Starting around 4pm on Valentine’s Day I started receiving calls from panicked users telling me that Microsoft Security Essentials detected a virus on Google.   After a bit of research I discovered that the daily update to Security Essentials for an as yet unknown reason was reporting a false positive  saying that the Google home page contained  Exploit:JS/Blacole.BW. This was a false positive.  If I had to guess I would place money on the Valentine’s Day Google Doodle being the cause.   Microsoft fixed the problem within  hours.  If you are still having issues accessing Google, simply click on the Security Essentials icon and update Security essentials.

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There were major updates for a number of products from other vendors on Tuesday many Adobe products reic eved significant security updates.

 As usual it is of primary importance for users to keep all software up to date.  If you have any issues installing any of these patches please contact us immediately and schedule an appointment.

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In November an international raid arrested 6 Estonian men that had been behind the DNSChanger virus.  At this time they took over the rouge DNS servers and have been operating them for the past few months.   Thousands of users worldwide are still having their web traffic redirected to these DNS server, meaning thousands of computers are still infected.   On March 8^th they will be shutting off these servers for good.  Anyone still infected with the DNSChanger virus will no longer be able to browse the net.

You can test to see if you are being redirected by going to www.dns-ok.us.    If your DNS fails to properly resolve it is very important to schedule an appointment.

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https://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/01/citadel-trojan-touts-trouble-ticket-system/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KrebsOnSecurity+%28Krebs+on+Security%29

In the following excerpt, taken from a full description of Citadel’s innovations, the developers of this malware strain describe its defining feature as a social networking platform for malware users that is made available through a Web-based portal created by the malware itself.

“We have created for you a special system — call it the social network for our customers. Citadel CRM Store allows you to take part in product development in the following ways:

- Report bugs and other errors in software. All tickets are looked at by technical support you will receive a timely response to your questions. No more trying to reach the author via ICQ or Jabber.

-Each client has the right to create an unlimited number of applications within the system. Requests can contain suggestions on a new module or improvements of existing module. Such requests can be public or private.

-Each client has a right to vote on new ideas suggested by other members and offer his/her price for development of the enhancement/module. The decision is made by the developers on whether to go forward with certain enhancement or new module depending on the voting results.

-Each client has the right to comment on any application and talk to any member. Now it is going to be interesting for you to find partners and like-minded people and also to take active parts in discussions with the developers.

- You can see all stages of module development, if it is approved other members. We update the status and time to completion.

 

- You may pay a deposit, if module is approved (50%). After the deposit is paid by the members, the project starts moving forward, so that the money is paid directly to coders and there will be no laziness or inaction. Everything is clear: every stage of development is thoroughly shown.

-Easy jabber [instant message] notification of new member or developer comments, or the availability of new custom applications.

 

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http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002300.html

Brod, a researcher on our Threat Research team has been tasked with tracking emerging Mac based threats. Microsoft Excel is one of the tools he uses to chart variants. From April to December 2011, there have been several dozen new Mac threats.

Well, that's nothing when compared to Windows malware — but it's definitely something when compared to the number of Mac threats seen prior to 2011.

Keep in mind that by "new", we're referring to unique variants, and not the raw number of unique binaries that we've seen. We prefer a more conservative approach when counting malware. The more generic and family based, the better.

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So what happens if you click on one of these links? Well, typically, are you are told that you must take multiple steps to receive your differently hue of Facebook.

Firstly, you are told to share the link with your online friends. This should be the first indication that something is amiss - after all, what legitimate feature or organisation would require you to share news of it *before* you have actually experienced what - if anything - it can do for you?

 

Secondly, you are asked to leave a comment - extolling the wonderfulness of your new pink or red Facebook. Remember - at this point your Facebook is still decidedly blue. Any comment you leave will, of course, act as an endorsement and could be seen by your online friends and encourage them to also participate.

Predictably, the point of all of this sharing is to drive more traffic to the scammers' link where an online survey will pop-up. The more people who take the survey, the more commission that the scammers will earn.

 

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With the new Timeline being implemented, another hoax is spreading misinformation and confusion among Facebook users. The following message has gone viral and is showing up on Newsfeeds everywhere:

“With the new ‘FB timeline’ on its way this week for EVERYONE…please do both of us a favor: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you’ll see a box that says “Subscribed.” Hover over that, then go to “Comments and Likes” and “Games” and un-click it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar(ticker) for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You’ll know I’ve acknowledged you because if you tell me that you’ve done it I’ll ‘like’ it. Thanks”

Sadly, this won’t do anything to protect you from hackers or improve your privacy. A very similar message was circulated when the Facebook ticker was introduced back in September. It caused quite a stir at the time, and it took a day or so for bloggers and social media gurus to get it all sorted out. If you are interested in reading why the message doesn’t work, then we recommend you read this post from our friends at Sophos.

To make a long and confusion story very short, the information in the message is erroneous. The best thing you can do to protect your privacy and that of your friends is to set all of your privacy and sharing settings to ‘friends only.’ Also advise your friends to do the same.

Spreading false information doesn’t really help anyone, and it can give your friends a false sense of security. Always spend a few minutes and check the facts before passing warnings along to your friends.

 

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If your PC becomes infected it is important to bring it to us immediately.   Attempting to repair the PC on your own can cause irreversible loss of data.  In particular if you have an infection that removes desktop icons and Start Menu items DO NOT attempt to repair this on your own.

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As I always tell my customers, you can get a virus from any site.  This one is a nice cross platform attack using Java.  Whenever you see that little bubble telling you Java needs an update do it.:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002287.html

'Tis the season for giving. And anybody visiting Amnesty International's UK website could currently end up with the gift of a keylogger courtesy a Java exploit. Brian Krebs has written about it on his blog: Krebs on Security.

 

Amnesty's UK site was hacked to include an iframe linking to a Brazilian server, which hosts a CVE-2011-3544 based Java Exploit.

Our browsing protection is now blocking Amnesty's site. We've been blocking the .br site for several days already. We detect, and there's fairly good AV industry coverage on, both the Java exploit and the trojan it drops.

Read the full details from Krebs, linked above. And stay safe."

 

I almost at the point where I'm going to recommend clients unistall Java.