tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15026613099993837922008-08-13T11:11:42.311-07:00Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-22232869215056821592008-08-13T11:07:00.000-07:002008-08-13T11:11:42.326-07:00

Don't click on links in those CNN or MSNBC "news alerts"! Or similar ones that will appear in your mailbox. Bad viruses and spyware will happen, along with possible identity and financial theft. Don't even try the "unsubscribe" links. If you think you have problems with spyware, then a great resource is the "Hijack This" folks. Start with their tutorial here to get the HijackThis! software,

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-35394070487321988862008-08-07T11:00:00.000-07:002008-08-07T11:01:12.177-07:00

Watch out for email messages about the Olympics that ask you to click on a link to watch a video or get more info. They will probably look a lot like that CNN spam that you might have seen earlier this week. The links in the CNN spam resulted in installation of viruses/spyware and keystroke loggers on computers. The Olympics spam will try to do the same. When (not if) you get those "Olympic"

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-84094434168246462232008-08-07T10:59:00.000-07:002008-08-07T11:00:13.976-07:00

Watch out for email messages about the Olympics that ask you to click on a link to watch a video or get more info. They will probably look a lot like that CNN spam that you might have seen earlier this week. The links in the CNN spam resulted in installation of viruses/spyware and keystroke loggers on computers. The Olympics spam will try to do the same. When (not if) you get those "Olympic"

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-69215003353379593462008-08-05T13:02:00.000-07:002008-08-05T13:08:48.686-07:00

New malware'd email with subject of "CNN.com Daily Top 10", or something similar. The emails come from random users, probably nobody you would recognize. The message provides links to the 'top 10' CNN videos, many with 'attractive' titles. But the links will send you to a page that only looks like CNN's video site. The page is actually hosted on a compromised web site. The page name is usually '

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-17705044686034202262008-08-04T13:54:00.000-07:002008-08-04T13:55:56.117-07:00

The recent earthquake in LA showed that the phone network will probably get overloaded in any localized emergency. One of the things that you want to do in emergency preparedness is to be able to contact you family. You establish a central meeting place, or a way to communicate with your family. Most people will automatically reach for their cell phones. And they'll probably get a busy signal,

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-34534748913674518772008-07-19T19:58:00.000-07:002008-07-19T20:16:10.781-07:00

I was reading Peter Glaskowsky's blog (Speeds and Feeds here) where he posits that some of his mail sent through Comcast (his ISP) is being blocked because his Comcast IP is on a blacklist. I was going to add a comment, but it was getting long, so I thought I would explain my theory here. So, first, go read his blog entry. I'll wait. Then come back here for my theory. Welcome back. I don't

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-57827272333345788362008-07-15T11:21:00.001-07:002008-07-15T11:23:41.445-07:00

So, who has the passwords to your network? Is it possible that this could happen to you? From the San Francisco Chronicle: " A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday. " Story here . If there is

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-74814034011270545422008-07-14T13:33:00.000-07:002008-07-14T13:36:35.291-07:00

Do you have a good backup for your money? The story about the "IndyBank" takeover by the FDIC should remind you that you need to be careful about the insurance level of your bank deposits. Deposited amounts over $100K (for single person) are not insured by the FDIC. Maybe it's a good idea to make sure that your deposited funds are insured for the full amount. If you've got over $100K in one

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-11738790423717757042008-07-09T13:28:00.000-07:002008-07-09T13:32:41.360-07:00

Although it hasn't happened yet, it is inevitable that you'll see that headline soon. The town of Paradise has given 14,000 people immediate evacuation notices. On a map, that's almost all of the east side of that town. The Chico Enterprise Record (nearby newspaper in Chico CA) has a great map of the fire and evacuation areas here . There's a great potential for damage if the fire gets into the

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-69232120709069861532008-07-08T09:49:00.000-07:002008-07-08T09:55:50.504-07:00

The Microsoft Snapshot viewer, which is part of all versions of Microsoft Access except Access 2007, has a vulnerability that is being actively exploited by rouge web pages (or web pages that were not secure to begin with). The vulnerability allows the attacker to run a program on your computer, like a keystroke logger, or other 'bot' software that gives the attacker full control of your computer

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-85758802775685362972008-06-20T12:28:00.000-07:002008-06-20T12:49:21.413-07:00

What are you doing about your backups of your home computer? If your home computer is anything like mine, there are tons of pictures on there. Some (or perhaps most or all) of those are probably irreplaceable. The events of the past couple of months (urban fires, earthquakes, tornados, floods) have gotten me thinking about what would happen if that computer 'went away'. All of those pictures

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-23161831433847284292008-06-11T14:06:00.000-07:002008-06-11T14:07:52.041-07:00

Make sure that your MS updates have been installed. I've put them on several computers, no problems. They do require a restart. But there are some active exploits out there for the problems fixed by these updates. And remember to update your other programs (Adobe, Quicktime, etc). Some active exploits for those also. Safe computing works.

