If you were computer conscious in the 1990s, you probably remember these often laughable but inevitably highly dangerous e-mails that would come in with amazing regularity from Nigeria, which was at that time, one of Africa’s richest countries.  At that time of considerable security upheaval in the country, it became a common fact that the government had decided to freeze international bank accounts of the families and friends of former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.  The e-mails would come from individuals who were  claiming to be  family members  of the dictator himself or high ranking members of his government who were no longer with us, and who had left  millions of dollars  in Swiss bank accounts so that the Nigerian authorities could not get their greedy hands on it. All that was required was to pay  a few dollars for the information on how the fund and those successful in releasing it, could earn a finders of fee of 15% of the sum, which could add up to a few hundred thousand dollars, pounds or whatever. Needless to say no one ever saw the finder’s fee, as the money never existed.

Luckily all but a very stupid or very greedy few fell victim to this highly unsophisticated scam, known as an “advance fee fraud,” However the proceeds must have been well invested because over the years Nigeria has become a mini world center for phishing scams, some of them fairly sophisticated, using fake sites that steal e-mail login information and send distress calls to contacts.

Nigerian phishers are reported to have focused their attention on the social-networking sites to find potential victims for their advance fee scams evolved targeting the more naive people that might use instant messaging and online social networks and seem to be more likely to answer such a call

The Nigerian Government’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are well aware of the bad reputation that they have built up over the years and in 2009 launched an awareness campaign to warn citizens of the country of the bad reputation they were earning Nigeria and the punishment that would be meted out to those caught in such nefarious activities. The EFCC also conducted raids on cybercafés in Lagos and other Nigerian cities, and made a few arrests, but the problem has not only not been solved it appears to have gotten worse.

 In one of the latest scams, e-mail accounts have been compromised and messages are sent to everyone on the contacts list, saying that e-mail account owner has been the victim of a robbery in Nigeria needs money to sort out local expense before they can fly home.  Needless to say, someone with the right anti-virus software in place need never fall victim to a Nigerian phishing scam.

This article was provide by http://www.mcafee-downloads.co.uk/ 

Tags: Anti Virus, Digital Download Products, Mcafee, Phishing Scams, Spam, Trojan Horses, Viruses

UK Cabinet Minister Ed Miliband as well as several other members of the British upper class are among those who have fallen victim to a

phishing attack through Twitter. The virus attack came to light when UK Secretary for Energy and Climate Change Miliband began to notice that his Twitter account was transmitting spam tweets, sending messages of a highly explicit nature. The message included a link that invited visitors to enter their personal information, which then fell into the hands of the hackers behind the phishing scheme.  

Twitter were not slow to issue a warning, asking subscribers to keep their eyes open for direct messages (DMs)  containing phrases like  ” is this you??’ or ‘LOL is this you’ as well as  a link. If they receive such a message, they should discard it immediately.  Anyone who does fall victim to the scam will not only be likely to pass on their sensitive personal information as well as sending out some fairly lurid messages to friends and foes alike.

Also known to be a definite victim of the phishing scam is a key executive of the online branch of a major UK bank, who has seemingly spent the better part of last week on the phone apologising and explaining that the messages (as well as the offers they contained) did not come from him.  Others who refuse to either confirm or deny that they may have fallen victim include another very highly placed Labour official to a number of print and radio journalists.

Software security analysts have reported an increased interest in compromising Twitter accounts, supposedly as a reaction to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo’s recent steps that will increasingly integrate nearly real-time data such as Twitter posts into their search engine results. This has apparently left a number of openings for hackers to use Twitter as well as the other social networking tools to target keywords. These keywords particularly include news events, which they use to secure prominent positions. When a surfer clicks on the link, malware, .such as that used to affect Ed Miliband among others is then introduced onto the computer or mobile phone.

Such a short term yet potentially damaging attack goes to show that once again people who like instant access to information cannot afford to leave anything to chance. Phishers are working flat out to devise new schemes to harvest sensitive and often classified information, that .can cause tremendous harm if it falls into the wrong hands as well as severe  embarrassment in many cases.

That’s why every individual and organisation should take their internet security very seriously.   

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Tags: Anti Virus, Anti-Phishing software, Digital Download Products, Ed Miliband, Mcafee, phished, Phishing, phishing fraudsters, Phishing Scams, Trojan Horses, Twitter, Viruses

At one time thieves and robbers were limited to where they could work from for geographical reasons.  They had to take into account how much petrol would fit into the tank of their getaway car, how much swag they could carry and if they could plan a decent escape route that would take them away from the scene of the crime as fast as possible, before the road blocks went up.  

Nowadays thanks to the wonders of the internet cyber-theft knows no boundaries and super hackers have found ways to make it possible to carry out crimes that bring in rewards of tens of millions of dollars without having to get up out of their easy chair,

From their havens around the World, with centres being as far apart as the Far East and Eastern Europe, cyber criminals can employ the latest spyware to extract information on individuals or company’s sensitive financial details.  Once they have that information at their disposal the sky is the limit to as how much money they can extract. And the chances are that nobody will notice till it is long gone. Cyber crimes are very difficult to solve as fingerprints or any other form of evidence is left at the scene.

