Once more into the breech… Ok you’ve taken account of the software and services on your pc. The next thing we need to talk about is knowing your network. Do you have any wireless access points? Not sure? Print servers? How many pcs? Are any of them portables? Public access? Are all of them secured?
Tag: PC
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The CIA/FBI virus revisited
I’m sure you remember the CIA/FBI virus a few weeks back. There was a German version of this and apparently one individual took the warning email to heart and turned himself in for child pornography. Found this at Sunbeltblog and f-secure.
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Disinfecting a PC… part 2
Ok, the last post got a bit long with the hijackthis log, but I wanted to include the whole picture. I put a few comments in, but thought it might be useful to include the notes I took at the time. For starters I leave it unplugged from the network. (There is no network card in this machine.) It’s important when working on an infested PC to leave it isolated so that it can’t continue to spread viruses or spam or whatever it may be doing. Assume if it’s infested with something that it could be spewing out bad stuff. If you must, isolated it and prevent it from routing to the outside world… the safest is usually to leave the cable unplugged for the initial look over.
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Disinfecting a PC… part 1
This is the first in a several part series documenting the cleaning of an infected PC. The only real noteworthy item is that it was a dial-up only connection and was rather infested for that. (On par with some of the broadband connected pc’s I’ve seen. It’s also an interesting counterpoint to the network security series.)
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Beware: Wolves in sheeps clothing found on different sites (security scams)
This is another “wolf in sheeps clothing” alert. The Sunbelt blog has information and tips on a number of other sites that are posing as either the Windows security center page, or a page not found error. The windows security center spoof once again claims the following “Attention! Your system is under control of remote computer with IP address >>>>>>> The remote computer has access to the following folders on your PC: \windows\system32 \program files\internet explorer \my documents drive C;\ files, click here to download official anti-spyware software. Your private info is collected by w32.sinnaka.a@mm”
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Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 1 – A Hardware firewall
Computers can communicate over networks. (Surprise!) That’s how you’re reading this post. The machine that this site is hosted on is listening for requests for connection. When it receives a request it answers back with a web page. In fact, computers can listen for a great many different kinds of connection at the same time. In networking we talk about a computer listening on a given “port”. The web server for this site (and most web sites) listens on what’s called port 80. There are 65535 possible network ports that a computer can listen for incoming connections on.
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How-to – NXserver on OpenSUSE
I’ve played around with NXserver before and been impressed with it’s speed (and quality) of remote X desktop over slow connections. It’s been about a year since I’ve actively looked at it, but I found this how-to yesterday from madpenguin. The how-to is related to getting nxserver up and running on OpenSuSE using freenx (a free version of NoMachine’s NX server).
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Most home pc users lacking on PC security…
Surprise!!… ummm wait, no… This article has come out while I’ve been in the midst of cleaning up a Windows ME pc that has been “0\/\/ned” (owned/controlled…) by someone other than the owner for a bit over 15 months. The system had NO antivirus, no firewall (no antispyware) and used dialup for internet. (That much said, this is probably the most infected dialup system I’ve seen… 30-100 virii, 230+spyware remnants/etc.) Anyway…. the article from cnet news claims that a recent survey found 81% of home pc users lacked either
at least one of three types of critical security–a firewall, updated antivirus software or anti-spyware protection
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Sunncomm/Mediamax software fix FLAWED
Once more in the continuing story…. According to freedom-to-tinker, the “fix” released today for the SunnComm/Mediamax DRM software (the “other” DRM software on sony/bmg discs). Is fatally flawed. The problem the software initially poses is much worse than the company lets on in their release and their advise is…. 1) don’t play a mediamax protected disc in your pc. 2)don’t use the fix, 3) don’t use the old uninstaller.
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Handy Online Network Tools
Most of the time when I need to do a Dig or whois or traceroute I’m at a machine that I can use a good command line version of these essential network utilities. However, there are always times when you’re at a PC or situation that is either missing some of those, or you’d rather not run the utility on the machine for other reasons. Fortunately, many of these can be found online. For a long time, I’ve kept SamSpade.org in the back of my mind as a good utility address. There you’ll find Whois lookups, reverse IP -> domain lookups, traceroutes, etc. One thing I didn’t find though on the page was Dig…