While on MySpace or Facebook you may get a message similar to this, “Oh my god! Someone sent me a video of you at that party you went to a while back. I cannot believe you were doing that! Were you drunk or high or something? LOL… If you want to see the video, I took the liberty of uploading it for you. You can download and watch it from this link HERE.” If you get an email or a private message like that, beware!! It very well may be a new type of virus targeting social networking sites these days. The virus is being referred to as ‘The Koobface Virus‘ and normally will be sent to you via email or personal message on these sites. If you fall for this trick and happen to attempt to play the so called video you will normally get a message saying that your version of Flash player is out of date and needs to be updated before you can actually watch the video. This is where the virus gets you. If you choose to go ahead and update your Flash player you will be asked to download a file something like ‘flash_player.exe‘ or ‘flash_update.exe‘. Once you run this file it will allow your computer to be used as a zombie PC which is normally used to make botnets. It will basically allow your computer to be used by other people without your knowledge to do all sorts of illegal activity. It may also take your search engine submissions and route them to other affiliate search sites. This way if someone buys something from one of these affiliate search sites, the person who created the virus will make money off of each sale. The virus will try to start up with your computer every time you turn it on. Most of the bigger AntiVirus programs have already identified this new threat and updated their virus definitions to detect and clean it. However if you happen to fall victim of this new virus the best thing you can do is to get some good AntiVirus Software and scan & clean your entire PC. Then it would be a wise decision to change your Facebook and MySpace passwords as well…

Another new threat that is appearing all over the Internet and now on most social networking sites are pop-up boxes that look very similar to what antivirus alerts look like. These normally will say something to the effect that it has detected a dangerous virus or security issue on your computer which needs to be fixed immediately. It will normally ask if you would like to fix it now and if you click yes it will direct you to a site where you can download so-called specialized software to remove the virus or threat from your computer. Sometimes it will want you to pay for some type of antivirus software or offer a free one to you. Keep in mind that this is all a type of scam to scare you into thinking you have a dangerous virus even though you do not. However if you do install the software they are offering you, 9 times out of 10 the program is completely worthless or fake and you will be downloading a program loaded with viruses or malware from them. Hence the real trouble begins…

Even Twitter is susceptible to malware, viruses and types of threats these days. The newest one to hit Twitter is called “StalkDaily“. Infected computers will auto tweet messages to all of your followers. The messages normally say something like this, “Hi. You should check out StalkDaily.com. It is a site similar to Twitter but with videos, pictures and a lot more.” It has also been known to disallow you access to your own Twitter account if you are infected. Once someone visits StalkDaily.com the site automatically attempts to infect you and your Twitter profile. Apparently you can even become infected by clicking on infected user’s profiles now. For instance numerous people have reported that by clicking on the Twitter account of a user called GangsterBoy, they also became infected. The Twitter spam team is aware of StalkDaily and is currently working on ways to shut down the virus. If you think you may be infected there are a few things you should do. First of all you should log out of and external Twitter applications you may be using such as TweetDeck. The second thing you should do is to clear your browser cache and all your cookies. In IE you can do this under Tools / Internet Options / General / Browsing history / Delete (check Temporary Internet Files and Cookies then click Delete at the bottom). In Firefox you can do this under Tools / Clear Recent History (checks Cookies and Cache then click Clear Now at the bottom). The third thing you should do is to change or reset your password on Twitter. The last thing is after logging back into your Twitter account you should go through and delete any and all tweets that were sent to you that have anything to do with StalkDaily or StalkDaily.com…

With all the new threats out there even some of the most popular sites can seem like scary places to visit. However there is no need to avoid these places as long as you are smart about what you download and what links you click on. Here are a few other simple things you should do to avoid becoming infected. If you are using Windows, always make sure to download and install all the latest updates and patches from the Microsoft Update site (http://www.update.microsoft.com). Another thing you should always do is to turn on your Microsoft Firewall (http://www.microsoft.com/security/firewalls/faq.aspx). Lastly it is always wise to install a good antivirus program on your computer before braving the Internet. There are even some good free ones out there that have great reviews and will help keep your computer clean from infection. ]]> http://sscommerce.com/blog/uncategorized/twitter-facebook-social-media-sickness.html/feed 2 http://sscommerce.com/blog/uncategorized/what-is-adware-what-is-malware.html http://sscommerce.com/blog/uncategorized/what-is-adware-what-is-malware.html#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:34:36 +0000 admin http://sscommerce.com/blog/?p=17 Understanding Adware and Malware just a little better.

Malware includes computer viruses, the trojans, most of the rootkits, the spyware, fraudulent adware and various other malicious as well as unwanted software. Let us explore some of them to know how they infect our computers.

