operation you have a chance of dieing, of blood transfusion, of complication from the surgery, or a multitude of possible outcomes.  We don’t know happen during surgery for Pancreatic Cancer and he probably had blood transfusion also.  So what did happen during the surgery?  That is a very good question.

We know he wrote a letter to all the employees of Apple:
team ,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve
That comes from Apple web site Wednesday and I have some questions to ask?

He says “He learned that my health-related issues are more complex than originally thought.”   So I have to wonder if he just learned that he has HIV?  This is what will have to be addressed sooner or later.   Anyone want to ask the question to Steve Jobs?  I’ll let you decide if it is true or not but it does bring up some very interesting questions, like will he return in June or will he Retire?  I just have all these questions.

Update

I came across this site claiming it has been circulating in emails about this HIV status.  They also claim this is false, I do not know if it is true or false.   I don’t think Steve is being totally honest with the Apple community and would like him to be truthful to everyone.   I think the only way Steve is going to stop this is to release his records to the public.   I don’t know if he actually has  HIV.  I don’t have any good contacts to tell me one way or the other but I do know that anything is possible in this day and time.

I don’t know if this is fake but Only time will tell. If you want to comment please go ahead and discuss this!!

Microsoft issues 1 Major update 1-13-09

Paul

Well it has been release Microsoft issued an update to the system:

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Vulnerabilities in SMB Could Allow Remote Code Execution

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-001 – Critical (KB958687)

This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution on affected systems. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect networks from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter. Best practices recommend that systems that are connected to the Internet have a minimal number of ports exposed.

This is one of those updates you really need to install as soon as you can.   You should also get a free firewall or buy one.  I looks to be a vulnerability in the ports and if you’d have a firewall besides windows you should be safe but that is besides the point.   If you are security congenious then you should install this update ASAP.  If your worried this will effect you system then you will need to backup your system before you do this update.  If you feel you’ve might of been infected with this Vulnerability you could always go get a free antivirus program and scan your system.  This is the sure way of fighting a Virus and making sure your safe, although people argue that Paid virus programs are quicker to be updated with virus databases, it’s all in the matter of preferences.

Blasting the Downadup.b/Conflicker back to the Stone-age!

Paul

It has been talked about the last few days where there is a worm hitting the computers who haven’t done the Microsoft Update MS08-067 which was release out of cycle and still have some systems has not been patched.  It has also been reported that it is spreading around the internet really quickly.   According to Computer World:

[ad#ad2-right]The worm, which was first reported by Panda and other security companies on Dec. 31, 2008, exploits a vulnerability in the Windows Server service that’s part of all currently supported versions of Microsoft’s operating system, including Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.


[via Computer World]

It seems Microsoft has scolded people who haven’t patched for the October emergency update. Accusing users of playing “Russian Roulette”  and scolding them for not promptly updating their system to remove the vulnerability.

Symantec Blogged about this security of this program and how it was a variant of Downadup.b.  It also talks about how they are seeing an even more increase on this worm that was supposed to be patched by people who use Windows 2000 Server.

[ad#ad2-left]F-secure did a post about Downadup/Conflicker and how they took an Preemptive domain block list for this worm.   They have also seen an increase in this worm and they are trying to prevent this worm from gaining ground.   Talking about this being a network worm, in more ways then one.  Some have even seen it being sent through USB drives.   If you have a system you want to protect you should stop autorun.

Here are some links to better help you get this worm off your system:

In order to remove this worm, you must do a complete system scan with any of the free virus scanning programs.  You’ll need to update your virus database before you do the scan.  You may even want to try the free virus scanners tha are online to get rid of this worm.   These should help you get rid of this worm, but you must remember to install the update or you will get the worm again.  The MS08-067 Patch should be installed as soon as possible you can find the patch here.