E-mail is being used for communication by businesses and individuals, and by cybercriminals for online attacks affecting everyone when not used carefully. Proofpoint, a security firm, has enumerated its 2009’s top 10 terrifying e-mail blunders:

• Trojan Horse Steals Bank Accounts – URLZone, a banking Trojan horse, was reported in September. It steals money while users are logged in their accounts displaying a fake balance. Computers get infected when you click a malicious link in an e-mail or visit a website with hidden malware. It also keeps your bank account login credentials, take screenshots, and sneak on your other web accounts like Facebook, Gmail, Paypal and more.

• FBI Forgery- FBI Director Robert Mueller’s wife prohibited him from doing online banking transactions after he had given his personal information to a phishing website. He received an email from what he thought was his bank verifying his information. He even filled out some information but realized in the end that it was not a good idea. So he changed his passwords and told the incident to his wife. That incident did not stop Mr. Mueller’s  from doing his online activities.

• White House Spam – It took place in August when the White House sent thousands of e-mail messages to Americans explaining its stand on the controversial health reform issue. It was spread through an e-mail account to create and dispel rumors. Nevertheless, the White House admitted that it was an unsolicited e-mail and blamed third-party groups for the mass e-mail.

• Hotmail Phishing – In October, thousands of Hotmail accounts were compromised where passwords were posted on some websites where developers normally share programming code. News site Neowin was able to see the list which had been removed and reported to Microsoft about the issue. In this particular phishing scam, the hackers sent out the list of the e-mail accounts with the letterhead of banks, eBay and other institutions, to convince the consumers that they have to reset their online passwords to their websites for security purposes. As soon as Microsoft discovered the scam, they blocked thousands of Hotmail accounts believing the accounts have all been hacked.

• Start-up Suicide – RockYou, a social media advertising and application start-up, sent out a mass e-mail to their customers and associates announcing their new site redesign last September. Instead of using BCC: in sending the e-mails, RockYou displayed the entire mailing list of over 200 e-mail addresses in the CC: field and those e-mail addresses ended up on a spammer’s list. After two months, RockYou sent another mass e-mail using a mailing list asking contractors to provide information for their W9 tax forms. Unfortunately, some people unintentionally send personal information to the entire mailing list.

• Gmail Account Deactivated – Last August, Rocky Mountain Bank in Wyoming sent names, addresses, social security numbers and loan information of more than 1,300 customers to a Gmail address by mistake. Realizing what they did, the bank e-mailed the same address asking the recipient to contact them and destroy the sent file without opening it but they didn’t receive a respond. The bank contacted Google asking for the account holder’s information. So, Google received an order from U. S. District Court Judge James Ware of the northern district of California deactivating the e-mail account and disclosing the identity and contact information of the Gmail account holder. The said Gmail user has not done any wrongdoing. From then on, anyone from the bank is advised to be watchful when sending e-mails and typing in the TO: field an e-mail.

• Payroll Panic – PayChoice, a payroll processor, was the victim of a website breach in September. The customers received targeted e-mails claiming to be from the company. The said e-mail is used to trick people into downloading malware or visit a website that will allow them to access the Onlineemployer.com PayChoice portal. The site was shut down and clients were notified within hours. The e-mails were spread through a Yahoo account with the links hosted from servers in Poland.

• UK Tax Error – HM Revenue & Customs, Britain’s tax authority, warned the people about scam e-mails using fake government e-mail address to convince recipients into revealing their personal information to receive a tax refund in return. Those e-mail messages are claiming that recipients were entitled to receive a tax refund, so they have to give their bank or credit card details so that their refund could be paid out. HRMC stated that they would never inform tax rebate through e-mail like most of the legitimate business and government organizations do or invite the people to complete an online form just to receive a tax rebate.

• Death, Taxes and Phish – In September, a fake e-mail notice was widely spread attacking against businesses and individuals and was claimed to come from the Internal Revenue Service. According to US-Cert, the attack was hidden in a fake e-mail with a subject line of “Notice of Underreported Income” which contains a link or attachment infected with a Zbot/Zeus Trojan virus. It is a program which steals credentials for banking login information.

