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COMPUTER TIPS *********
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About computer virus HOAX in general.
http://www.datafellows.fi/hoaxes/jdbgmgr.shtml
A common virus hoax tells you to delete jdbgmgr.exe JUST SAY NO!
This is used by java so
some of your web reading may not work after it.
Worse, the message tells you to contact everyone in your address book.
Please ignore this hoax or any similar warning about
jdbgmgr.exe AND DO NOT PASS IT ON.
According to Microsoft's website:
" If you follow the e-mail message instructions and delete this file,
you do NOT have
to recover it unless you use
Microsoft Visual J++ 1.1 to develop Java programs
on Windows XP,
Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 98, or Windows 95."
If you have
deleted jdbgmgr.exe, please see Microsoft knowledgebase article Q322993 for
further instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q322993
Please note
that some e-mail worms (for example, Magistr) might sometimes send an infected
JDBGMGR.EXE
in an e-mail
attachment, but this infection is caused by Magistr not JDBGMGR by itself.
So the bottom line is, if you receive JDBGMGR.EXE or any other windows component by email,
it is most
probably a file infected by a virus.
If you find JDBGMGR.EXE
from your system directory,
it is most probably a clean file.
A variation of
this hoax is known to exist which relates the jdbgmgr.exe file to the Bugbear
worm:
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/tanatos.shtml
The Bugbear is
a real worm completely unrelated to this file.
-->
About connecting to email and internet usage.
It may be a good idea for those with
new and expensive music/video media software to use a cheap,
unconnected pc unit for email and Internet browsing usage.
Often times, the
anti-virus software will interfere with the media software and/or
your CD or DVD writing software. Best to segregate software and project workstations, if possible.
I am in the process of resurrecting
an old pc just to read email and Internet and keep an old printer
hooked to, and to have the
anti-virus software. This one has a CD writer to back up my email and
documents, after I have
scanned to make sure they do not have virus'.
Hopefully I can find an
anti-virus product that does not interfere with this CD writer.
My other newer pc will have
my media software and website software and will not interface with the
World Wide Web directly.
--> About REAL computer virus' in general.
The nastiest one I have
experienced affected me in May 2002 was this KLEZ worm virus.
This one attacks the executables (.exe), including your virus protection, and it is really hard to clean it,
because every thing you
download to clean is an executable (even the zip files need an executable to
unzip the files).
Even if you get rid of the worm portion of this virus there are all these other PE_ELKERN.D offshoots you cannot seem to eliminate.
I even went into the computer registers and could not completely get rid of it. Since program/application de-installs are executables,
these are affected, and so you cannot reload the software properly, because you cannot undo what was previously there.
I finally took my pc to a friend’s house who had enough space on a personal server, and downloaded my data files (which are not
affected), completely erased my hard drive, and just reinstalled all the operating and application software, and then put back my data files. Not a fun task. I still have software that I have not installed yet.
I was knocked out of
my corporate network for a couple of months, because the virus traveled to
network drives I had mapped, even though I was not inside the corporate
firewall. Our corporate network does not allow executables to be sent in
and out anymore, and we cannot read personal mail at work
anymore. It is about the only defense against attack.
For people that use the "PC" world, especially those using Microsoft
Outlook or Outlook express, to read their mail email, part of the solution
should include
#1 TURN OFF the Preview Pane in your Outlook, or any other preview pane or automatic open portal for reading email.
Don't forget to do this
after you download an update to Outlook or your email software.
For Microsoft Outlook,
the install default is ON for this preview pane (should be called preview
pain!)
For Outlook Express, TURN OFF BY Choosing Tools, Options, The
"Read" tab, and
UNCHECK "Automatically
download message when viewing in the Preview Pane"
#2 Install Virus Protection (for example McAffee or Trend Micro PC-Cillin
or Norton Anti virus)
and ensure virus protection
updates are checked for and done at log on time.
Do not install more than
one Anti-virus software on your pc, since they will work against each
other.
Anti-virus software is not
too expensive. (~$30-40/year) Once you buy it and download it,
you get will free upgrades
and the product will notify you to download them.
If you have cable or DSL
Internet and leave your pc on all the time, schedule a nightly scan.
#3 You can scan your computer free manually by going to http://www.antivirus.com
and choosing scan now
under Trend Micro HouseCall
Note this would be time consuming each time you logged on, and it is not
real time protection
(in other words, a virus
could attack after you scanned).
Try it once when you have
about 30 minutes.
This site also has alot of information about virus' and the hoaxes that
are out there.
#4 For those who read your email from the website itself, the
important thing is not to directly open
any email attachments, especially executables.
I am not sure hotmail or
some of the other free email even allows these executables.
If it does, simply save the
attachments to a file folder marked scan,
and use the free scan
to check them prior to opening them.
It is a hassle,
and most people do not do it, even those who know better.
So rely on anti-virus
software to notify you of a virus.
#5 In the event of a virus notification from your virus protection,
first check if your automatic preview pane viewer is off.
(The Outlook viewer should be turned off, if you followed #1).
The virus protection
will probably quarantine the virus or pass it off if it can't.
Check out
which message has the virus, and then go into your mail
and
shift-delete the message.
Of if you just hit the delete key,
then go to your desktop wastebasket and delete it from there as well.
DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO OPEN UP THE BAD MESSAGE at
any point...
because of the subject or
you think you know the person sending it.
Most virus' are designed to
be opened up and use your personal address book and picks random people from
there.
The one that nailed me
had "resume" in the subject area, and I was expecting a friend
to send a resume.
#6 Recheck your hard drive after a virus attack to ensure there are
no virus' detected and you have eliminated the virus.
Since I cleaned up my
computer, I have had numerous attacks. One just last week.
The subject was "Password", indicating the note contained a password, which is awful tempting.
None of the virus attacks have been successful, now that I have followed this routine.
-->
Just in case you think you are safe
September 4, 2003, New York
Times
Heart of Darkness, on a
Desktop
By
KATIE HAFNER with MICHAEL FALCONE
|
|
He had also erected a software
firewall to shield his computer from intruders, and he regularly downloaded
patches to inoculate his PC when he heard about new viruses.
But over the course of six
months this year, the Kiblers noticed their computer displaying some odd
behavior. The automatic weekly scans by Norton AntiVirus mysteriously stopped,
and when Mr. Kibler tried to run the software manually, the program would shut
down before he could execute commands.
By the middle of the
summer, the Kiblers' computer had grown so phlegmatic that the family
considered replacing the machine, a powerful Compaq desktop of recent vintage,
with a new one.
After many hours of
computer forensic work performed by a friend, it turned out that a virus
program called Klez was sapping the computer of 90 percent of its processing
power. Adding to the burden was a host of strangely named files discovered on
the list of programs installed on the hard drive. All of them had entered the
machine from the Internet, producing a blizzard of pop-up ads.
The Kiblers' experience is
hardly a rarity. More and more PC owners are discovering software lurking on
their computers that they had no idea was there - software that can snoop,
destroy or simply reproduce itself in droves. The SoBig and Blaster worms that
have been invading computer systems worldwide for several weeks are slowing
down.
But the two intruders left
behind software that could linger undetected for months.
"Both SoBig and
Blaster have components that are actively trying to communicate or reach out to
master servers without the knowledge of the user," said Vincent Weafer, a
senior director at Symantec Security Response, part of the software company
that makes Norton AntiVirus.
The alien programs extend
well beyond viruses and worms - so named because of the way they spread, as the
most familiar carriers of malicious code - to new categories known as spyware
and adware. Indeed, the number of home PC's that are infested with alien
software that comes in over the Internet and installs itself without the
knowledge or consent of the PC user is increasing at an alarming rate.
Richard M. Smith, a
computer security expert in Brookline, Mass., estimates that one in every two
Windows computers has unsolicited
software lurking within.