So basically the only way that a computer owner or operator can protect their information and security us to set up roadblocks before the crime is committed. These days information highways are getting broader all the time, and the thieves that travel on them are getting smarter and more sophisticated as fast as the companies who provide software such as web browsers and operating systems progress. That means that these roadblocks whose role it will be to prevent the infiltration of viruses, malwares and worms into a computer need to be equal to the task of manning the roadblocks.

That’s why companies and individuals who can’t afford to take chances and  need to know that they are being protected at all times go for the most powerful and professional anti-virus software that is available on the market.

These raids can come from everywhere and at any time of the day or night, so remember that a good anti-virus program never sleeps. 

For more information of anti virus soft ware visit http://www.mcafee-downloads.co.uk/

Tags: Anti Virus, cyber-criminals, cyber-theft, cybercriminals, Fraud, Phishing Scams, Spam

Recent reports have it that hackers are attempting to steal the identities of Twitter users, through a fairly sophisticated phishing scheme. What appears to be making the scheme easier to spot is that the hackers are bulk e-mailing subscribers, with some attempted victims, receiving up to ten e-mails a day containing the following message.

“Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset. Please create a new password by opening this link in your browser” Needless to say the link was false, and those who fell victim to the scam had inadvertently given away all of their account information.

Yet who can be truly surprised that the latest internet sensation would become a target of an online phishing campaign. After all, they are only falling in the footsteps of Facebook, Google, Hotmail, EarthLink, Yahoo, and Comcast among others.  Estimates are that more than one million accounts may have been compromised, resulting in login details falling in to the unscrupulous hands of phishers.

The earliest examples of phishing that were seen on the internet were the almost laughable “Nigerian prince” scams that were very active around five years, although quite a few people fell victim to them. Another more recent example was a bulk e-mail campaign by phishers posing as representatives of PayPal, asking for account holders for their user name and password, again bringing surprisingly good results for the hackers and bad news for those who fell victim.

Some of the profits from these phishes appear to have been invested in the next generation of phishing, known as “spear phishing,” in which the web fraudsters have used a friendly and local cover to attempt to prize sensitive information from the unsuspecting public. If scammers send an email blast to an entire local community, under the disguise of a bank or local department store, the chances are that a few people will click on the link before news spreads.

This is the reason why internet users are urged to regularly update their passwords, even though it can some inconvenience. Yet the inconvenience will certainly bear no comparison to that caused if a person’s identity is stolen, Another, and probably more efficient method of preventing cyber theft, is install the most powerful anti-virus software on the market and to take every step to make sure that it is maintained and  up to date to protect themselves from  phishing fraudsters.

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Tags: Comcast, EarthLink, Facebook, Google, Hotmail, phishing campaign, phishing fraudsters, Phishing Scams, Trojan Horses, Viruses, Yahoo

Every day a fresh Trojan seems to hit the net and as they become more invasive their names become more bizarre. The latest comes with the distinctive name of the Vundo virus, and is indeed a pesky little invader. Early reports have it that the Vundo virus is particularly problematic because it is capable of installing deep in a computer’s registry and only a top anti-virus will have the ability to totally remove it in all of its many formats and disguises.  

The Vundo Trojan falls into the category of being a rootkit virus because it houses itself in your computer’s software registry, which is the very root of your operating system, and if left undetected takes full control of the computer. These forms of viruses are infamous because of the difficulty in removing them, as well as being dynamic in nature. This means that if less than capable software is employed in removing the virus, and succeeds in only partially removing it, Vundo will rapidly rebuild and reinstall itself and set about attacking its prey from where it left off, inside the registry file.

What is equally as worrying is that the Vundo Trojan virus will even start to create pop-ups that will attempt to sell its host computer a series of fake antivirus software. If anyone falls for the Vundo scam then the program or programs they will install are liable to infect the computer even further. Later on, when it has totally manifested itself, Vundo will slow the computer’s system down to a crawl and possibly cause it to seize up altogether. These are just a few of the ways that a Vundo-infected computer will behave. Suffice it to say that all of them are annoying and offensive.

The Vundo virus will make a very major struggle to prevent itself from being exorcised from a computer that it has taken over. Experience has shown that the only effective way to keep the Vundo Trojan at bay or totally remove it in the case of infection is setting the best tried-and-tested anti-viruses in place. 

For more information on Protection your PC or laptop visit http://www.mcafee-downloads.co.uk

Tags: Anti Virus, Digital Download Products, Mcafee, Phishing Scams, Trojan Horses, Viruses, Vundo virus

With Microsoft hot from releasing an emergency patch on Thursday 19^th January designed to repair a zero-day vulnerability that caused Google and more than 30 other companies to be hacked in the so-called Aurora attacks, an older problem has reared its ugly head which looks like it will represent further woe for Internet Explorer (IE).