• UCSD Message of Acceptance by Mistake – University of California San Diego mistakenly sent the same message of acceptance to all 46,000 students who took the college entrance where there are only 18,000 students who passed and accepted in the said university.

How Techie Now Can Help?

E-mails are being used to communicate for personal and business purposes. Cybercriminals also use them to steal one’s identity and money. So computers’ users must be careful when opening attachments or links in their e-mails because it might infect their PCs or steal their information especially if the computer is not protected. To protect your computer from any online attacks, contact Techie Now: virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. Techie Now assists your PC needs better than what others do.

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Security researchers stated that attackers have hacked the computer network of the Swiss foreign ministry which led to the network’s shutdown for many days. A professional virus attack was launched enabling the attackers to hijack network and collect unspecified data. The scope of the attack is still unknown and the officials have not revealed what data did the hackers targeted.

According to reports, the attack was really planned enough that the attackers involved were able to get away with it without being detected. Microsoft and specialists from the ministry discovered the attack on October 22, 2009. Allvoices reported that the network was shut down after the hack has been discovered last October 27, 2009. The specialists tried to find where and how the attack started, and if there are any data that has been stolen. The staff have been prohibited to use the Internet for security purpose.

Unfortunately, the Swiss Interior Ministry and Finance Ministry also experienced some problems on their systems on the same month. It is not clear if the same incidences are related to the latest attack. Reports imply that maybe a spyware from a foreign country was spying the Swiss systems. Security specialists warn that the virus authors are starting a secret rebel technique to make a massive virus outbreaks happen hoping to be successful in compromising a significant network prior to any response from the anti-virus agencies.

On the contrary, the Swiss external affairs ministry isn’t the only entity that has been victimized by a virus attack. In 2007, hackers has successfully attracted employees at the foreign ministry and at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to be part of a phishing scheme where there are around 500 workers who received e-mails that contains a link on a photo contest. Employees who clicked the link to vote for the said photo contest have been infected with a Trojan virus. Too bad, the government’s security software was not able to recognize the threat. The said attack was traced to come from Africa. United States had also accused China for using secretly-copied data to hack into the Commerce Department computers. Chinese were also accused for hacking computers that belongs to the computers of the Dalai Lama. In February 2009, a computer virus struck UK and French defense computers. A virus was also discovered hitting German military networks. To prevent the virus from spreading, several websites of German armed forces were disconnected from the country’s military network.

How Can Techie Now Help?

Hackers have been increasing nowadays attacking many organization and government websites in various nations. Anyone can be a victim of these online attacks especially if your computer is not protected. Contact Techie Now for your computer’s protection. Techie Now offers PC support services: virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. With Techie Now, your PC is safe and protected.

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According the InfoWorld survey taken over the past several weeks, XP users are still resistant to upgrade to Windows 7 even though a lot of Windows Vista users are now flocking to Windows 7. Why? It is because XP users are comfortable and afraid of change thanks to the blunder with Windows Vista. Windows Pulse tracking service find out that 64 percent of its readers is still using the legacy operating system.

The survey shows that 4 percent of real –world PC consumers are now using Windows 7. Many of them are new users, not including those who have upgraded from Vista or XP if any. InfoWorld claims that 10 percent are now using the new OS, while Vista runs at 30 percent. It is monitored through the exo.performance.network. Devil Mountain Software manages the network tracking the users who have chosen to opt in. InfoWorld observed that Windows Vista is losing its market share as the Windows 7’s popularity increases.

NPD Group also had a recent survey confirming Windows 7 popularity over its oft-criticized predecessor. The survey found out that the initial boxed upgrades of Windows 7 are 234 percent higher over Windows Vista. Moreover, Microsoft offered significant pre-sale discounts for Windows 7. There is also restricted demand for upgrades because many businesses avoid Windows Vista for so many reasons. Windows Vista created a lot of problem of users. It is bloated and has a very high requirement of hardware. Of course, it is not a good deal for the business owners to invest more money on the hardware if they are not that sure with its performance too. It also causes a lot of application incompatibility.