"I'm the official computer maintainer in my extended family, and I have
seven computers to keep up and running," Mr. Smith said. "With the
exception of my computer, they've all been whacked." He was spared, he
says, only because of his extreme vigilance.
The programs hide in the
recesses of the machine and seldom announce their presence. They can enter the
machine by way of a virus that has attached itself to an incoming file. Or they
can be downloaded unawares by simply clicking on, say, a pop-up ad. Mr. Smith said
such assaults were called "drive-by downloads." "These programs
are small and can be downloaded within seconds on a broadband connection,"
he said. "Once it's started, there's no way to stop it." Until
symptoms appear, the user knows nothing of the unwanted software's presence.
Spyware, which may
piggyback on another downloaded program, often operates in the background,
sending information back to a remote site and displaying pop-up ads tailored to
the user's online habits, or harvesting e-mail addresses to sell to spammers.
Adware is similar but more
benign, or at least better encased in euphemism; its defenders say that it is
something that consumers consciously agree to download.
More insidious programs,
perhaps better described as annoyware, redirect the computer's browser to
pornographic Web sites, often
to pump up those sites'
traffic figures or commandeer the machine's modem to dial 900 numbers at the
computer owner's expense. PC owners are just beginning to become aware of the
extent of such lurkware, and antivirus companies are beginning to expand their
products to notify users of its presence.
McAfee Security, a division
of Network Associates that makes antivirus products, estimates that
60,000 viruses are in circulation, and some experts say that perhaps 200 new ones
are created each month. No comparable figure is available for spyware and
adware, said Bryson Gordon, a senior product manager at McAfee, but their
growth has mirrored the surge in spam and in music-file-sharing programs like
Napster and KaZaA, which link the hard drives of thousands of users into
something resembling one big co-op.
Spyware programs are easier
to create than a virus, Mr. Gordon says, and some Web sites even offer spyware
and adware toolkits. Some software requests
the user's permission before installing itself. Such is the case with the Gator
Corporation, a company in Redwood
City, Calif., that delivers
Web advertising to people who click on an end-user license agreement in which
they agree to receive the ads in exchange for a free program. This can include
Gator's own e-wallet (a program that automatically fills in Web forms with
log-ins and passwords), the downloadable DivX video player or a simple calendar
program. About 100 million copies of
Gator have been downloaded to date, said Scott Eagle, chief marketing officer
at Gator. He and other Gator officials make a point of insisting that their
product is adware, not spyware, and that the distinction is crucial.
"Spyware is stuff that
you don't know how it got on your computer and it doesn't add value," Mr.
Eagle said. "It could be a program that's specifically designed to seek
out information like credit card information or e-mail information but you have
no idea how you got it, there's no permission and there's no way of removing
it."
Adware, on the other hand,
Mr. Eagle said, is something that consumers agree to download. Once Gator is
installed, it tracks a user's Web travels and delivers what he called
"highly relevant, highly branded" ads. "Users are very much
aware that they have this ad-supported software on their computer,'' Mr. Eagle
said. Yet the line between informed
consent and naïve clicking can be thin. Although Gator requires permission from
users before it is downloaded, people often have no recollection of having
agreed to its terms.
One of the programs Mr.
Kibler had on his computer was Gator, which he did not recall having consented
to. Lavasoft, a company
in Sweden that makes
security software, sells a popular program called Ad-Aware, which alerts users
to the presence of programs like Gator, as well as others that track Web
browsing habits and collect information to use for targeted advertising.
Mike Wood, a spokesman for
Lavasoft, said that most PC users fail to take the time to understand exactly
what was being downloaded to their machines and frequently click straight
through the fine print of end-user license agreements.
Those who fight spyware and
adware engage in escalation wars similar to the ones facing antivirus companies.
No sooner do Lavasoft and others discover a new form of adware and spyware than
the makers of such software turn around and develop another one. "It's
turned into something of a minor cold war," Mr. Wood said.
Mr. Kibler suspected that
his 14-year-old daughter, Carly, and her frequent use of the free version of
KaZaA, known for installing adware on people's computers, might have had
something to do with the problem.
