Hacked Version of VLC Player

There is a hacked version of the popular VLC media player. Instead of installing VLC, it starts installing, then asks you to send an SMS to a number. They then send you a code in return to continue installation.

This is wrong. The people that hacked this installer are just trying to make money from your SMS’s. At the moment it’s been detected in the French version of VLC but it could apply to any language.

The real VLC player never asks you to send an SMS. The real VLC player can be downloaded from: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

If you download it from anywhere else you end up putting your PC at risk. Always download files from the original vendor’s web site. You can search Google to find it.

April 25, 2009 | Filed Under Fraud, Software | Leave a Comment 

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a Windows tool to remove malware. I’m always explaining how to prevent malware in the first place, but if it’s too late for you and your PC is infected, this tool is great at removing it.

There’s a free trial and a full (paid) version. The free trial is enough to help clean your PC. The paid version will help prevent future infections.

Today they announced that this product has cleaned 1 billion PCs over the past few years. That’s quite impressive. And it’s also scary to think that 1 billion people had their PCs infected with malware – if only they would read Fraudo and prevent the infections :-)

You can download it here.

mbam

April 23, 2009 | Filed Under Malware, Software | Leave a Comment 

ATM Skimming

This isn’t internet or PC related but it’s still good knowledge to avoid scams.

ATM skimming usually involves someone attaching 2 devices to an ATM:

  1. A device to read your bank card number
  2. A device to record you typing in your PIN

They attach these devices to the ATM and make it look convincing enough that most people won’t notice they’re there.

In the past the scammers would come back in a few hours and take away the devices so they can retrieve the information. And sometimes the police would be there waiting for them to return. Today crooks have gotten smarter and attach mobile phones to send the information to their own phone. This way they don’t have to return to the scene of the crime.

So the real problem is, how do you know if an ATM has these skimming devices attached? Below is a presentation prepared for a local bank in Australia. No matter which bank you use the information in this report is useful.

It’s easy to read through the presentation and won’t take up much of your time, and it’s full of interesting photos of card skimmers. You can find it here:

PowerPoint presentation: here.

April 22, 2009 | Filed Under Fraud, Scams | Leave a Comment 

AVG LinkScanner

AVG has been making anti-virus products for years, they’re a trusted company. They’ve now made one of their products free, and it would be useful for many of you. It’s called AVG LinkScanner.

It’s a plugin for FireFox and Internet Explorer. It checks every web page you load, and if it’s a known dangerous site it stops it from loading, protecting you before any malware gets a chance to run.

This is very useful if:

  1. Your main web browser is FireFox or Internet Explorer, and
  2. You use Windows, and
  3. You haven’t invested in a good anti-virus package.

It’s a fact that a lot of malware (including viruses, spyware, adware, etc) installs itself when you visit a hacked page. Most of the time you won’t know it’s happening – it’s important to install something that helps protect you.

Download it for free from: http://linkscanner.avg.com/

April 21, 2009 | Filed Under Antivirus, Malware, Software | Leave a Comment 

Fake SMS Spying

A spam email promising some SMS spying software actually installs malware. Below are some examples of the spam:

Lines such as the ones above might catch someone’s curiosity. If they click on a link they’re presented with a fake web page for their SMS spying software. The fake site says,

Get Your Free 30-Day Trial!

Do you want to test your partner or just to read somebody’s SMS? This program is exactly what you need then! It’s so easy! You don’t n3eed to install it at the mobile phone of your partner. Just download the program and you will be able to read all SMS when you are online. Be aware of everything! This is an extremely new service!

The download actually installs malware on your PC.

April 20, 2009 | Filed Under Malware, Software | 1 Comment 

Ransomware

Ransomware is malware that holds your files for ransom. Here’s a real life example of how it works:

  1. You click on a link to a web page. This web page has been hacked but you don’t know that.
  2. A message comes up on your screen telling you that you might have malware on your PC.
  3. You click on a button to start their scanning program. It pretends to do a scan of your PC. This fake program can be called AntiVirus2009, FileFixerPro, or FileFix Professional.
  4. In the background it’s going through everything in your My Documents folder and encrypting all of the files. The encrypted files are now useless to you.
  5. A message comes up asking you for $50 to get a program that will unencrypt your files.
  6. If you pay, you may or may not receive a program that unencrypts them. The hackers would also then have your credit card details.

It’s a terrible situation to be in.

There are quite a few things you can do right now to prevent this from happening:

And if you’re unfortunate enough to have this happen to you, there’s a free tool that may be able to recover your files. I bolded the word may because the hacker’s technology is getting better all the time and if they did things right it would be impossible to unencrypt it without paying. But for now you can try the method shown on this page.

April 15, 2009 | Filed Under Backups, Malware, Scams | 1 Comment 

Another Twitter Worm: cleaningUpMikey

Right after the StalkDaily Twitter worm was fixed up there’s another. It’s called cleaningUpMikey. The way it works is a little different:

If you receive the Twitter message shown below and click on the profile, some code runs in your web browser and it starts sending the same message to others. You don’t need to go to a 3rd party web site, making it a little different (and much riskier).

The Twitter message is:

Twitter, hire Mikeyy!

If you receive this, remove it or ignore it (depending on your client).

Incidentally, Mikey is the person who wrote the StalkDaily Twitter worm. And it’s unconfirmed who wrote this one.

April 14, 2009 | Filed Under Malware | Leave a Comment 

Twitter Worm: StalkDaily

Some messages are being sent on Twitter right now that are part of a worm. If you receive one of the following Twitter messages ignore it and don’t click on the link.

If you click on the link some code runs in the background that sends the same messages but from your own Twitter account.

Is it harmful? No, it was a publicity stunt by a site called StalkDaily. This is what a worm is, something that spreads through the internet similar to a virus but without infecting files. It’s still not a good thing to have around.

In this case it’s harmless but it could have been harmful. By the time you click the damage could have been done.

April 12, 2009 | Filed Under Malware, Scams, hoax | 1 Comment 

Microsoft Lottery Scam

Another scam email, this time claiming to be a lottery run by Microsoft, and telling you that you’ve won some money.

Firstly, Microsoft is not in the lottery business. So it can’t be real.

Secondly, did you really enter this lottery? You couldn’t have since it doesn’t exist. If you didn’t enter the fake lottery then you should not start believing you’ve won something.

Thirdly, if you really did win the huge amount of money this scam claims, they wouldn’t tell you by email. Email is an insecure system, they’d just call you or post a letter to you.

And lastly, Microsoft (or any other pretend lottery company) wouldn’t use a free Yahoo email in Hong Kong. They’d have an office and you’d be able to look up the office’s phone number in the phone book.

Below is the scam email:

OFFICIAL PRIZE NOTIFICATION
The MICROSOFT EMAIL PROMO TEAM is glad to announce that
after a successful completion of the PROMO DRAWS held on the
6th April 2009,your e-mail address,attached to winning
numbers:(55) (73) (14)(41) (36) (29) won in the Tenth
lottery category.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of
£150,000,00 GBP(One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great British Pounds
Sterling) in cash credited to file REF NO:MSW-L/009-28793,
BATCH NO:2009MJL-05, this is from a total prize money of
£3,750,000 (Three Million,Seven hundred and Fifty Thousand
British Pounds Sterling),shared among the Twenty five (25)
international winners in this category.
All participants were selected through our Microsoft computer
ballot system drawn from 167,000 Names,as part of our
International  \"E-MAIL"\ Promotion Program for our prominent
MS-WORD users all over the world and for the continuous use
of the internet. You are advised to contact the claims
processor with the details below via his e-mail address :
NAME:  Michael E Ross
EMAIL: <removed>@yahoo.com.hk
TEL:   <removed>
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU ARE TO SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION TO
CLAIM YOUR WINNINGS:
1.Full Name………………………………
2.Address:………………………………
3.Phone:……………Fax:……………….
4.Country:………………………………
5.Sex/Gender……………………………..
In order to avoid unnecessary delay and complications,please
remember to quote your reference and winning ticket number in
all correspondence with your claims officer.Your secret pin
code is ML0757985.Be warned that cases of double claims and
unwarranted abuse of this program will be legally pursued.

If you see this email delete it. It’s a scam.

April 8, 2009 | Filed Under Scams | Leave a Comment 

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