Avast Anti-Virus Won the Poll

Thanks to all of you that read this blog and voted on your favorite anti-virus.
Avast Anti-Virus was the Winner among you. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
This month we'll look at the favorite spyware removal tools you like best. I look forward to the results.

Confiker A Bust, I'm not so sure...

The conficker worm which showed up about 6 months ago has became one of the most talked about and reported on malware since the cih virus of 1998. While its not destructive in nature it has the potential to cause havoc for many computer users. There was big hype this week about a mass launch on April 1st, 2009.

News sources seem to think that the writers of Conficker, also known as downadup was defeated due to all the hype and press. I can't say I agree with this, there are still thousands of computers out there infected with this malware and they aren't even aware of it, furthermore these boys are not stupid. I beleive they will bide their time quietly sending out their new and improved version and wait til the hype dies down.

Anti-virus companies are still scrambling to add signatures to remove it. If you installed the Microsoft patch months ago you may be protected. If you install it now and have the worm its moot.

Virus and Spyware removal is what I do best and I'll not write off this one just yet.

New Firefox Vulnerability Found

New attack code has been released today targeting the Firefox Browser. This new attacks has sent Firefox developers scrambling to patch the flaw. Until it is patched, this code could be modified by attackers and used to install unauthorized software onto a Firefox user's machine.

This bug affects Firefox on all operating systems, including Mac OS and Linux. This vulnerability tricks the user into viewing a maliciously coded XML file. The attacker could than use this bug to install unauthorized software on a victim's system. This kind of drive-by download, has become increasingly popular in recent years.

Firefox users will be issued a fix for this vulnerability its it's upcoming 3.08 version release. It is recommended users update as soon as it's released.

Adobe Zero Day Exploit Patch

There was a security hole found in Adobe Acrobat Reader and Acrobat 9. Adobe reports..

This vulnerability would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this issue has been being exploited for over 2 months.

This patch is important.

Many of us disable auto-updates, or just don't bother to install the newest version of the software we're using. This exploit in Adobe reader 9.1 and Acrobat 9.1 can be triggered with no action from the user. It can use the Windows Indexing Service to trigger the bug.

This vulnerability can be triggered simply by sending someone a malicious PDF document, and using Windows Explorer's ability to read the file automatically.

I would suggest getting the patch asap.

Internet Explorer Causes Your Computer to Restart

The Problem

Interesting job I had in the shop today. Windows XP Home sp2 and Internet Explorer 7 on an old hp. The computer would restart everytime Internet Explorer was opened. It never even fully loaded. The computer has AVG 8 free edition so my first thought was a Windows issue. But I have a system diagnostic routine I follow on every machine so using my own security tools, Malwarebytes anti-malware and avast anti-virus I find that 309 files are infected.

Internet Explorer had 4 toolbars installed. Several instances of Vundo, and several generic trojans.

The Fix
Begin by removing all toolbars in add/remove. There is no telling which one is casuing the issue, you can always install the one you really want later.

Download and run Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Here
Let it remove what it can.

Disable or remove any anti-virus software you have installed
Download and install Avast Anti-Virus Here
On installation schedule a boot time scan.
When asked to reboot Cancel.
Open Avast and update it. When the update is complete restart your computer.
Follow the scan as it will ask for your permission on the action for each infection found.

When the scan is finished and the computer has been cleaned it will boot to Windows.
Run a final full scan of both programs to be sure you found all infected files.

Hope this helps some of you :)

E-mail Scam IRS Stimulus Payments

Per usual scammers are using e-mail scams to try to steal your personal information. Social Security numbers, Bank Account information and more. The new scam comes as an e-mail appearing to be from the IRS asking you to provide personal data to ensure delivery of your stimulus payment. The IRS or any government agency will ever solicit this type of information by e-mail.

Users receiving this type of fraudulent IRS e-mail are encouraged not to click on any links contained therein and to forward the message and the website URL to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov.