Saturday, January 31, 2009

Skype Users..

Folks, if you use the very popular VoIP program Skype - as I do - you need to be aware of some recent cybercriminal activities.

1) The fake "Windows needs immediate attention" attack is active again. Please see, Skype — "Windows Requires Immediate Attention".. Not!

2) There's a new attempt - using a trojan - to steal your account information. Please see, SpySkype.C Trojan Wants to Talk to You!

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.jaanix post to jaanix

Friday, January 30, 2009

Simple Yet Important Tip

Most everyone has read in the news about Monster.com and USAJobs.gov (both career job seeking and posting sites) being illegally accessed and account data being taken.

Most of you are probably wondering, what’s the big deal?  So what, someone has taken usernames, passwords and email addresses to a career site. Just change the password, as instructed, and you will be fine. Wrong!

Please click this link to continue, whether or not you have ever used these two sites. Why the security breach at Monster.com and USAJobs.gov is a BIG deal…

And, yes, please-- watch the short video.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Stop Error Solution #8 - SigVerif

Vista Stop Error: "A recent hardware changes, or unsigned driver, has prevented Windows from loading.."

The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is an error screen displayed by  Microsoft Windows after encountering a critical system error which can cause the system to shut down to prevent damage. (They are not always blue anymore - sometimes you see a black screen, saying only "Stop: 0x000000F1", or some other similar, 'helpful' hexadecimal string - but they are still called "bluescreens".)

Bluescreen (Stop errors) on NT-based Windows systems are usually caused by poorly-written device drivers or malfunctioning hardware. Way back when dinosaurs roamed, in the Win9x era, incompatible DLLs or bugs in the kernel of the operating system could also cause BSOD's. (There are different types and causes of stop errors, a good summary can be seen here.)
With Vista, it can happen when an unsigned device driver is found.

Microsoft got a a little tired, I guess, of taking the rap for the poorly written, and often amateur, device driver-caused BSOD's. (People tend to blame Windows for the crash..) And so they, over the years, have tried various ways to get the hardware vendors to write and release good driver software, and rewarding those that did with the coveted Microsoft Compatible seal of approval (usually a logo on the box), and placement on the WHQL (Windows Hardware Compatibility List). But.. hardware vendors build, box, and ship, devices, not program code, or study all the minutia of the OS kernel.

Digital "signatures" (in this instance) are one way to determine if the driver was written by the kid down the street. When a driver has been tested and approved in Microsoft's own labs, it gets a super-special digital certificate. And with Vista, you pretty much gotta have that driver, or expect stop errors. These Microsoft-signed drivers are available through Windows Update, and the "Update driver" feature (a subset of "Add new hardware").

(For more on troubleshooting and/or installing device drivers, see my Plug and Play series.)

Tip of the day: In Windows XP and Vista there is a utility that you can use to scan your all your installed drivers. It will report any it finds that don't have a "signature". This is a great way to 'zero in' on the (possible) cause of the Stop error.

Use the Sigverif.exe tool to identify unsigned device drivers installed on your Windows XP/Vista computer. To use the tool, perform the following steps:

1) Open Start menu, select Run, type Sigverif and then click OK.

The File Signature Verification tool will open. Click "Start".

sigverfif1

The scan will run, and hopefully produce the following result...

sigverfif2

But if it finds anything, it will produce a list of funny-named files... like "msndis5.sys" which are your unsigned drivers (or, they're signed.. but not Microsoft super-specially signed). Hopefully it will be a list of one.

2) Use your favorite search engine to find out what the funny-looking driver belongs to. (In my example, it turns out that msndis5.sys is a part of NetStumbler - a very popular wireless "hotspot" locator.) Now you will know which device, or program, needs your attention to cure the BSOD.

3) Remove the offensive device driver.
There's options to how you go about this. In the case of my example, it is a program. So, I can uninstall the program, or look for a newer version (update) of the program.
If it were a device, I would go into Device Manager (see, If It Ain't Broke - Don't Fix It), select the device in question and try:
* "Update driver. If that says 'no dice' ("The best software is already.."),
* "Rollback driver". If that is not available, or fails to stop the Stop errors,
* "Uninstall", then reboot. Windows will reinstall the device, and it will grab the driver from the WHQL.

