Email and other scams

On-line scamming is getting craftier and a major economic slump could make the threat they pose to businesses even nastier. What sorts of strategies will they use? Social web sites and bot net engineering are two of those tactics.

With the continued proliferation of on-line social networking among individuals and across the large business enterprise. Companies will struggle with ways to control and limit the use of sites that could infringe on the use of non-public knowledge about there company. Although individuals see the benefits of social group sites. Many have also been well established and several of these are nearly household names with the younger crowds.

Even the 40-60 group have an interest in social linking. But the lack of proper computer knowledge, anti-virus software, other protective measures and a wide user base opens up many more opportunities for exploitation. Whether it is clicking on a malicious video in a MYSPACE  message or on a deceptive link on FACEBOOK, the dangers remain obfuscated, so anyone’s at risk.

Now, one asks how and why would a friend put a devious link on their social web page for me to click? The answer, they likely did not. A hacker did, though means of website database injection. So, instead of infecting one person’s page, they can inflict damage on a larger group as a resource to infect more victims of this illicit act. In turn, it basically makes the devious links seeds to install malicious software on your system. It could be a key logger, a virus, a root kit.. anything in the spy-ware arena is possible when this happens. Generally a root-kit, virus, or bot-net software is used. Software that can compromise your system to the most malicious level. This software essentially makes your computer system a mechanism to continue the threat.

Essentially it becomes a perpetual issue when not put into check. The behaviors of cons and hackers is not going to change anytime soon. It will continue to grow, and cost more people time, money and even possibly identity theft. Awareness will have to be raised though channels like this, and training in corporate environments to keep the employees focus away from social networks.

The fuel phishers will use to push the schemes, are based on common economic concerns, or the I or someone else is dying and needs your help with all this money we don’t know what to do with. From that fuel hackers, phishers and con artists will use social networking to confuse consumers into providing their financial information or clicking on links claiming to inform them of essential financial details. For example, phishing e-mails will continue to be seen which claim mergers of financial institutions or ask for verification of financial information. Also contributing to this economy-fueled cyber-crime will be increased layoffs of IT personnel who may turn to the “dark side” by joining up with Eastern European cyber-crime organizations and using their skills through the only outlets where they can find revenue.

While companies will try their hardest to cut back on expenses in 2009, for the reasons above, there will be a legitimate justification for an actual increase in IT security spending to prevent data loss that could absolutely cripple a company when they are already in the midst of difficult economic times.

With that in mind, it makes sense to remain focused about keeping your technology up to par. Keep software updated, keep Anti-virus subscriptions up to date and be mindful of what your employees may be doing on-line.

When in doubt, don’t click, install or believe anything you see on the Internet without proof positive!

Always seek professional help when you think you’ve been a victim..

QR Link to ITi

Building a social connection with your business

Today you are already behind if you are not using social media to add an extension of communication to your client base. Collaborative solutions are evolving daily and customers are looking for these connections to be involved with you or your business. Not using them actually can be detrimental to your online appearance.

More on this subject soon as I accumulate some notes taken from a recent event I attended.

Example: Farmers are embrasing social media. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1iXoEr/www.good.is/post/why-farmers-are-embracing-social-media-the-agchat-story/?utm_source=supr

Do I have spyware?

In general, Spyware is a term used for software that is downloaded to your computer generally without your knowledge.  The download could happen covertly or through your unwitting consent by such actions as clicking on a popup window that is either confusing or misleading.  Spyware performs certain behaviors such as advertising, collecting personal information or changing the configuration of your computer.

Unwanted Spyware is often a serious cause of computer system problems. It’s known to be software that displays advertisements (called adware) or software that tracks your personal or potentially sensitive information. What you should know is that it does not mean all software which provides ads or tracks your online activities is bad. For example, you might sign up for a free application, but “pay” for the service by agreeing to receive ads targeted to your interests or paid ads from major products. If you understand the terms and agree to them, you may decide that it is a fair tradeoff. You might also agree to let the company track your online activities to determine which ads to show you.

 Some Spyware pop-up products claim to be scanning your system, and then inform you of Spyware on your system, but in fact are a false lure. Another variation of this typical trickery is a pop-up which comes up on your screen announcing that you have a virus. The popup also claims that it should be removed immediately and can be removed if you just download the software or pay a fee to remove it. Both are usually along those same lines.  Slightly different variations are out there and the scams change often.

 Knowing if you have Spyware can become quite confusing.  Some spyware applications become viral and remain obscured by not actually performing any noticeable actions.  For the past few years most Anti-Virus providers cannot keep clear lines between Viral, malware or Spyware and don’t always protect systems %100 sufficiently.  During installation some Anti-Virus programs even notify you about another Antivirus or Spyware removal product you may be using.  The notice generally states the variation of the following.  To protect your system one or more programs must be removed for X to work properly. X being the name of the new antivirus. As a rule of thumb, that’s usually true. One program can confuse another, with the end result of the Spyware compromising your system. 

 The best way some common indications of the presence of Spyware are:

  • You see pop-up advertisements even when you’re not on the Web.
  • Your Web browser’s home page (the page your browser first opens to) or your browser search settings have changed without your knowledge.
  • You notice a new toolbar in your browser that you didn’t want and you find it difficult to get rid of.
  • Your computer takes longer than usual to complete most common or all tasks.
  • You experience a sudden rise in computer crashes, or your antivirus fails to load properly.

