A Word About Virus "Warning" Emails

So I get into work this morning, pour me my hot cup of Joe, and fix up my bowl of oatmeal. Like many people, I am just not in the mood for shenanigans for the first 30 minutes or so of work. Anyhoo, I open my email and there it was, a message from one of the office managers at one of our field offices asking me if everyone was aware of a virus she was "warned" about in an email. Now, to the simple loser...errr...user, this looks like a legit email. I mean Snopes.com "confirmed" it and everything.


Ugghhhh! I hate to break it to some of you, but Snopes isn't really an internet security authority. They have some fun info on Urban legends, but for virus warnings and what not, you need to turn to industry leaders for the real scoop. Companies like Trend Micro, McAfee and the like have indexes of hoax emails where you can check stuff like that without perpetuating the problem by sending out more bogus emails and getting people worried unnecessarily.

Marc Fossi of Symantec said it best when he wrote:

Who cares about a few extra hoax messages zipping around these sites? It’s their bandwidth and not yours after all. Well, the big deal seems to be with where people are placing their trust. They’re trusting that messages they get through these sites are authoritative and legitimate. They also trust links and applications they see on their friends’ profile pages. So what happens when one of these hoax messages also includes a link to a program that will “detect and remove” some super virus from your computer? How many people will follow that link only to have it lead to a page that exploits some Web browser vulnerability to install a real malicious program?

So what's the moral of the story? Same as it ever was:

• Always remain vigilant
• Never open a suspicious attachment
• DON'T FORWARD HOAX EMAILS!

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Google Fighting Malware

Today must be Google day. I just finished posting an article about using Google as a password cracker, and now I am posting one about the good side of the internet giant.

This one comes from Download Squad. They are reporting that Google has actively cleaned it's database of hundreds of thousands of malware redirect sites. Many of these sites earner high Google rankings by using bots to spam forums, and comments to artificially build up their back links.

According to Download Squad:

Google has cleansed more than 40,000 of these hosting sites from their index, so for now - it looks like the biggest source of this sort of attack has been taken offline.OK - you might be thinking, spam search results show up everyday - why is this a big deal? It's a big deal because the techniques used for these attacks was more clever and thought out than the typical SEO-poisoning. It's also a big deal just based on the sheer scale of sites and domains dedicated to hosting these links and because of the malware involved.

Great job Google! That will certainly help to reduce the number of spyware, trojans and virus calls I get on a daily basis.

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Free Antivirus and Firewall: Thanks Comodo!

One of my pet peeves is people with antivirus that is not up to date. Seriously now, why even have antivirus if you are not keeping it up to date?

For those of you out there that don't have your antivirus up to date because you are too cheap to renew your license, then don't fret! You are in good hands. I am a cheap skate as well.

Comodo is offering some fabulous FREE security software. Two of them I personally recommend, Comodo Antivirus and Comodo Firewall! Both of them come with a free lifetime license, which means no renewal fees ever! This also means, you can stay secure and still be a cheap skate!

"Who is Comodo?" you ask?

To quote their website, "Comodo is the 2nd largest Certification Authority for ensuring Identity Trust & Assurance on the web." Basically, they are one of the many company's out their that secure websites for banks and other businesses that do online transactions. (Kind of like Verisign). They offer the free software to get their names out there, a sort of free branding advertising if you will. Don't worry though, this software isn't ad-ware, and you won't be getting annoying "Buy me!' advertisements.

I am currently using Comodo's freeware on all of my computers at home, and they are working great! Uninstall your old, non-updated Antivirus now, and get Comodo in there right away! Don't leave yourself open to an attack.

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