Net security threats growing fast

BBC News | Technology ^ | 9/20/04 | BBC News

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Admins, move this to Chat if you think it appropriate. I thought it was important enough to place in Breaking for a bit.
People out there need to get shields up to full power to take on this cyber crap and stop it at the gate.

[OXENinFLA]

"I'd like to borrow your network.........."

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I love that ad. It really gave me a chuckle.

"Grow hair!"

[coconutt2000]

That's a good ad.

[smith288]

I got nailed with some weird active x program that sonehow bypassed my raised security settings in IE. I was inundated with Casino ads, porn links and several spyware apps that just about wrecked my pc....I moved to Firefox last week event hough I have tried FF when it was first introduced, its still not my preffered choice, but MS has some SERIOUS damage control it needs to do.

Although this isn't the same, its definately something to tell people who don't realize.

[OXENinFLA]

Who ever does the voice pf the horse did a great job....

[bitt]

sounds like Carlton the doorman...lol

[ConservativeMan55]

I scanned my computer the other day and had 71 viruses/spyware on it.

My anti-virus software has helped me eliminate about half. Still working on about 30 of them.

[ConservativeMan55]

LOL!

I heard there's data in there!

Can I borrow your data!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

I've got about 4 different spyware scanners installed here. Running them at bootup and bootdown every night helps keep this malware/spyware under control.

[ConservativeMan55]

I'm going to go look at the store today and buy one.

[Theo]

My wife has a PC, as do my parents, and we're on a daily battle against spyware, adware, viruses, and worms. As a Mac user, I try to be "aware" of what I download onto my computer, though there's really no significant threat to Macs....

I'm a software developer, and use both Macs and PCs at work. Never had any malicious software attack my Mac. Can't say the same about my PCs....

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Who ever does the voice pf the horse did a great job....

My guess was Adam Carolla...formerly of The Man Show.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

You can download at least a couple of them for free using links posted at Kim Komando's website.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Here's another one:

Protect against spyware - SpywareBlaster from Javacool Software - free download

[battousai]

Its just that there are way more PCs than MACs so these malware authors will work on attacks that will get them the most bang for their buck so to speak.

Nothing is absolutely secure and even MACs can be compromised if someone took the effort to do it.

In the end it doesn't really mater, its like the bear in the woods you just want to run faster than the last guy in your group.. i.e. be more secure than your neighbor, so when the bad guys come knocking on your door they don't want to bother with you when there's an easier target elsewhere.

Oh well it keeps us security professionals busy though...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

A real good one is SpyWare Blaster. It can be set to run at boot or you can run it before surfing. It is unique in the way it works bt setting up protection and then shutting down. It doesn't need to be resident in memory and it keeps the crap from being installed in the first place! It has an update function just like Spybot and others.

I use that along with SpyWare Guard which keeps an eye on new BHOs being added and Homepage changes. Both are freeware and are from Javacool Software.

[bitt]

first thing for every user in the universe would be to look for windows updates. XP users might think twice about downloading the new Service Patch 2 for a while - it has issues and takes a long time to download on a slow line, and makes a lot of config changes. All others (w98, win2K, etc) should all be updating with every critical update.

I use Ad-aware from www.lavasoftusa.com (free), Spybot search and destroy 1.3 from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/ (free), and spywareblaster, from http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html (free), and run them every day..always get the updates.

then, there are free online scans at web sites...besides your own antivirus, run the free scans at
www.antivirus.com, http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm, and a few other sites.

[b4its2late]

Thanks for the info...

[GBA]

Does anyone else get these? I get blank emails. They're usually 1 K in size with no header and no message, sent by some bogus emailer, usually from a yahoo account.

I wonder if they aren't some way to infect my computer and then use my email account to send spam, as I sometimes get spam sent from my email address! I've emailed verizon about it lots of times, but they don't respond with more than a form email.

Anybody know what these are?