How to Solution Here

Refer to my previous post on what you can do to get rid of the viruses using disk cleanup steps.

To further clean your system, clear your browser cache:

To clear the browser cache:
1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click Tools button from menu on top
3. Select Internet Options
4. Click Delete Cookies and click OK.
5. Click Delete Files, put a check mark on “Delete all offline contents” if there is such line, then click OK.

My computer was infected with WProxp.exe and I used the Trend Micro antivirus software to find that out. However, it was only able to identify the files not able to get rid of it. The message information was that you  have to delete these files yourself but the antivirus software was not able to do that for you. They were able to quarantine some files but the WPROXP.EXE is a very virulent one and not going to go away so easily.

This is what I find out :

Do a disc cleanup, by following these easy steps:
1. Click on Start.
2. Go to Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools>>Disc Cleanup
Note: If disc cleanup is not present from the step above, kindly open My Computer, right-click the harddisk drive (for example: Local Disk (C:) and click on Properties. Disk Cleanup would be right at the bottom.
3. You will see that it will calculate for free space, so please wait.
4. Then, you’ll see a checkbox list. Please check all boxes.
5. Then, click on Ok.

This is the first step. Watch out for my next post if this step doesn’t do the trick.

Website Security Rules of the Road

More and more people are attracted to the ease of online shopping and are spending higher

amounts. Unfortunately, the chances of becoming a victim of Internet fraud are also increasing.

While many e-commerce Websites are reputable and have taken the necessary safety precautions

to protect you, it never hurts to always proceed cautiously. If you are making an online purchase

consider these easy steps:

1. Use only one credit card, preferably with a low credit limit, when making online

purchases. Avoid using an ATM or debit card.

2. Be wary of unsolicited offers by sellers. While the offer may be legitimate, spammers

like to use this tactic to side-step reputable sites that provide consumer protection for online

purchases.

3. Use only reputable e-commerce websites that list a street address and telephone number

in case you need to contact them directly.

4. Read the website’s privacy policy. Some websites may reserve the right to sell/give your

information to a third party. Check the document to see if they allow an opportunity to “opt-out”

of receiving special offers from third-party vendors or for permission to share your personal

information.

5. Check for a lock symbol in the status bar at the bottom of your Web browser window.

Also, do not provide your personal information if the website address doesn’t start with “https” (a sign that the site is using a secure server).

6. Choose only verified sellers. Check to see if the vendor is a verified member of a

reputable third party such as the Better Business Bureau, VeriSign, or Guardian eCommerce.

These third-party sites help to ensure online consumers will be protected when shopping or

conducting e-commerce transactions.

7. Check that the delivery date posted is reasonable. If you have not dealt with the vendor

on a regular basis, be wary of any Website that states the shipment will be delayed 20 or more

days. Delivery dates of 7-10 days are more common.

8. Keep a paper trail of all online transactions. Print out a hard copy of the transaction and

keep it in a file for future reference.

9. Be wary of website offers that just sound too good to be true. The Internet is littered

with get rich quick scams and false advertising claims. Investigate all claims thoroughly before

proceeding.

10. If you do not receive what you paid for, and the vendor will not return your emails or

calls, contact your state’s Department of Consumer Affairs for further assistance.

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

Securing Your Computer System

Today, more and more people are using their computers for everything from communication to

online banking and investing to shopping. As we do these things on a more regular basis, we

open ourselves up to potential hackers, attackers and crackers. While some may be looking to

phish your personal information and identity for resale, others simply just want to use your

computer as a platform from which to attack other unknowing targets. Below are a few easy,

cost-effective steps you can take to make your computer more secure.

1. Always make backups of important information and store in a safe place separate from

your computer.

2. Update and patch your operating system, web browser and software frequently. If you have a Windows operating system, start by going to www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com and running the update wizard. This program will help you find the latest patches for your Windows computer. Also go to www.officeupdate.microsoft.com to locate possible

patches for your Office programs.

3. Install a firewall. Without a good firewall, viruses, worms, Trojans, malware and adware can all easily access your computer from the Internet.

Consideration should be given to the benefits and differences between hardware and software

based firewall programs.

4. Review your browser and email settings for optimum security. Why should you do this?

Active-X and JavaScript are often used by hackers to plant malicious programs into your

computers. While cookies are relatively harmless in terms of security concerns, they do still

track your movements on the Internet to build a profile of you. At a minimum set your security

setting for the “internet zone” to High, and your “trusted sites zone” to Medium Low.

5. Install antivirus software and set for automatic updates so that you receive the most

current versions.

6. Do not open unknown email attachments. It is simply not enough that you may recognize the address from which it originates because many viruses can spread from a familiar address.

7. Do not run programs from unknown origins. Also, do not send these types of programs

to friends and coworkers because they contain funny or amusing stories or jokes. They may

contain a Trojans horse waiting to infect a computer.