Windows 7 had a long beta cycle and had received generally good reviews. There is no direct upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 7. For XP users to upgrade to Windows 7, they must perform a clean install. In addition, some machines are still weak for Windows 7.

How Can Techie Now Help?

Windows Vista users have decided to upgrade to Windows 7 because of its popularity but XP users still defiant in doing the same thing. If you need help in deciding whether you’ll move to Windows 7 or stay to Windows XP, Techie Now is willing to assist you anytime. Contact Techie Now for PC support services: virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. Techie Now offers provides your PC needs at your convenience.

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Face Book email with worms

Help Net Security reported that Facebook users should be careful with Facebook spam e-mails claiming to be from Facebook administrators. Aside from being part of a phishing campaign, the said e-mail also transmit a nasty Trojan responsible for stealing the user’s banking information. Incidentally, Red Condor, a Web security company, was able to notice the new phishing e-mail attack.

The spam e-mail contains a web-link that redirects recipients to a hoax login page of Facebook getting account information from them. As soon as all the credentials are typed in, a page will then ask the user to download “updatetool.exe”, which is a kind of Trojan Zbot. Once the virus is installed, it will go through the hard drive of the user and gather stored personal banking information and other login information. It also does key logging and other malicious activities to obtain your information. According to Red Condor, phishers have made the fake Facebook login page for users to log on to Facebook in a refined manner. As a result, some users might believe that the login page is real.

Since million of Internet users are enjoying Facebook every day, users should be aware of these various hoax Facebook e-mails that were arriving in their mailboxes. Additionally, Jamie Tomasello, Cloudmark’s Abuse Operations Manager, stated that the Facebook scam is a result of a social engineering technique. Facebook is very popular in these days making it to be a prime target of cybercriminals and spammers. Malware authors are repeating their techniques to exploit Facebook’s popularity and control e-mail users to open their malicious e-mails. A Trojan malware Bredolab was also discovered disguising as a Facebook Password Reset. Internet security specialists noted that social networks still doesn’t impose using of HTTPS in place of HTTP in the URL because phishing pages imitating Facebook tends to succeed more.

How Can Techie Now Help?

Facebook is widely known for social networking, also being used by malware authors and spammers to victimize other people. If you feel that your PC is infected with malware, don’t worry. Techie Now can give you a hand with your PC needs – be it virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. Contact Techie Now and we will protect your PC before these malware get a chance to infect your system.

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Trend Micro’s threat research revealed that Koobface botnet is abusing Google Reader by spamming URLS redirecting Internet users to infected websites through Youtube.

Google Reader is a Google-owned free service allowing users to monitor and share websites for new content. Koobface has been spamming URLs on social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Koobface is spamming Google Reader now. A Google account is made and controlled by Koobface gang, hosting a page with a fake YouTube video. As the victim clicks the fake video, it will redirect to a compromised website, which also hosts another fake YouTube video. The user will be infected and becomes part of the Koobface botnet. Attackers use Google Reader’s to share links and messages between users to host an image resembling a Flash video. When the user tries to view the video, it will redirect to a fake YouTube page containing a video. As in previous attacks, the user was soon prompted with an alert that invited them to upgrade their Flash player. Hidden was the fact that instead of the updated software, the user was downloading the Koobface downloader component that would that take over the victim’s computer.

Trend Micro, the IT security vendor, has reported Koobface to Google for spamming more than 1300 known and unique fake Google Reader accounts. Nowadays, cybercriminals take advantage of Google because of its credibility that they hide malicious links behind Google Reader.

How Can Techie Now Help?

To keep your PC protected, contact Techie Now. We are here to help you with PC support services: virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration, and general repair. Techie Now offers you better service for the best price!

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