Security
AtA’s Funny Comic Moment
Feb 15th
I think that also means "Kanji" in Jersey Shore-speak
Very, very funny.
-enjoy
Commodore64 (the one you used to play Bruce Lee on) ,8,1
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Be Afraid! Chinese Hackers CAN and HAVE Exploited Google and YOU.
Feb 3rd
Chinese Hackers
Hello Kiddies,
Do you remember the good old days when hacking was done for fun? Back in those days anybody that knew Linux or Unix was considered a Hacker. One would think that since then, antivirus companies would have actually become effective. But what one company can compete with a whole country? To make matters worse, who can compete with multiple countries full of young hot heads venturing forth for the almighty dollar? That’s a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Since a hacker doesn’t technically require a whole lot of bandwidth to do what he/she does, internet access of any kind
Here at Ask The Admin we are committed to being sure every one of our readers is in the know. And while we cant really offer much in the way of a sure-fire killer app that can protect you from anything, we can offer you these few points of advice.
- Keep your antivirus software up to date
- Use a well known anti virus software, and do some research before purchasing
- Be well versed with all the functions of your antivirus software, so no surprises come your way
- Though it does slow you down, schedule full system scans as frequently as daily
- Leave your computer turned off if you can
- Lastly, try to use an OS other than Wind Blows (as we like to call Windows around here). If your a hacker its only more logical and profitable to target the statistically dominant OS, which is Microsoft’s unfortunately.
That’s all for today kiddies…
Has you or anyone you know been directly affected by this? Even if your just afraid and need a little encouragement, drop us a comment below.
This is Commodore64 signing off. Over and out.
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Conficker Eye Chart to tell if you are infected by the Conficker worm.
Apr 8th
Yes this is another post on the Conficker worm. Just because it’s payload hasn’t been felt it doesn’t mean that the worm isn’t lurking around people’s computers. The Conficker worm disables access to a bunch of sites that would enable you to download security updates or patches. We linked to the Conficker Microsoft patches last week. But if you didn’t grab the updates or at least verify that you have them – this post is for you…
Can you see all six icons below?
If you can see all six icons chances are you are not infected.
But that is still no reason not to run the Conficker scanner on your machine. eEye is providing a free scanner to look for venerable, patched or infected machines. Grab it here:
So are you protected or not? Let’s hear the results in the comments.
Conficker has not struck yet. Are you protected?
Apr 3rd
I wrote about the Conficker worm that is wiggling around the interwebs on April 1st. Either it was an unsuccessful deployment of the worm or it is waiting. Maybe Conficker is out partying.
Have you updated your machine so that you are protected? Check out this Microsoft Security Bulletin here.
Scroll down and you will see links for each operating system and service pack revision. Simply click on the hyperlink for your OS and download the <1mb patch. This will plug up the hole that Conficker is going to try and use.
These are the links for the update:
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
- Windows XP Service Pack 2
- Windows XP Service Pack 3
- Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
- Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2
- Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
- Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
- Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition
- Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition Service Pack 2
- Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based Systems
- Windows Server 2003 with SP2 for Itanium-based Systems
- Windows Vista and Windows Vista Service Pack 1
- Windows Vista x64 Edition and Windows Vista x64 Edition Service Pack 1
- Windows Server 2008 for 32-bit Systems*
- Windows Server 2008 for x64-based Systems*
- Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
So do yourself and everyone else on your network a favor and get your machines updated! If you are not using WSUS for your network you might want to re-think that! We did a WSUS article a while back and you can find it here.
Can I hide the Sceduled Tasks and Printers Folders in the Network view?
Apr 2nd
By default your windows XP machine shows the Printers and Faxes share along with the Scheduled Tasks folder. You can make use of the scheduled tasks folder like this or use a remote printer share to quickly install a remote printer.
Some people like this, most people don’t use it and a few people REALLY hate it. So here is a quick how-to on peacing it out:
To hide the Scheduled Tasks from the network share view, follow these steps:
- Click Start, Run and type REGEDIT
- Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \RemoteComputer \ NameSpace
- Backup the key by exporting it to a .REG file. (You need this to revert back!)
- To remove Scheduled Tasks, delete the following key:
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
- To remove the Printers folder, delete the following key:
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
- Close Registry Editor.
By deleting one key or the other you are removing the folders from the network view and not disabling printing/scheduling in any which way. To restore the shares after removing them import the .REG file you saved in the third step above.
_ThePeaceYouOutAdmiN_
April 1st is coming beware of the Conficker worm and impending doom.
Mar 31st
Have you heard about the Conficker worm? It has been all over the media
Before you even continue reading make sure your Windows XP machine is patched up to Service Pack 3 and your Vista Machines are Service Pack 1. Now check out this information from the Symantec website:
The Conficker worm, sometimes called Downadup or Kido has managed to infect a large number of computers. Specifics are hard to come by, but some researchers estimate that millions of computers have been infected with this threat since January. Current users of Symantec’s Norton security products are protected. Users who lack protection are invited to download a trial version of Norton AntiVirus 2009,Norton Internet Security 2009 or Norton 360. All of these products will detect and remove this worm. Symantec has a detailed technical analysis of the threat here.
So even if Symantec is not being paid to protect your machine they will still help you out with removing Conficker. This is just another variant of an older worm and it is set to mutate again on the 1st.
We poked around the web a bit more and came across this on Cnet:
Even worm creators write buggy software.
Once it infects a computer, the Conficker worm closes the hole in Windows that it used to get onto the system so no other malware can get in. This also makes it difficult for organizations to detect which computers have the legitimate Microsoft patch and which have the fake Conficker patch.
Wow! Isn’t that nuts? They go on to say they have developed a proto-type of a scanner that can pick up the infection from Conficker. You can read the rest of that article here http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10207375-83.html. Read more after the jump.
