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Posts Tagged ‘malicious software’

Online Thieves Steal $500,000 from NY School District

January 7th, 2010 No comments

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating a small school in upstate New York for being a victim of online theft for almost half million dollars. The said school is the Duanesburg Central School District. Cyber thieves tried to rob the district online bank accounts for about $3.8 million.

By December 18, the thieves attempted to transfer $1.86 million from the district’s account at NBT bank to an overseas account. They tried to transfer again another $1.19 million to different overseas location after a week. The bank representative suspected and flagged the money transfer amounting of $758,758.70 after they discovered the two previous unauthorized transactions.

Fortunately, Duanesburg and NBT bank have recovered the $2.55 million stolen funds from them but still lacking $497,000. According to Duanesburg Central, more than a quarter of district’s budget for a year has been targeted by the thieves, which is less than $15 million. It is servicing about 1,000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade near west of Albany.

The same attack also happened on school districts, cities, counties and small businesses across the country last year. Attackers use malicious software get the user names and passwords and steal from the users’ online bank accounts. The FBI and the New York state are helping each other to investigate but it’s still unclear if malicious software has something to do with the attack. Duanesburg Central School District stopped online access to its bank accounts and requested that payments should be sent and received through paper check for now.

How Can Techie Now Help?

It’s really impressive how cyber criminals are able to create an online attack, steal money or infect computers worldwide without being caught in what they do. The only thing you can do for now is prevent yourself from being their victims. Of course, be careful when visiting websites, opening e-mails or downloading files. Also use authentic antivirus software to prevent your computer from being infected. If you need help with PC services like virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration and general repair, contact Techie Now right away!

www.TechieNow.com

How to Remove or Uninstall a Program in Windows Vista and Windows 7

December 21st, 2009 No comments

Most people know how to install a program, whether it is from a disc or downloaded from the internet. However some users don’t know how to get rid of them when they don’t want it anymore or they need to free up some space from the hard disk, just accidentally installed a program or they need it for troubleshooting purposes to fix a bug or a disk error caused by faulty programs. Some other users will delete the shortcut icon of the program on the desktop and delete the folder in program files thinking those will completely remove the program from the PC, but it won’t.

This article will show you a simple way of removing or uninstalling a program that you have installed in your PC system.

Steps on removing a program

1.  Click Start, click Control Panel and click on Uninstall a Program under the Programs category.

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2. You will see a list of all the programs that are installed in your PC. Just look for that program you want to remove and click on it to highlight it. Once it’s highlighted click the Uninstall button on the top of the box where the lists is and just follow the instructions of the un-installation wizard to complete the removal process.

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How Can Techie Now Help?

If you find the instructions above too difficult to follow or you don’t have time to do it, Techie Now is glad to help. Contact Techie Now and enjoy your computer experience.

www.TechieNow.com

How to Remove or Uninstall a Program in Windows XP

December 18th, 2009 No comments

Most people know how to install a program, whether it is from a disc or downloaded from the internet. However some users don’t know how to get rid of them when they don’t want it anymore or they need to free up some space from the hard disk, just accidentally installed a program or they need it for troubleshooting purposes to fix a bug or a disk error caused by faulty programs. Some other users will delete the shortcut icon of the program on the desktop and delete the folder in program files thinking those will completely remove the program from the PC, but it won’t.

This article will show you a simple way of removing or uninstalling a program that you have installed in your PC system.

Steps on removing a program

1.  Click Start, click Control Panel and click on Add or Remove Programs.

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2. You will see a list of all the programs that are installed in your PC. Just look for that program you want to remove and click on it to highlight it. Once it’s highlighted click the Change/Remove button on the far right side and just follow the instructions of the un-installation wizard to complete the removal process.

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How Can Techie Now Help?

If you find the instructions above too difficult to follow or you don’t have time to do it, Techie Now is glad to help. Contact Techie Now and enjoy your computer experience.

www.TechieNow.com

SafeOnline: Protects Online Banking on Infected PCs

November 10th, 2009 No comments

Safe Online Protects Online Banking on InfectedA.U.K. security company is giving SafeOnline, a free security software, to banks that will stop malicious software from controlling online banking transactions or stealing data, even if the computer is infected. SafeOnline comes from a small security company in Derby, England, known as Prevx.