Hopefully, this will resolve your issues. If not, you should start looking at your hardware itself. I've run long, so..

Today's free download: Google Calendar Sync.
For anyone who relies on a digital calendar to keep them on track, Google Calendar Sync is a must-have application. The free download isn't fancy or even pretty--a simple log-in and options list comprises the system tray icon. However, the meat of the application is what it can do, which is flawlessly add details of Outlook calendar items to Google's Calendar, and vice versa.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.jaanix post to jaanix

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Bummer. I only won 200,000 Euros this time...

YOUR E-MAIL ID HAVE WON.‏

From:
 sugerencias (sugerencias@presidencia.gov.py)
Sent:
Tue 1/27/09 6:57 PM

To:

ANNOUNCEMENT YOUR EMAIL ID HAVE WON. 
ANNOUNCEMENT MICRO WORD.COM CORPORATIONS.

CUSTOMER SERVICE:
MADRID SPAIN/ESPANA.
APARTADO DE CORREOS 48, 28230 las Rozas,

REFERENCE NO: MSFT-2008-X74-RS
BATCH NO: MSFT-2008- GM-0221

OFFICIAL WINNING NOTIFICATION.

Welcome to Microword.com Corporation end of year promotions, We are
pleased to inform you of the released results of Sweepstakes Promotion
organized by Microword.com Corporations, in conjunction with the
foundation for the Promotion of software products, held this Jan 24th
2009, here in Madrid-Spain.

Your email address emerged as one of the on-line Winning emails, in the
1st category and therefore You have been approved for a cash award
200,000.00Euros (TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND EURO) this is from a total cash...


* Micro Word??? Who are we trying to sound like?

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

How To Cure A Malware Infection

3 Easy Methods

What do you do when your PC is displaying all the signs of having been infected and/or hacked but your antivirus and anti-spyware scan reports come back clean.. or fail to remove the infection?

This was the case for a fella who called me for advice recently. He had done things 'right' -- and by that I mean he has a firewall, he keeps his antivirus definitions up to date, sick and he runs a couple of anti-spyware applications -- but suspected his machine had been hacked anyway.

He couldn't do things he was used to doing (like deleting a file) and his machine was "really slow." But according to his scanners, his machine is in perfect shape!
He was right, btw, he was infected.

Tip of the day: If you should find yourself in a similar situation there are several steps you can take to help resolve your questions and (hopefully) fix your machine without taking the drastic step of wiping your hard drive, formatting, and reinstalling Windows.

The first step is to use a scanner that isn't installed on your machine. Here's two ways to do that: one, if your antivirus allows it (and most of them do these days), follow its instructions and make an antivirus recovery disk. This is a bootable disk that scans your system before Windows loads.
[note: for a quick method to create an AV disc, keep reading..]

To use one, put it in your CD tray and restart your machine. A plain-text sentence will appear telling you to "press any key to boot from CD..." When you see it, hit your spacebar or, well, any other key, and then follow the instructions. When it's finished, remove the CD and restart your machine again. (You may need to set the boot order in your BIOS. For instructions, click here.)
[note: you may also use a properly prepared USB thumb drive. Click here to read my article on how to do that.]

A second method is to use an online scanner. I have a list, with links, of several good online scans on my website, here. Quite a few of the online scanning tools will try to sell you their full application, but you're under no obligation to buy. The big advantage to these two methods lies in the fact that they have not been compromised, or altered, and the files and scanners on your machine may be-- the modification being done by the virus or hacker.
[note: most modern malware blocks access to these sites. But you should try anyway.]

Another thing to do is scroll down to my "Today's free download" and download HiJack This!. Run it and dump the result into a .txt file (there's instructions for this) and then register on one of the HiJack This! forums (there's instructions for this too) and post your results there. Before too long, an expert anti-malwareologist [don't bother looking: I just now made that word up] will have looked over the intricacies, and will post their analysis and instructions. These folks are really, really good at what they do, and you can trust their answers. These volunteers get a big tip of my hat.

Hopefully these efforts will be rewarded with a rejuvenation of your machine, and you will be back in business again.  If not, you have my sympathy. You may have a rootkit and then your best solution is to re-format your hard drive and reinstall everything, or enlist the aid of a professional. There's no shame in that last -- the modern versions of viruses and worms are devilishly difficult to remove.

Today's free downloads:
HijackThis™ is a free utility which quickly scans your Windows computer to find settings that may have been changed by spyware, malware or other unwanted programs. HijackThis does not clean infections, but creates a report, or log file, with the results of the scan. A large community of users participates in online forums, where experts help interpret the scan results to clean up infected computers.

Avira AntiVir Rescue System This is a small download that, when launched, will create a self-contained anti-virus disc with the latest definitions. All you have to do is insert a blank CD. (You may have to go to an un-infected machine to do this..) It will boot even if your machine won't load Windows. Avira gets a big tip of my hat for offering this free tool, too!

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Hacker Theft Could be the Largest Credit Card Crime in History

Hackers breach Heartland Payment credit card system

Heartland Payment Systems hpy on Tuesday disclosed that intruders hacked into the computers it uses to process 100 million payment card transactions per month for 175,000 merchants. The number of victims is still unknown.

Heartland's disclosure coincides with reports of heightened criminal activities involving stolen payment card numbers. Security firm CardCops has been tracking a 20% year-over-year increase in Internet chat room activity where hackers test batches of payment card numbers to make sure that they're active.

To read the full news story, click here.

My two cents: This is why, folks, you don't want to get all excited about "cloud computing", or allow your governments to create large "databases".. like a "national health registry", or "crime database".. and why I don't use "online backup" to store my files.
Why trust someone else's server? The Conficker outbreak shows you how well servers get patched..

I feel bad for the folks at HPS.. the cost to clean this up is going to be astounding..

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.jaanix post to jaanix
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Portable Word/Reader Questions*

One of my more popular articles discussed using a thumb drive to run applications (to read it, click here), and my two previous articles discussed Microsoft Word (click on "MS Word" in the Tag Cloud), which led to two reader questions which I think are worth posting -- in the Q's and their A's format.

Q: Is there a version of Word I can run on my U3 thumb drive?
A: There are tremendous advantages to running programs from a thumb drive (particularly when using someone-elses' computer), and there are many programs already developed that are designed to do this, which are called "portable".
The answer to this question is: no... and yes. Microsoft has not released a portable version of any of the programs in the Office suite, and I have not read of any plans to do so in the future. However, that doesn't mean you cannot find warez and hacks out there. Loyal friends and true of this blog know that I would never advocate advocate the use of this kind of software; aside from the question of legality, the security risks are simply too great.

That is not to say you cannot run a word processor from your thumb drive. If you have loaded your thumb drive with the Portable Apps suite, palogo.jpg(wildly popular, and previously recommended here) you already have the free Open Source suite of programs called Open Office which includes a "clone" of Word called Write. This works so much like Word that there's practically a zero learning-curve.

Users of the U3 system of thumb drives u3logo1.jpgneed to download Open Office to add it to the installed programs. To do this manually, visit http://software.u3.com/, which will show you all of the U3 programs available-- listed by category. But the easiest way is to plug in your thumb drive and launch the U3 "Launchpad" from the System Tray, and click on the "Add programs>>" link.

You might also want to consider using MS Works, which is Word compatible. For more on that, click here.

Q: Can I use portable Write to read Word documents?
A: The two main portable word processors (and there are others, if you're the experimental sort) -- Open Office's Write, and the platform-independent AbiWord-- allow you to open, and edit MS Word documents. They also allow you to save to HTML, PDF, and Word formats (this step is taken in the Save As menu) which allows you to send your documents to anyone.

Today's free link(s): You needn't put these word processors on a thumb drive to use them (and get to know and love them). Click the links in the paragraph above to get free word processing power for your regular computer as well.

* Original posting 10/19/07

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.jaanix post to jaanix
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