1.Trojan Horse:
Trojans can infect your computer through many routes, especially when you download a file or application. Say, you download a calculator program. You install it and the calculator works all right. Gradually problems arise in your computer -when you browse the Internet you begin to get bothersome pop-ups. Then pop-ups come on your monitor at random even when you don’t explore the Internet. This nasty pop-up program had been concealed within that calculator program and its installation rooted itself inside programs which previously existed on the computer.

2. Rootkit in the e-mail attachment:
Rootkits are one or more that one programs that gets installed in your computer and hide themselves and slowly start taking control of the administrative privilages. It can even modify the vital configuration of the operating system. For instance, you receive a funny video from a friend and after you double-click one security warning appears but you click OK and continue. Later you get to know that your friend did not send you any video. In reality something occurred in the backdrop when you had clicked on that video, a malware got installed. Though nothing can be noticed but your computer may be utilized like bot-net drone for attacking the websites or even other computers.

3. Spyware in the “drive by download”
It happens at times that on clicking any link in your search results you instantly get pop-ups. Then you close those pages but still you get some weird errors. You might think nothing damaging could have happened and you merely “drove by” that website. Though you did not set up anything but the software flaw of your computer allowed that website to install malware without authorization. As a result your system gets malware resident. All information you enter in web like the forms, the login pages or chat and whatever websites you visit can be transmitted towards the site of the hacker.

Bad adware generally penetrates the computer at some point during web surfing. The programmers craft software which functions as virus or as Trojans. For instance, you download one peer-to-peer client for file sharing which includes hidden adware. The ads start showing up once program files have been loaded onto your system. Then the program might plant the tracking cookies, the keyloggers or even perform invasive hard drive scans. If undetected, the malicious adware program could transmit the numbers of credit card, your passwords and pictures plus other susceptible and sensitive personal information to the deceitful people who might take advantage of it.

The usual functions of malware are

- robbing your private information along with address book.

-flooding and hijacking the browser with the pop-up advertising.

- spamming the inbox with its advertising email.

- slowing down your connection.

Adware can affect your computer in 3 ways:

It might slow down your computer through adding sites plus using the available memory. Your homepage can be hijacked by adware and it directs you to websites which don’t interest you.

It permits pop up ads which are not just infuriating but also very disruptive to the system.

Adware is one serious security risk. As they run each time you start the computer, they trigger slowdowns along with software conflicts which makes the computer unstable.

Your system can be infected by the malware in many ways. Malware usually comes packaged with the programs like Kazaa, iMesh, and similar programs of file sharing programs. Then some malware come from some websites too.

Adware is downloaded without you knowing as people generally do not wish to see ads every time they run one program. Adware is attached on the program downloads which you want. A number of freeware programs contain adware related with them and when you download it then you end up downloading adware which is enclosed with it. Some instances of freeware which has adware are the search engines, the updates of instant news as well as weather, cool mouse pointers, the desktop themes as well as backgrounds, P2P encodes for file sharing and the emoticons utilized in emails.

The purpose of the adware primarily is

- revenue generation for different software developers which is achieved by display of advertisements which are web based.

- trailing people’s actions on Internet so as to present ads which will interest you.

The purpose of malware is to partly control a user’s computer to

– subject a user to promotion
– present DDoS on the another service
– proliferate spam
– trail actions of users activity
– do frauds like identity thefts

Adware is employed by companies which design as well as offer freeware as a means of increasing revenue along with sustaining growth of programs. Adware is utilized to fund a free edition of a kind of software with the intention that potential customers be able to try it so that on liking it they can purchase the complete version which is non-adware supported.

Malware exists as its creators find it useful in realizing their goal which is that of cracking the security of diverse computer as well as network systems so as to gain accessibility into the computing resources illegally.

AVG is popular Anti Virus software which provides real-time virus shield which continuously scans the computer for the virus threats. If it discovers adware or malware it instantly alerts the user about the problem. It scans the file and can identify the section of a program or a complete program that is working a s a rootkit and can delete them successfully.

Kaspersky is very useful virus-removing software. It updates its database frequently and can almost always find out the program that is hidden in the file level. It scans emails, data trafficking activities, etc., to identify the adware or rootkit.

There are free and paid antivirus software. The paid anti-virus packages provide high levels of security and fast updates on finding new viruses along with excellent customer support. A paid anti-virus is ideal if you handle a business or keep delicate information on the computer. It is meager price you pay to ensure the securities of your data. The free programs are meant only for personal use.

With free anti-virus software it is found that the majority of the organizations providing free program additionally market the paid version of the identical software. This undoubtedly denotes that paid anti-virus software is different from free ones in that the former renders greater support to your system. In case of free software the support is restricted to the FAQs, emails and mostly on Internet community when detailed assistance is required.

Though the ‘signature’ updates for both paid and free AV are basically the same yet they are provided more frequently to the former as compared to the latter. Most of the paid anti-virus software includes an advanced ‘proactive’ component which helps avert the system from getting infected. On the other hand the free ones aren’t that good at preventing adware and malware from entering your computer.