8. Disable hidden filename extensions. By default, the Windows operating system is set to

“hide file extensions for known file types”. Disable this option so that file extensions display in Windows. Some file extensions will, by default, continue to remain hidden, but you are more

likely to see any unusual file extensions that do not belong.

9. Turn off your computer and disconnect from the network when not using the computer.

A hacker can not attack your computer when you are disconnected from the network or the

computer is off.

10. Consider making a boot disk on a floppy disk in case your computer is damaged or

compromised by a malicious program. Obviously, you need to take this step before you

experience a hostile breach of your system.

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

What the Heck are Botnets?

“A botnet is comparable to compulsory military service for windows boxes” - Stromberg  (http://project.honeynet.org/papers/bots/)

Botnets are networks of computers that hackers have infected and grouped together under their control to propagate viruses, send illegal spam, and carry out attacks that cause web sites to crash.

What makes botnets exceedingly bad is the difficulty in tracing them back to their creators as well as the ever-increasing use of them in extortion schemes.  How are they used in extortion schemes?  Imagine someone sending you messages to either pay up or see your web site crash. This scenario is starting to replay itself over and over again.

Botnets can consist of thousands of compromised machines. With such a large network, botnets can use Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) as a method to cause mayhem and chaos. For example a small botnet with only 500 bots can bring corporate web sites to there knees by using the combined bandwidth of all the computers to overwhelm corporate systems and thereby cause the web site to appear offline.

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service on January 19, 2006, quotes Kevin Hogan, senior manager for Symantec Security Response, in his article “Botnets shrinking in size, harder to trace”, Hogan says  “extortion schemes have emerged backed by the muscle of botnets, and hackers are also renting the use of armadas of computers for illegal purposes through advertisements on the Web.”

One well-known technique to combat botnets is a honeypot. Honeypots help discover how attackers infiltrate systems. A Honeypot is essentially a set of resources that one intends to be compromised in order to study how the hackers break the system. Unpatched Windows 2000 or XP machines make great honeypots given the ease with which one can take over such systems.

A great site to read up on this topic more is The Honeynet Project (http://project.honeynet.org) which describes its own site’s objective as “To learn the tools, tactics and motives involved in computer and network attacks, and share the lessons learned.”
Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

Who are the Players in the Antivirus Industry?

Everyone in the United States has heard of the leading antivirus

vendors Symantec, Mcafee, Computer Associates, and Trend Micro.

These companies have market-leading presence in the United

States.  Microsoft, as well, has plans become a key player in

this market.  Microsoft acquired intellectual property and

technology from GeCad software in 2003, a company based in

Bucharest, Romania.  They also acquired Pelican Software, which

had a behavior based security as well as Giant Company Software

for spyware and Sybari Software, which manages virus, spam, and

phishing filtering.

A lot of discussion has centered on whether Microsoft with come

to own a dominant position in the antivirus market by simply

bundling its technologies with its operating systems at no

charge.  This is a similar technique applied in other markets

such as word processing and Internet browsers.

Of course there are a number of antivirus vendors who also play

in this market. There are many companies with great market

presence in other countries that are beginning to become more

widely known. These vendors include GriSoft out of the Czech

Republic, Sophos in the united Kingdom, Panda Software out of

Spain, Kaspersky in Russia, SoftWin in Romania, F-Secure in

Finland, Norman in Norway, Arcabit in Poland, VirusBuster out of

Hungary, and AhnLab in South Korea.

It is not clear where the industry is heading and everyone in

this market faces a rapidly changing landscape. The amount of

effort to find and provide fixes for viruses is staggering.

Malicious programs are getting more complex and the number of

them is increasing.  Many companies may find themselves without

the resources to match the efforts of those truly bent on

creating havoc.  Some virus companies are getting of hundreds of

new samples a day! Moreover, the new viruses are getting

“smarter” in that they propagate themselves quickly and they

often hide themselves and are smart enough to move around in a

system by renaming themselves in an effort to make it hard to

remove them.
Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

About Encryption and Making Your System Secure
What does encryption do for me?

Encryption and cryptographic software has been used in many different ways to make systems more secure. This article discusses only a few ways that such software can make your system more secure, including:

1) Encrypting your email

2) Encrypting your files

To programs are mentioned that will help encrypt information. There are many more programs out there that will help, but these programs are good and a good place to start as any. They have the added benefit of both being free with source code available.

Will encryption stop people from accessing my information?

Encryption simply makes it harder for people to gain access to important information, like passwords or sensitive information in a file. The first thing you should know about encryption is that the algorithm that is used to encrypt can be simple or more complex and that affects how securely what you have encrypted is protected. Encryption systems have been broken when the method of encryption is understood by hackers and is easy to break.

Why bother to encrypt my email?