"The minute you install KaZaA you have three or four questionable
things on your computer," Mr. Smith said. In the end, the Kiblers
theorized that the troubles might have originated with a program attached to
one of Carly's MP3 files. Or it could have been a malicious file sent as an
e-mail attachment and downloaded accidentally by any member of the family.
Douglas Berman, a computer
specialist in Berkeley, Calif., who works in health care, said he noticed a few
months ago that whenever he used his home PC to do a search on Google, a
different screen appeared underneath the Google page. The unsolicited page
offered up an entirely different set of search results, all of them ads thinly
disguised as Google pages.
When Mr. Berman examined
the contents of the machine more closely, he found a half dozen or so Gator
files on the hard drive. The Berman family computer resides in the kitchen,
perhaps the most heavily trafficked room in the house. Not only do Mr. Berman,
his wife and their 10-year-old daughter use the computer, but visiting
neighbors, relatives and houseguests often gravitate to it as well.
Although Mr. Berman has no
doubt that someone at some point gave permission for the software to be
installed, he wanted it off the computer.
"I'm not conscious of any benefit I'm getting from having it,"
he said. "Then there's the question of, 'What's it opening the door for?'
" With a few simple instructions from Gator, Mr. Berman was ultimately
able to remove the software that created the Google look-alike pages.
Todd Jones, a senior at the
University of California at Berkeley, also found himself plagued by spyware.
The programs reconfigured his computer, changing his toolbars and installing
new favorites in his browser and shortcut icons on his desktop, all of which
linked to adult Web sites. "I
thought that in order for you to have a program on your computer, you had to
install it yourself," Mr. Jones said. "Now I know that's obviously
not true."
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft software have only made matters worse. People who
use the Macintosh or Linux operating systems are safer, as are those who use
Netscape Communicator. Some spyware exploits security holes in Internet Explorer,
both because it has more flaws, said Mr. Smith, the computer security expert,
and because it is the most widely used browser on the market.
Microsoft officials say it
is not the holes in its software but the people who write spyware and viruses that
are the problem. The end user,
they say, is ultimately
responsible for what gets downloaded onto a hard drive.
"We need to do
everything we can to make our software more secure than it is," said Amy
Carroll, the director of product management in
Microsoft's security
business unit. "We are constantly addressing the core software. But the
Internet is a really powerful tool, and there
are bad actors out there
who will take advantage of that."
The antivirus companies,
meanwhile, are adding to their quarry. The latest version of the Norton
program, called Norton AntiVirus 2004, scans for a host of so-called
"expanded threats," or security threats that are not necessarily
viruses. The new Norton program also scans for adware like Gator. And last month, McAfee released a version of
its VirusScan software that includes spyware and adware detection. Since then,
the program has found that results from 660,000 computers using the new version
showed spyware on 20 percent of the machines, said Mr. Gordon, the McAfee
product manager.
But that kind of help came
too late for John Harrington, a semi-retired communications consultant in
Fairfax, Va. All the recent news about
the Blaster and SoBig worms
prompted Mr. Harrington to run his McAfee program. It identified not those
particular scourges, but nearly a dozen others, with names like
adware-wind.dr. The McAfee program was
unable to delete the files, and a call to the support line did no good.
"She asked me if I had heard of spyware or adware, and I said no,"
Mr. Harrington said.
Mr. Harrington eventually
downloaded the Ad-Aware program from Lavasoft, and it removed the files.
"I was surprised they were on my computer because I thought I had perfect
protection through McAfee," he said. Even with the additional help,
people feel overwhelmed by the abundance of software they have not asked for,
especially when it comes to monitoring, managing and safeguarding against it.
Mr. Kibler's wife,
Stephanie, said that it was hard to keep up with all the new threats, and that
computer companies did not make it simple enough for the average user to deal
with problems like the ones that afflicted her family's machine."When you
give someone the car keys, you also teach them how to drive," she said.
"How could you expect regular everyday users to be able to figure this
out? The expectation is not reasonable."