Information has reached Microsoft that versions of Internet Explorer could inadvertently allow hacker entry to a computer’s hard disc and allow them to access files on the computer. Apparently Microsoft was made aware of the problem as long ago as 2008 and despite two attempts by Microsoft to fix it two years ago, the problem seems unwilling to go away.  The virus is not so sophisticated and doesn’t allow the hacker to install other codes on a person’s computer. Despite that fact, the presence of this glitch has to be regarded as a serious breach of security, affecting all of Microsoft’s operating systems, including their latest IE8.

The hacker operates by duping a victim into clicking on a heavily disguised malicious Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL is created by manipulating four or five features in Internet Explorer; if the hacker succeeds in drawing a computer owner or user into his web, the browser will process files that are not pure HTML on the computer.

Despite the fixes carried out in 2008, hackers continue to find ways to pull off the same attack. Hopes are that when Microsoft’s next batch of patches is released on Feb. 9 the company will have come up with a solution to the problem by then.

In the meantime, if you come across a link that looks suspicious, you should stay clear. If you click on the URL you might find yourself on a web site that is an exact replica of the one that wanted to link onto it, but is instead an attempt to access private information and introduce a series of viruses into your computer.

For more information on Protection your PC or laptop visit http://www.mcafee-downloads.co.uk

Tags: Anti Virus, Computer Viruses, Digital Download Products, IE, Internet Security, Mcafee, Phishing Scams, Trojan Horses, Viruses

And that is never to switch it on, or at least never connect to the internet, which would kind of defeat the purpose of having a computer in this day and age.  Once a computer has been connected to the net, and it is without virus protection than it is vulnerable to invasion as if it has been online for years.  .  Viruses and other malware  are lying in wait to invade a computer and it could just a few minutes before they come knocking on the door, to discover that it has been left ajar.

Computer viruses didn’t earn their title because it slipped off someone’s tongue. There are human viruses and there are computer viruses and they bear strong similarities. A person can become really ill from being infected with a virus as a can a computer. The difference is that a human will, in most cases, eventually recover from a virus while a computer will gradually deteriorate into an uncooperative and unfriendly monster if left untreated.

The first signs that a computer has been infected by a virus, is that it begins to operate increasingly slowly. While this is something that can be very frustrating for the operator, but is a small time problem compared to what lies in store. The next tell-tale sign that there are gremlins at work is when your disc drives begin to lock you out. You will find yourself increasingly using your right click button as you battle to retain control of your computer, which is becoming increasingly unfriendly.

Dependant on the strength and the nature  of the virus which is attacking your computer there will eventually be no option but to  take some very radical  steps to get your computer back on the road to health. This will invariably require the services of a computer technician who knows what will be required to get your computer clear of all these viruses. Computer technicians are like doctors and will not be slow to point out that an unprotected computer will only become a sick one again, and in next to no time. 

So like humans take their preventative medicines so you should protect your computer with a dose of what is good for it.  Not that you should pour some cough medicine through the DVD drive, more that you should install a professional and efficient anti-virus program.

Tags: Anti Virus, Computer Viruses, Mcafee, Phishing Scams, Trojan Horses, Viruses

An Adobe post has confirmed that the company fears that both their Adobe Acrobat and Reader are currently under active attack from a Trojan named Pidief.H.  Adobe has hastened to point out that infection rates are “extremely limited” and the company’s risk assessment level is very low, suggesting that the threat has been largely contained. .

The fact that hackers can succeed in breaching the defences of a company holding such an elevated status in the software industry has raised a few eyebrows; the attack seemingly was targeted on a zero-day level, a combination which is hard to defend against. These forms of targeted attacks against a specific company’s software invariably come in a personalised form, and usually through an e-mail. The e-mail has to be good to evade all the security blockages and anti-virus programs that most computer owners and operators should have in place, but reports are that there are many cases where it has slipped through.  

When some poor unsuspecting soul, who is lulled into a false sense of security, mistakenly opens an e-mail attachment that sets off a zero-day attack, the virus is almost guaranteed to find the weak spot in the software that it has been primed to attack, as long as that software has been installed on the computer, and Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat reader are resident in millions of computers around the globe. The only real protection against the Pidief.H Trojan is to have an anti-virus program strong enough to detect the attack. Some of the less sophisticated anti-virus software suites will have very low capability of defending against these types of small scale targeted attacks.

Thankfully, in these days of mass-produced viruses, the targeted attacks are few and far between, but can be devastatingly vicious if they get through a computer’s defences.  

Apparently Adobe learned of the attack on Monday of this week, with three of the leading anti-virus software developers advising of the attack within minutes, and MacAfee being one of them, while the majority of anti-virus products are yet to detect the attack which apparently has been active since Friday 11^th December.

Until the spread of Pidief.H Trojan can be arrested it is expected to become more wide spread in the next few weeks, especially to those whose computers are not sufficiently protected against such sophisticated attacks.

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Tags: Adobe Acrobat Reader, Anti Virus, anti-virus programs, Digital Download Products, Mcafee, Phishing Scams, