Date: January 20th 2010

This past week has seen some serious activity with some pretty intense viruses.

I personally have received the same type of email message multiple times with an attachment that is caught immediately by Kaspersky.

It arrives as a message from a tracking system, UPS or DHL (are they still in business?) and the attachment is the actual virus embedded in a zip file.

If you open the attachment, the virus will start the attempt at loading itself into the computer.

The other computers that have been seen in my office have had a similar type of virus much like the original XP Fraud anitvirus.

Remember the popup that told you that your computer, your dog, your house and most of your food and paperclips were all infected and at no time could you close out of the popup?

Well, there has been a huge amount of pages on the internet that have been infected with the virus that looks for the hole in your computer security or any flaw in Internet Explorer or javascript, and then proceeds to load the virus in with a screen that again tells you that the computer has an infection.

While it is running the fake scan, it is scanning your computer for further flaws and holes in your security.

I recenlty wrote up a blog post (http://www.mac-pc-assist.com/GeekyThings) about other programs that attempt to "add" security scans from Norton and McAffee as a "bonus" for the downloading their software. MAKE SURE THAT YOU UNCHECK THE BOX PRIOR TO DOWNLOADING THE DESIRED SOFTWARE!

Too many cooks spoil the broth and too many "scanners" leave open a hole for hackers/virus writers to walk through.

On another note: I have been extensively testing the Kaspersky product out here in the office. So far, it has caught every single attempt that a webpage, an email or any other attack including the dreaded message from a friend in "FaceBook" has tried getting past it.

As this year starts out, please call if you are not sure about keeping your existing Anitvirus/Internet Security solution and would like to make the switch to Kaspersky.

A number of my clients are also doing the upgrade path for Windows 7. Since a number of folks bought computers with Vista after June 26, 2009, they are getting free upgrades to Windows 7.

Others are looking at replacing existing hardware as parts fail on Windows XP computers. Most are at least 3 years old and as the industry moves towards Windows 7 in terms of hardware and software support, the decision to purchase Windows 7 is easier.

So far, I have been using Windows 7 on my netbook, my laptop and on my main box here in the office. Both of the portables have 2GB of RAM and seem sufficient for what I use them for. My office computer is an 8GB machine with a couple of terabytes. I need speed on that with all of the support and design work. There are fewer errors and issues with Windows 7 than with all of the previous operating systems I have had used from Microsoft. (For giggles: DOS 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, Windows 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and Windows Mobile starting with CE.)

In Service,

Scott
(760) 550-9496/(760) 969-0974 cell
scott@mac-pc-assist.com
http://www.mac-pc-assist.com
http://www.mac-pc-assist.com/GeekyThings blog