Just a quick post for all Windows users that read this.
Hello, Bill here.
I wanted to let you know that we just posted our Advance Notification for next week’s bulletin release, scheduled for Tuesday, April 14, 2009 around 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. This should help you plan for your deployment process for next week and address these vulnerabilities to protect your computing environments.
With that Info,
Safer Surfing!
I don't know about you but my email box is still being flooded with spam. Yes, there are some laws out there that try (notice I said try) to stem the flow but they just are not working. It would be nice if the Governments, State, Federal and International, could get together and do something about it. The grass roots fighters are being left to hang. They collect information for all levels of law enforcement but it seems like it just isn't being reacted to. Now it's time to go to the top and I agree with an online colleague of mine that penned the following open letter.
An open letter to new US FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz
We very much support the efforts the FTC is taking to educate consumers about Internet fraud and identity theft, and we recommend that everyone view the excellent materials online at ftc.gov. However, those types of problems require a level of coordinated effort beyond what any one individual or business can accomplish. We urge the next head of the FTC to see the big picture. And one obvious part of the picture is spam.
Spam is like a flashing light alerting us to far more serious criminal activity beneath the surface. By minimizing the severity of spammers' offenses, you lose the ability to expose and investigate much deeper risks to the US, even impacting on national security.
Spam -- unsolicited commercial email -- is a nuisance. Because it is so inexpensive to advertise through email, spam volume has ballooned to comprise the vast majority of email messages. And the majority of the spam being mailed advertises products that are fraudulent or illegal, whose sponsors do not care about building a positive brand image. Most users have little idea how much spam would be arriving in their inboxes if their Internet service providers were not using strategies to block the worst of it
Please read the entire letter here and pass this along.
With that info,
Safer Surfing!
It is not uncommon for malware to have self protection measures in place to prevent removal. Such tricks as blocking access to security websites, killing beneficial security tool processes/services, and preventing Windows Updates from running are quite widespread today. They are definitely signs of infection but they are not unique to Conficker.
Take a look at the following Eye Chart.
If you fall into category 2 or 3 (those in red) please read How to Create and Post a HijackThis log, so that the helpers at SpywareHammer can determine what type of infection you have and help you remove it.
With that info,
Safer Surfing!