Many cybercriminals are developing complicated software, which they call as “man-in-the middle” or “man-in-the-browser attacks”. These software can be used to intercept banking transactions online while in progress and transfer funds with the user unaware that there’s something wrong. SafeOnline installs its own kernel-level driver on your Windows PCs. Since it is designed for secure browsing sessions conducted with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology, all information from the keyboard is routed through that driver defeating attempts to record keystrokes or other interference. It has been tested by Immunity, a company that specializes in evaluating security technology.  Zeus, SilentBanker and Mebroot/Sinowal/Torpig are some of the most complicated banking malware tested against SafeOnline.

SafeOnline has an antiphishing feature preventing authentication information from being stored into a suspicious Web site. It also verifies DNS (Domain Name System) lookups against other trusted DNS servers to prevent pharming. In pharming, you redirect a website’s traffic to another bogus website.

Prevx is also giving an antimalware, its self-titled security product called Prevx 3.0.5, to the banks that decide to use SafeOnline with their customers.  Prevx is a small company but it is brutally competitive in the security market with other big players like McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro. Prevx decide to give SafeOnline for free because as we all know, banks don’t want to pay for security software.

As of now, six (6) banking organizations are interested to use SafeOnline. Prevx has met the special requirements of the banks. According to the banks, they don’t want to modify their existing Web sites to accommodate a security technology. What they want is something that is easy for users and compatible with other security products their customers are using. Fortunately, Prevx’s software can run together with other security suites.

How Can Techie Now Help?

With so many cybercriminals around, it’s not that safe to engage your banking transactions online in these days. It’s best to use an antivirus software to protect your PC from infection and protect your money from being stolen. Do you have troubles detecting and halting Malware? You don’t need to worry. Contact Techie Now and we will do it easily for you. With Techie Now, you and your PC are protected at all time.

www.TechieNow.com

Malware Defined

November 6th, 2009 No comments

Malware DefinedComputers are widely used by people nowadays. With everyone being hooked up with Internet, computers are of big help for having fun, gaining knowledge and earning a living. Everyone is just eager to have their own computers and enjoy the benefits of these high tech equipments. Having a computer is not that easy especially when it comes to maintenance. Computer owners have to deal with malware. Do you know what a malware is?

Not techie people are not familiar with this malware thing. Some people are just concerned in how and where they’re going to use their computers. For a start, a Malware is software made for penetrating a computer without the informed consent of the owner. It is also called malicious software. It is one of the causes of annoyance of computer professionals. In other words, Malware is a program or file that is harmful to the user.

Ever heard of “computer” viruses? They are also types of malware. Also include worms, Trojan horses, rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software. Viruses and worms are the best-known types of malware. Any computer is always at risk of becoming infected with them. Some malware are made to do serious damage to the computer causing harm or data loss. Some are not harmless but annoying.

Malware is not faulty software.  The difference lies in the intent. Malware is written with an ilegitimate purpose. They can be accessed through the Internet, by World Wide Web or be sent in e-mail or instant messages. As a computer user, you must follow the below steps to reduce the risk of getting infected:

1. Be careful in opening e-mail messages or IM attachments. Make sure that they come from a trusted source.
2. Scan e-mail attachments before opening them.
3. Don’t read unwanted messages.
4. Don’t click links given by strange people.
5. Terminate your IM session if someone is sending you suspicious files, links or messages.
6. Scan all your files before transferring it to your computer.
7. Use a updated malware software removal for your computer security.

How will you know if your computer is infected with a malware?

Most times you can tell that a computer is infected with a Malware as it malfunctions and slows down. It also displays repeated error messages. You always experience having problems in shutting down and restarting the computer. A lot of pop-up ads always appear when you are and not surfing the web. However, sometimes you ay not notice anything as the malware cleverly hides itself while it performs ilegimate actions as such steal or sype on your information.

As soon as you know that your computer has acquired a malware, you must not do shopping, banking and other online activities that required getting personal information from you because you might be victimized by thieves online. It is advisable that you have active and current security software – anti-virus, firewall or spyware software – installed to protect your computer.

Always monitor your computer. Take immediate action if you find something unusual happening in your computer. Malware can be a big problem but it can be prevented if you want to. Prevention is still better than cure. Don’t let Malware be a threat to your system. Protect your computer now!

How Can Techie Now Help?

Your computer is not safe from being infected with the increasing malware over the Internet. They are everywhere! So you better protect your PC now with a good antivirus. If you need help choosing antivirus or if you think your antivirus is not effective then come to www.TechieNow.com. Techie Now is the PC support provider you can trust in for your computer security. We can assist you in any PC support services that you need. With us, you can be sure that your PC is protected 24/7.

www.TechieNow.com