A simple infection turned into an epidemic

I often get calls from people that need me to help fix their computers because of a virus or a trojan that has infected their system. Typically its an easy fix for me to get their machine and spend a few hours removing the infection. This one call that I had received was different.

Client: “Hello, I host several sites and I think all of them are infected. ”

Me: “Umm, what?”

Client: “Well, when anyone visits some of the sites I host, they are sent to a russian site”

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Attackers are looking for ways to take you down.

Well it looks as if attackers are getting smarter about their methods of attack. As much as the security community tries to protect the consumer and the public, there are always new methods and attack vectors that are coming out. Facebook is what I want to talk about today.

As most of you know if you subscribe to Facebook notifications you will receive one every time someone mentions you in a post, posts on your wall, sends you a message, or tags you. Well, now Facebook users are being alerted to any emails that they may receive. Facebook users are warned to be on their guard against unsolicited emails they might receive suggesting that someone has left an offensive comment about them on your wall or wall post.

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Linkedin users beware

October 19, 2012 — Leave a comment

LinkedIn users should pay special attention to this post. Over the past week or so there has been an uptick in email phishing scams. Hackers and criminals are looking for ways to get into your computer and invade your lives. One of the best ways of doing this is through stuff that we normally ‘trust’. Whenever we see something that we have trusted or are used to we think nothing of it. This is where we need to be more vigilant and aware of attackers around us.

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For three years now, we have seen debate, conversation, and all kinds of privacy concerns regarding what Facebook does with our information that we place on our profiles. This can range from photos to personal information that we (let me remind you) voluntarily place on our profiles.

Facebook has been under fire for a while now for storing photos in their CDN (content delivery system) far longer then they say they do.

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Looks like this is serious enough that the FBI has finally sent out a warning. Earlier this year I had researched about a ‘drive by infection’ that was making its way throughout Europe and that part of the world. Just by visiting an infected website this trojan virus will unpack into your computer and hold it for ransom.

At this point your computer is essentially hijacked and It will look like an ‘official’ letter from the FBI or the DOJ on your screen. Actually it may look like this:

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It never fails that attackers will do what they can to make some money. Here is a good example of social engineering. Attackers are trying their best at luring you into their trap. As a general rule you should always be on guard and alert of the emails that you are receiving.

Most recently, scammers are sending these false emails about a hotel booking that you know you have never made. Just by clicking on any of the attachments or pictures you are placing yourself at risk of getting a nasty malware infection in your system.

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So it looks like there is a massive phishing campaign going on that is targeting AT&T customers. It is reported that over 200k emails are out and claims that AT&T account holders owe several hundred dollars for their monthly bill.

Most of the time that we see these phishing campaigns/scams we see a lot of mis-spellings and errors. These new ones are a bit more convincing. Seems like they went out of their way to creating a believable ‘invoice.’ They are doing this with logos, colors, and honestly… spell check.

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I have had a few phone calls and meetings over the past week from people asking if I can look at their phone and tell them if their mobile device has been hacked.

  • How can I tell if my phone has been hacked?
  • There are some weird things going on with my phone, Can you look at it?
  • I think someone has wiretapped my phone, what can I do?

These are valid questions that people wonder everyday. In this piece I will share with you some possible warning signs you can look out for.

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More then likely, you have seen a QR Code posted somewhere at a business or on a sticker. What is a QR code? A QR code is a square that has some funky looking print in it. Utilizing a smartphone you can scan this code and it will send you to a mobile site on your device or could even provide you with information that has been setup to deliver. There are many apps that you can download for your Android or iOS platforms that can scan QR codes.  Some of you may already have an app like this on your smartphone.

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The past 48hrs have proven to be very interesting for a few sites. LinkedIn was compromised and about 6.5 Million password hashes were released into the wild. The hilarity of the situation was that some of the passwords leaked from a job/networking site were “ihatemyjob” and “linkedin”. Some other passwords people used were: ‘hopeless,’ ‘killmenow’, ‘iwishiwasdead’.

To see if your password was affected go to: https://lastpass.com/linkedin/

Fast forward to today (June 7th) and there is news that we now have two more major sites reporting security breaches. Today eHarmony announced that there was a security breach and up to 1.5 Million passwords were reported to have been stolen as well. It looks like the same person who breached LinkedIn is also responsible for the eHarmony breach.

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