Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Spammers and virus writers go hand in hand these days. Spam typically comes from machines that have been hijacked by viruses that get installed by tricking users into running them. The preferred delivery method is by offering up an interesting spam email message that simply CANNOT BE IGNORED OR THE WORLD WILL END!!!1!

Here’s what it looks like to be a victim.

Sites like MSNBC, CNN, and Facebook are partly responsible for mis-training people into installing software to view their sometimes custom-designed streaming videos, after clicking links in emails notifying the email reader of some interesting update to the website.

If you get one of these spam emails, you CANNOT UNSUBSCRIBE. Just delete the message(s) and go on with your day. If you’ve installed the virus-video player, you may want to leave a comment to get some assistance with cleaning up your computer.

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Just the other day I spoke with someone who had their email password “phished”. That means they responded to a spam email with their account username and password and other identifying information. This let a scammer log into the victim’s email account, change the password, and send messages to people in the address book asking them for money.

There is a very good reason to be wary of emails that come from Facebook, especially the ones that ask you to add an application. In fact, it’s poor email use to log into a website after clicking a link inside an email (which is exactly what Facebook trains people to do every time it sends out a message).

Yesterday I noticed a spike of visitors looking for information on a “facebook virus”. Since I wrote about the last one I noticed, they found my blog. I’d certainly recommend my information over the details provided by CP/CTV about the latest trojan that uses a Facebook friend’s list to find new victims.

Can. Press describes the virus “that can infect users’ `friends’ lists [sic].”
It doesn’t infect the friends’ lists, it uses the list as an address book with which to spread to a targeted audience. The “lists” can’t be infected, unless the virus were to modify the list in some way so that people who befriended a user with an “infected” friend’s list (account) would automatically infect the new friend.

“The virus sends out an email message from `friends’ lists and asks users to download a plug-in to watch a video.”
That’s one fairly standard method of becoming infected with a trojan horse.

“Tech expert Marc Saltzman says the plug-in, which purports to be a new Flash player, is actually a virus.”
Indeed it is.

Saltzman says Facebook users might click on the download link because the email message appears to be from a friend, whose Facebook photo is attached. ”
Oldest trick in the email virus book; Pretend the message was sent from a friend, and it’s more likely to be opened than if it comes from a strange name.

Unfortunately, the latest version of this virus can be used by an attacker to upload other viruses onto a compromised machine, so if you’ve become infected with this so called Facebook virus, the only complete fix that guarantees a secure system is to back up your data, and format the hard drive(s) to install from scratch. Antivirus software run from a live CD will clean most or all of it up though. I’d recommend the UBCD for doing that scan and cleanup.

I’ve seen a message go out on Facebook and appear from a couple of my facebook friends now, which is obviously a virus.

“You guys gotta to check this out, this nifty little website tells you exactly your secret crush: http://who-is-your-match-SPAM.info”

Even if it’s not a virus, if a message like that goes out to your friends with or without you knowing, there’s something wrong with it. There are few exceptions, but when I see .info, I think “virus”. Sorry Stageleft :-D

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I watched “Scream 2″ [5/10] on Monday night. It felt pretty much like a rerun of the first. I also borrowed some CDs from the RPL, after I discovered where they were, on the 2nd floor. I hadn’t been up there before.