Lately, I’ve been getting some pretty convincing emails come through that warned me of imminent problem that I need to address… it could be from a bank, utility, email company, credit card company, health care — you name it. They describe the issue and offer a link where you can click to fix the problem. On Monday, I got an email about unauthorized changes to my Web Hosting Account, which almost got me to click. But I hesitated and looked around for clues to determine it was malicious… probably saved me a LOT of grief. Later this week, I received the following email from Graeme Smith, of Atlantic Technology Group. It’s an excellent rundown of the types of threats that are bombarding your inbox now, and how to avoid major headaches. Graeme was kind enough to let me pass this information along to you. Please read this and take heed:
Sent to principal at the organization – please distribute in house. MAC users – despite the cute adverts on television – two of these exploits can catch YOU – read on…..
Believe it or not – anti-virus software and patched operating systems GENERALLY are making it harder for the bad guys to lever themselves aboard your computer. So instead they have to try and fool you into visiting a website or clicking on something to do bad things to you. It must be something to do with the phases or the moon, the time of year – or desperate people – but in the last week we have been answering an increasing number of questions about this sort of thing so what is going on?
Why would people want to do bad things to you? Put simply – organized crime wants to sell you worthless goods or steal your identity. There are two principal strategies:
1. Lever an email house onto your computer that runs in the background distributing spam on their behalf. The spam email sells fake drugs, get rich quick schemes, dubious mortgage offers etc etc….. Two things happen to you:
- Your computer slows to a crawl – because it is too busy working for someone else.
- You find a lot of your email no longer goes through but gets returned with an error message identifying you as a spammer.
You are not suffering personal loss but you are frustrated by a dreadfully slow computer and email not going through.
How do they get it aboard your computer?
- email from Microsoft warning of an important update to Outlook/Outlook Express. Or from Apple with an update to Safari browser. Both very good FAKES that if you follow the link and click on it – compromises your computer. Major software vendors generally do NOT distribute software updates in this way.
- email from UPS (or FedEx, or DHL, or the Post Office or a major airline) asking you to click on the attached file to complete a failed transaction. Click on the attached file and you get a compromised computer.
- Facebook and MySpace (and whatever comes next) photo uploaders are regularly compromised by the bad guys. As you upload your pictures with the piece of software provided by the website – it also downloads malware onto your computer. There has been a MAC variant of this one.
2. Make you think you have a problem on your computer and try to get you to pay a small sum of money in an online purchase for software to rectify the problem. In the process your credit card details, name and address are stolen. At best – they run through your credit card, at worst – your identity is stolen.
How do you get fooled?
- Surfing a web site that has been taken over by the bad guys. It no longer has to be a dubious porn site. Some are very legitimate sites like News Organizations displaying advertising. As you visit the page the web site loads a fake web page in the background that looks like a security alert from your computer warning you that your computer is infected with hundreds of problems. It appears to be scanning and finding problems. It may be called Anti-Virus 2009, Anti-Virus 2010 or any other number of “Security” type names. After running the “scan” it warns that your anti-virus is out of date and offers to fix the problem for a low $29.95. Follow the link to give your credit card details (and give away your identity). They don’t even fix the problem!! (surprise surprise).
You can beat this fake warning but it requires quick thinking. If you click on ANY part of the window – the Cancel button, the Red X to close the window or any part of the surface of the window – the problem will actually load even deeper into your computer and keep coming back. The fix is to NOT click on anything and simply pull the power lead to force the computer to turn off. Sure you lose what you were working on since you last saved your work – but it is a lot less aggravation than getting your computer cleaned up.
MAC users – this one can appear on your screens too – it is just a web page in its initial form.
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And as a final note – I’m sure you are asking – why doesn’t your up to date anti-virus software take care of this? There are a couple of reasons:
- Many of these “click on me” items are configured to in effect ask “Can I do this even though your anti-virus software doesn’t like the idea?” your click gives them permission to proceed regardless. The much reviled Windows Vista actually has something called User Access control that would stop your computer as the bad guys tried to climb aboard and would ask “Are you SURE?”. Many people found this behavior annoying and turned it off – you might want to turn it back on! Windows 7 also contains the feature – though it has less of a hair trigger and doesn’t trigger for the slightest system change – but it is still a worthwhile feature.
- and no matter how up to date your anti-virus software – there is an inevitable gap between the arrival of a new exploit, it’s detection, the figuring of a fix and its distribution. A 5 day gap is not unknown during which the new exploit wreaks havoc. If you have heard the term “zero day” exploit – now you understand the meaning of it.
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