Initialization of The Process of Phishing: In the name of an authorized institution some fraudulent individual or organization send an email to the individual or a company. They structure the email in such a way that the recipient is tempted to click on the URL of an unknown site, which has been designed professionally and seem to be legitimate. For example, you might receive an email from a bank where you have an account, stating that your credit card has undergone a transaction of certain amount and that clicking on a particular link could lead to stop payment. This provokes you to click on the suspicious link as you realize that there has been no transaction of that kind recently and thus you end up revealing your personal details, unintentionally ending up in revealing your personal information These emails come from a fake website that has no connection with the reputable merchant or in this case the bank. The website has been framed in such a way that you are prompted to enter your personal data, such as name, password, credit card number or any other forms of personal information. Then, the information gets saved in the database of personal information of the thieves stealing identity online. After the con artists achieve their goal they carefully abandon the email address and the website.

Consequence of personal information leakage With the personal information in hand the fraudster starts misusing the detail to withdraw money from your account and use your credit card for buying things from online or conventional stores. They might also use your accounts to buy new products or services or sell them. For example, they can carry out any kind of transactions for travel or hotel reservations.

Your personal information can be sold to other institutions at high prices who hire these frauds to obtain such details.

Since these frauds expertise in this field, they do maintain fake personal information about themselves, which makes it difficult for you to catch them.

Link manipulation Phishing involves the use of some technical deception, which has been designed especially to make a particular link, fitted into an email, seem to belong to a particular organisation.

The use of misspelled URLs and subdomains are some of the major tricks applied in this field. For example, if the URL is [ www mybank section1com / ], it appears as the URL takes you to ’section1′ of the ‘mybank’ website. But in actual sense it takes you to the ‘mybank’ section, which is the phishing section of the ’section1′ website.

There is another common trick of phishing, that is, to make anchor text for a particular link seem to be valid, while the link takes you to the phisher’s site. Where the URL takes you can be previewed and verified in such cases in the lower left hand corner of the browser.

Handling of Internationalized Domain Names enhances further problems. This takes you to malicious websites. Open URL redirectors are used on the websites of the trusted organizations so that malicious URLs are disguised with trusted domain.

Escape from filters Phishers use images in phishing emails instead of text so that anti-phishing filters find it harder to detect commonly used text in phishing emails.

Ways of Website forgery The fraudulent make use of ‘cross-scripting’ to use flaws in the scripts of a trusted website, against the victim. Here the users are directed to sign in at the bank’s or service provider’s webpage. Starting web addresses to security certificates, everything appears to be just perfect.

The universal Man-in-the-middle Kit makes use of a simple and user friendly interface. The phisher is then allowed to give rise to convincing websites and thus extract all log-in information entered by the victim at the fake site.

Flash-based websites hide the multimedia object text but giving the website the look of a real website. These are the techniques used to avoid from being caught by the anti phishing techniques, which scan websites thoroughly.

Some websites place pop-up or pop-under windows asking a person to enter his/her credentials on the top of the website. These are quite appealing in their approach and hence the victim ends up giving out all personal details.

Damage caused is quite huge The denial of access to email and significant financial loss are the two main consequences faced by the victim. The IT sector is very much vulnerable to such phishing attacks and these attacks are quite severe. The financial sector is also equally vulnerable.

The banking bodies of some countries have made their customers aware of such phishing tricks and have also stated that it is mandatory for every customer to take precautions and not click on suspicious links.

Immediate Remedy The following steps can be undertaken: If you have given out your credit/ATM/debit card number or your bank account number then 1. Inform the issuer of the card on their toll free, 24-hour service numbers. 2. You can then cancel your account and open a new one immediately. 3. Review your bill statements

If you have downloaded a virus or Trojan then:

1. Install anti-virus software

2. Scan your computer thoroughly with the anti-virus software

3. Confirm every connection allowed by your firewall

4. Fix your system and then change your password

5. Check the latest updates with regard to your various accounts

6. Read the latest from the Internet Security Blog and Scam Awareness Forum

If you have given out your personal information then:

1. The theft should be reported to security freeze for Experian, Equifax and TransUnion Corporation ect… and they should be requested to place a fraud alert and ask for a free copy of your credit report

2. Inform your banks and tell them to flag your account and inform you in case of any transaction

3. Contact your local police department to file a complaint

4. Inform the Department of Motor vehicles and the Passport office

5. Lodge a complaint at the Internet Fraud Complaint Center

6. Keep track of all the people you talk to about the incident and maintain a record of all other correspondence

Kaspersky has incorporated anti-phishing database in their applications and this database is updated continuously. As a result whenever you receive a message in your mail box or encounter a pop-up from such sites it sends out audible plus text messages showing the threat. Recently, Kaspersky incorporated a highly reliable open source application provider’s database to strengthen their internet security programs.