(This post is subject to review and corrections)

Google Link Shortening.

For sometime I’ve been using bit.ly, tiny.cc, tinyurl.com (there are others too.) But I finally find that Google has http://goo.gl/ for link shortening. To me this sounds great, I know they are data mining company, but only for relevant searches.  Not everything being shortened is worth the  attention.  So if you need to shorten some long http link from http://www.integralchicago.com/?page_id=2 to this http://goo.gl/S9A92 to save space on a tweet or facebook post. You may want to concider using one of the shortening sites if your not already.

Comments

 All,

I just wanted to take a moment, to advise some readers that comments are moderated by spam collecting software. in some cases you’re comments are legitimate, but I get so many genuine spammed ones, it takes time to read through the filtered ones. If you don’t see a comment on a post, don’t worry, it’s probably been read, but not posted due to the site having it filtered out. One notable comment is about Blackberry RSS support. I can see if there’s an easy plug-in to help, but last time I added such support, it left a security hole in the site. I’m also getting PHP injection attempts on the site, so I have to be cautious about what’s added.

 Regards,

 ITi.

Apple’s leftovers.

I recently went on a hunt to increase drive space. I cleaned up all of the the normal locations, and I also used an application called CCleaner. It’s a popular application. It’s free, however I recommend a donation to it’s maker to keep it avalible for others. It also helps it’s writer to keep making updates, that really keep your system cleaned up and it’s quite fast. What it does is clean up? Well a lot of common ophaned files from installations, and internet temp files. Plus a little more…

Now back to the point of this article. During the cleanup I discovered a directory that seemed rather large. 228 MB. It was an installer cache in the iTunes and other Apple applications directory. For Vista 32bit it’s located under “C:\ProgramData\Apple Computer\Installer Cache\” On a 64 bit systems, it’s “C:\Users\All Users\Apple\Installer Cache.” Warning, do not delete the latest or only remaining folder of a single name. In my case I paid for the Quicktime Mpeg decoder, and if I deleted it, it could potentially cause a problem if I wanted to perform an application repair later.

Basically what you want to do, is look at the date of each redundant folder, each should also have a version id in the folder name.  So if I have Apple Mobile Device Support 3.0.1.3 and 3.1.0.62 I should only delete the one with the leastrecent revision change. That would be 3.0.1.3 in this case. You really only need these if the latest version is really buggy and nothing works like it should. But weeks or months later (even years in my case) you won’t need the multitude of left over version changes unless your writing the application. Now with this knowlege in hand, you can navigate to the locations as indicated above, and delete directories that are wasting space on your drive.

Any questions? feel free to contact ITi on facebook.

Examples:

 
 

 

Obfuscated ?

What’s that mean? Well in simple terms it basically means to make computer programming look like gibberish. It’s always on purpose. It’s intention is to hide the real use or code that makes a program tick. It keeps other writers from basically stealing code from other programmers. The other simple purpose could be used to hide information from just a casual web user. Like information that is collected from your browser or computer, or an other web based application connection. Not all obfuscated code is full proof, but works rather well. The only unwanted effects I’ve see is when you have a social networking application such as face book or twitter open in your web browser. It tends to be available though plug-ins to other sites. I found this out recently, through www.life.com. the comments section had my FaceBook account ready for comment. I found this an unwanted side effect. Fortunately though obfuscation of code, I can’t tell where the connection is completely made. It’s probably an API ( Application Programming Interface) or plug-in, or even a script in combination on the life.com site. Now with life, I’m Likely safe with this. But if I went to another site in the open world, there’s a potential for a high risk of information theft. Such as obtaining my FaceBook name, and other information from my computer to build a profile. Add an e-mail address and then you’ve built a recipe for eventual information theft. So to play it save, log off FaceBook before you surf anywhere else, unless it’s your intention to leave comments on sites such as life.com.

New Audio, Video, Controller connections standard

I really like IT, and I also dig the gadgets that move to the AV feild. Such as Apple TV, Tivo, etc… I learned recently that the http://www.hdbaset.org/ including Sony, Samsung, LG and Valens semiconductor have moved forward with looking to standardise 10base T ethernet cable as a single point of connection. To me that sounds excellent idea that always lingered in the back of my mind. I actually even use ethernet now for some old analog connection plates in my home. IT would remove so many cables in the already spiderweb of cables used with AV equipment. I look forward to this technology in several ways.

Penny Auctions

So I took a look into penny auctions, and quickly figured out each bid you and anyone else makes costs 1.00 per each bidding. The price is raised a penny per bid, by every bidder and the time ticks up a few seconds. The cost might appear to be 380.00 for a laptop, which if you won, would be the final price you pay. But here’s the sad side. You might pay that cost, but the bidding company actually just raked in tons of cash. $38,000 + your paying the winning bid price 380.00. + shipping and every $1 you spent to get that winning bid. So who’s the real winner? The penny auction company of course. It’s a fantastic deal for them to have spent 4000.00 on a laptop, and turn it into a huge profit. Nearly 10 times what they payed is returned! So really is it worth it to try it? . . . It could be if you can wait it out long enough to win.