Scream At The PC
A Techie's vents, frustrations, solutions and lighter side of lifeThe Hackers World – Are You A Victim
Posted on October 05, 2010A hacker is often considered a very dangerous fellow, one who is malicious and wants to exploit every electronic system that he can for either financial or personal gain. There is a flipside to this coin though…
A hacker is an artist who wants others to appreciate his work, whether it be through unscrupulous methods of creating worms, backdoors and SQL injections or through less disruptive measures like emailing you a descriptive memo on how to improve your unsecure network.
It is early on a saturday morning, your role is that of journalist – you have just had your third cup of coffee after having had stayed up all through the night. You have been working on a story for publication to the local newspaper, which you need to send in for proof reading to your editor. The thing is that somehow everytime you print your document there appears a picture of a skull and cross bones – you scan your computer for a virus yet again, which calmly tells you that there isn’t one? So what is your next step, you need to get this to the editor’s desk as soon as possible so that you can get your slice of free-lance pocket money that you desperately need to pay the bills… Who do you call at this hour, it is three in the morning? You end up googling for your answer only to be met with a whole page full of skull and crossbones… and then on your screen a dialog box opens up and the words “You have been owned!” wirng through your ears and the fear that there is nothing you can so about it. Then while you are thinking through your next courses of action, your 16 year old son comes down the stairs to fetch something to eat. Seeing your predicament, he calmly walks up to your machine – pulls out the network cable, opens a command prompt, fingers fly across the keyboard, closes everything -plugs back in the network cable and says good morning to you…
Your 16 year old just saved you… or was he the one who was messing around with you in the first place? Either way you are greatful and are determined to hire your son as your personal anti-hacker and are willing to let your son teach you better security on your computer.
Needless to say – there are hackers out there, not all are bad – however most aren’t on your side… get a few on your side and you may not fall victim as easily
Some will ask, this is all very well said – but what did the 16 year old son do to get the hacker off the system? In short he re-configured my firewall by closing unecessary ports, made my admin password more secure and then re-configured my IPsec to be much more secure… every process now requires an access token to be verified which can only be initiated by you “the journalist”
Is It A Virus Or A Hoax
Posted on August 31, 2010Everyone who has an ISP, understands, or at least knows about how hackers use viruses, Trojans and other web nasties, to infect and mess up your computer. No headline news there. (Unfortunately, we still don’t understand why they do it, or at least I don’t.) But hackers don’t have to write malicious code or hijack your browser to do some serious damage to your system. Oh no… A well written email with no attachments, can do the trick. They only have to start a rumor.
Hackers can easily manipulate you into trashing your own computer. All they have to do is begin a hoax.
What do I mean by that? Let me explain.
Ahem
Have you ever gotten emails from people you know that say something like: Scan your hard drive for such and such a file! If you find it delete it immediately! Pass this on. Warn everyone you know!
These emails are originally generated by a hacker and spread throughout the Internet to get you to delete files you need, thus creating havoc for your system. They are hoaxes.
Hoaxes work incredibly well for getting average people to cause their own computers to malfunction. the hacker doesn’t have to spend any time creating malicious code and a method of distribution, all they have to do is play on the human tendency for hysteria; send out a warning that something evil is spreading, and if you find it on your computer, get rid of it!
Recently I was tracking a thread on a forum, where the moderator warned everyone about a file that he found on his system that was a keylogger. (A keylogger is a malicious program designed to track your every move through monitoring your keystrokes.) He warned everyone to search for a file, ans2000.ini and, “delete the parasite.”
I scan my system every day, with several different virus/ spyware programs, and I never picked up this file with any of them, so I decided to do a Windows Explorer search for it. Sure enough, I found it on my hard drive. Oh My!
Before hitting the delete key though, I looked it up on the web. I Googled the specific file and found quite a bit of information on it. The file ans2000.ini is used in the keylogger program known as ProBot SE. However, it is also used in many other legitimate programs as well. Ok, so now what do I do?
Well, I being a tech guru decided to open the ini file, in Notepad, and read it. Sure enough, this file did have an association to another program on my system. It is part of ActivEbook Compiler. It was right there in print, at the top of the file.
Now had I just freaked out when I found the file, and deleted the parasite, I would’ve trashed my ebook compiler, making it useless to me. Two points for the hacker who started the hoax!
Hoaxes are just as dangerous as live viruses, because they inspire you to destroy your own programs. I am sure they are a particular kick for the one starting the hoax, as they are getting you to do bad things to your own system. Fear is a powerful motivator, and hoaxes, by design, are created to cause panic and fear in the less experienced Internet traveler.
So, before going and deleting files from your hard drive, go check them out or ask me… Do a google search for them and read the information you find. Don’t just go deleting things without learning about them first, or you just may end up cutting your own throat. And, NEVER forward these types of warning emails to others until you know for a fact that the information is correct, or you’re likely to have your friends and family after you for misinforming them.
think before you oops
Another thing to watch out for in emails are scams:
Scams are illegal schemes that are operated and run through the Internet. The scammers send legitimate-seeming email messages to random email addresses. The content of the email varies but the object is the same: to separate gullible people from their money.
Some email messages tell the recipient that they have won a very large prize in an international raffle. The scammer may use the name and logo of an internationally recognizable institution. There would usually be a deadline for claiming prizes, a contact number and, later on, demands of money for opening an account, paying taxes, bank service charges, etc.
There are also email scams that ask the recipient for help in transferring a large amount of money into a bank account in exchange for a very generous commission. The sender masquerades as a wealthy philanthropist, a bank manager, etc. who merely wishes to honor the deceased owner’s wish (or his wish, if the sender is supposedly the owner) that money be transferred to an overseas bank account so that a son can be sent to hospital or so that the authorities won’t be able to get their hands.
Tell-tale signs for scam emails are when they ask you to deposit a large sum of money into their account, if he had the money in the first place – why would he ask you for it?
Resources for validating virus/ hoax/ scam information:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/
http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
http://www.vmyths.com/
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/