It should be noted that email is far less secure than paper mail for two very good reasons: first, electronic data can be accessed easily over an Internet and secondly, electronic data is really simple to copy. There is a very good chance that someone has snooped around in your email despite your best intentions to stop it.

How do I go about encrypting my email?

There are many programs out there that can help you encrypt your email. A very popular one is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or its Gnu offshoot GPG.

PGP (http://www.pgpi.org/) self-describes itself this way: This “is a program that gives your electronic mail something that it otherwise doesn’t have: Privacy. It does this by encrypting your mail so that nobody but the intended person can read it. When encrypted, the message looks like a meaningless jumble of random characters. PGP has proven itself quite capable of resisting even the most sophisticated forms of analysis aimed at reading the encrypted text.”

Why bother to encrypt my files?

The answer to this boils down to what you store on your computer. If you have financial data with important information like social security numbers, email addresses, account numbers and passwords, then you open yourself up to losing very valuable information. Most corporate Internet security employees will attest to the widespread theft of very valuable information. As long as you are connected to the Internet you are vulnerable.

How do I go about encrypting my files?

AxCrypt File Encryption Software (http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/) Self-described as “Free Personal Privacy and Security for Windows 98/ME/NT/2K/XP with AES-128 File Encryption, Compression and transparent Decrypt and Open in the original application.”

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

Phishing For Your Identity

Who hasn’t received an email directing them to visit a familiar website where they are being asked to update their personal information?  The website needs you to verify or update your passwords, credit card numbers, social security number, or even your bank account number.  You recognize the business name as one that you’ve conducted business with in the past.  So, you click on the convenient “take me there” link and proceed to provide all the information they have requested.  Unfortunately, you find out much later that the website is bogus.  It was created with the sole intent to steal your personal information.  You, my friend, have just been “phished”.

Phishing (pronounced as “fishing”) is defined as the act of sending an email to a recipient falsely claiming to have an established, legitimate business.  The intent of the phisher is to scam the recipient into surrendering their private information, and ultimately steal your identity.

It is not at easy as you think to spot an email phishing for information.  At first glance, the email may look like it is from a legitimate company. The “From” field of the e-mail may have the .com address of the company mentioned in the e-mail.  The clickable link even appears to take you to the company’s website, when in fact, it is a fake website built to replicate the legitimate site.

Many of these people are professional criminals.  They have spent a lot of time in creating emails that look authentic.  Users need to review all emails requesting personal information carefully.  When reviewing your email remember that the “From Field” can be easily changed by the sender.  While it may look like it is coming from a .com you do business with, looks can be deceiving.  Also keep in mind that the phisher will go all out in trying to make their email look as legitimate as possible.  They will even copy logos or images from the official site to use in their emails.  Finally, they like to include a clickable link that the recipient can follow to conveniently update their information.
A great way to check the legitimacy of the link is to point at the link with your mouse. Then, look in the bottom left hand screen of your computer.  The actual website address to which you are being directed will show up for you to view.  It is a very quick and easy way to check if you are being directed to a legitimate site.

Finally, follow the golden rule.  Never, ever, click the links within the text of the e-mail, and always delete the e-mail immediately. Once you have deleted the e-mail, empty the trash box in your e-mail accounts as well. If you are truly concerned that you are missing an important notice regarding one of your accounts, then type the full URL address of the website into your browser.  At least then you can be confident that you are, in fact, being directed to the true and legitimate website.

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

How to identify the 10 deadliest viruses which bring down your PC

Every day new computer viruses are created to annoy us and to wreck havoc on our computer systems. Below are ten viruses currently cited as being the most prevalent in terms of being seen the most or in their ability to potentially cause damage.   New viruses are created daily.  This is by no means an all inclusive list. The best thing you can do is to remain vigilant, keep your anti-virus software updated, and stay aware of the current computer virus threats.

Virus:  Trojan.Lodear
A Trojan horse that attempts to download remote files. It will inject a .dll file into the EXPLORER.EXE process causing system instability.

Virus:  W32.Beagle.CO@mm
A mass-mailing worm that lowers security settings.  It can delete security-related registry sub keys and may block access to security-related websites.

Virus:  Backdoor.Zagaban
A Trojan horse that allows the compromised computer to be used as a covert proxy and which may degrade network performance.

Virus: W32/Netsky-P
A mass-mailing worm which spreads by emailing itself to addresses produced from files on the local drives.

Virus:  W32/Mytob-GH
A mass-mailing worm and IRC backdoor Trojan for the Windows platform.  Messages sent by this worm will have the subject chosen randomly from a list including titles such as:  Notice of account limitation, Email Account Suspension, Security measures, Members Support, Important Notification.

Virus:  W32/Mytob-EX
A mass-mailing worm and IRC backdoor Trojan similar in nature to W32-Mytob-GH.  W32/Mytob-EX runs continuously in the background, providing a backdoor server which allows a remote intruder to gain access and control over the computer via IRC channels.  This virus spreads by sending itself to email attachments harvested from your email addresses.