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-89438281629368108022008-06-02T14:14:00.001-07:002008-06-02T14:17:52.939-07:00

Apple's Safari browser has a serious vulnerability that lets an attacker silently download items to your desktop. This happens in Windows and Mac versions. The result is a desktop full of malware program icons (on Windows) and a pile of malware programs in the Mac Downloads folder. Apple's response? They have "decided to treat this as a normal product enhancement request and not a security

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-39564714334652901652008-05-23T13:16:00.001-07:002008-05-23T13:19:56.882-07:00

Found this on the State of California web site: "Maximum Search Relevancy : Webmaster Best Practices". Good information, especially if you run a web site or two (even just a blog). Link is here (pdf) http://www.webtools.ca.gov/Search_Service/pdf/BestPractices.pdf . The state's The Government Online for Responsible Information Management site has some other good info about Information Security

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-48012217744075738092008-05-02T09:51:00.000-07:002008-05-02T09:55:25.047-07:00

Do any international travel? Bring along your laptop or cell phone? Got any trade secrets or private information on there? Trying to get back into the US? Did you know that the US Customs and Border Protection guys can clone your hard disk or phone data, and you can't stop them? Here's the first sentence from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling (pdf) in United

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-24381890921598883022008-04-28T15:16:00.000-07:002008-04-28T15:19:33.934-07:00

Some German 'researchers' have published information about how they have infiltrated the "Storm-bot" bot network and disrupted it via poisoning their traffic (although at first glance it seems more like a denial-of-service). The story is here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/25/Researchers-poison-Storm-botnet_1.html?source=NLC-SEC&cgd=2008-04-28 I'd think they'd have to be a bit careful

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-88896410782243004952008-04-24T22:14:00.001-07:002008-04-24T22:16:10.087-07:00

A big SQL injection attack against hundreds of thousands of web sites. Many government and commercial sites have been infected with code that will try to install a password stealing program just by visiting a web page. It's not clear if anti-virus programs will catch this one yet. You can see the extent by doing a web search for "nihaorr1". DO NOT VISIT ANY OF THOSE LINKS! Google search may be

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-17547834310649552872008-04-21T14:12:00.001-07:002008-04-21T14:14:22.029-07:00

CNN has a new revenue source: t-shirts with CNN headlines. And the State of Oklahoma was letting you get a pile of personal information due to bad programming.For the t-shirt, create your own URL that looks like this: http://www.cnn.com/tshirt/?headline=Information%20Security%20knows%20where%20you%20go!&date=1208742566000&hash=e6019d52c9d91cc8eb4e077d85751edc&return_uri=http://www.cnn.com/video/%

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-62326330872035549582008-04-14T21:07:00.000-07:002008-04-14T21:50:56.751-07:00

We've talked before about 'safe computing'. One of the rule is that you stay away from the darker side of the net, and you keep your software current. Apparently, the folks at the Wall Street Journal's Business Technology blog don't exactly follow those recommendations. An entry last week had a link to a dark place - a web site where cyber-criminals sell credit card numbers. And they put the

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-2865916410716410712008-04-10T15:37:00.000-07:002008-04-10T15:39:06.442-07:00

Here in the US, it's almost time to get those tax forms submitted. Which means that there is an increase in the number of tax phishing emails. Repeat after me: "The IRS doesn't use email to ask for tax information."

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-50768015239425418212008-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:002008-04-01T12:38:17.822-07:00

Today is the day that you don't want to believe what you read on the Innertubes ... more than usual. You'll find lots of allegedly humorous pages trying to fool you. And lots of emails that contain links to malware. So, be careful out there. Now, please excuse me while I do a backup to my WORN drive (Write Once, Read Never). Can't be too careful.

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-49705890091736226012008-03-25T10:21:00.000-07:002008-03-25T10:25:00.800-07:00

Your hard disk's Master Boot Record (MBR) is the first thing that gets loaded when you start your computer, even before the operating system. What if you could change the MBR to load your very own special program? That would make your program the 'most powerful' on your computer, giving your program access to all sorts of potentially interesting things. MBR malware has been around for a while,

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-13296234209781976402008-03-17T15:07:00.000-07:002008-03-17T15:15:55.448-07:00

Sudden increase in spam that got through the filter over the weekend. Since most spam detection is 'reactive', using a database (or signatures) of 'known spam', a new spam campaign will likely get through your spam filter for a day or two. Since those messages were short (pun not intended), a dictionary-based blocking wouldn't work. Only when the spam databases get updated with the latest attack

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-89973194191002871322008-03-14T11:05:00.000-07:002008-03-14T11:14:16.555-07:00

The TrendMicro folks (anti-malware vendor) got hit by a web site defacement. But they weren't the only ones. There's hundreds of thousands of sites that will try to install password-stealing software on your computer. (One story here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/13/Password-stealing-hackers-infect-thousands-of-Web-pages_1.html ). And the Internet Storm Center reports (http://

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1502661309999383792.post-2764055752899003762008-02-26T11:17:00.000-08:002008-02-26T11:27:16.407-08:00

You might have heard about the new technique for getting data off of an encrypted hard disk by freezing the memory on the computer. (You can do your own Google to find more details.) The story has hit mainstream press. Am I worried? Only if someone physically gets to my computer, just after a power-down (or hibernate). Protection? Several choices -- the ones you use depend on the

Rickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02934294111916960864rhellewell@gmail.com