Virus:  W32/Mytob-AS, Mytob-BE, Mytob-C, and Mytob-ER
This family of worm variations possesses similar characteristics in terms of what they can do.   They are mass-mailing worms with backdoor functionality that can be controlled through the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network.   Additionally, they can spread through email and through various operating system vulnerabilities such as the LSASS (MS04-011).

Virus:  Zafi-D
A mass mailing worm and a peer-to-peer worm which copies itself to the Windows system folder with the filename Norton Update.exe.  It can then create a number of files in the Windows system folder with filenames consisting of 8 random characters and a DLL extension.  W32/Zafi-D copies itself to folders with names containing share, upload, or music as ICQ 2005a new!.exe or winamp 5.7 new!.exe. W32/Zafi-D will also display a fake error message box with the caption “CRC: 04F6Bh” and the text “Error in packed file!”.

Virus:  W32/Netsky-D
A mass-mailing worm with IRC backdoor functionality which can also infect computers vulnerable to the LSASS (MS04-011) exploit.

Virus: W32/Zafi-B
A peer-to-peer (P2P) and email worm that will copy itself to the Windows system folder as a randomly named EXE file. This worm will test for the presence of an internet connection by attempting to connect to www.google.com or www.microsoft.com.  A bilingual, worm with an attached Hungarian political text message box which translates to “We demand that the government accommodates the homeless, tightens up the penal code and VOTES FOR THE DEATH PENALTY to cut down the increasing crime. Jun. 2004, Pécs (SNAF Team)”

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

How to beat spam in 5 steps

How prevalent is Spam? According to Scott McAdams, OMA Public

Affairs and Communications Department (www.oma.org):

“Studies show unsolicited or “junk” e-mail, known as spam,

accounts for roughly half of all e-mail messages received.

Although once regarded as little more than a nuisance, the

prevalence of spam has increased to the point where many users

have begun to express a general lack of confidence in the

effectiveness of e-mail transmissions, and increased concern

over the spread of computer viruses via unsolicited messages.”

Hackers are getting more sophisticated.For example, Botnets are

becoming more complex and harder and harder to catch and stop.

Do a search on botnets on the Internet. They really are causing

a whole lot of problems, but it does not stop there. The number

of viruses and malware out there is staggering.

In 2003, President Bush signed the “Can Spam” bill, in December

of 2003 which is the first national standards around bulk

unsolicited commercial e-mail. The bill, approved by the Senate

by a vote of 97 to 0, prohibits senders of unsolicited

commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to disguise

their identity (spoofing) and the use of dictionaries to

generate such mailers. In addition, it prohibits the use of

misleading subject lines and requires that emails include and

opt-out mechanism. The legislation also prohibits senders from

harvesting addresses off Web sites. Violations constitute a

misdemeanor crime subject to up to one year in jail. One major

point that needs to be discussed about this: spam is now coming

from other countries in ever-greater numbers. These emails are

harder to fight, because they come from outside our country’s

laws and regulations. Because the Internet opens borders and

thinks globally, these laws are fine and good, but do not stop

the problem.So what do you do about this? Her are the top 5

Rules to do to protect from spam.

Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out

on the net. There are products called “spam spiders” that search

the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are

interested, do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed

at what you get back. Interestingly, there is a site,

WebPoison.org, which is an open source project geared to fight

Internet “spambots” and “spam spiders”, by giving them bogus

HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addressesA couple

suggestions for you: a) use form emails, which can hide

addresses or also b) use addresses like sales@company.com

instead of your full address to help battle the problem. c)

There are also programs that encode your email, like jsGuard,

which encodes your email address on web pages so that while spam

spiders find it difficult or impossible to read your email

address.

Number 2: Get spam blocking software. There are many programs

out there for this. (go to www.cloudmark.com or

www.mailwasher.net for example). You may also buy a professional

version. Whatever you do, get the software. It will save you

time. The software is not foolproof, but they really do help.

You usually have to do some manual set up to block certain types

of email.

Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach.

There are a lot of free email addresses to be had. If you must

subscribe to newsletters, then have a “back-up” email address.

It would be like giving your sell phone number to your best

friends and the business number to everyone else.

Number 4: Attachments from people you don’t know are BAD, BAD,

BAD.

A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and

attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters

that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far

more “open country” for spamers. General rule of thumb: if you

do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE

ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering.

Firewall vendors offer this type of service as well.

Number 5: Email services now have “bulk-mail” baskets. If what

you use currently does not support this, think about moving to a

new vender. The concept is simple. If you know someone, they can

send you emails. If you don’t know them, put them in the bulk

email pile and then “choose” to allow them into your circle.

Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but having

extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth looking

into.
Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com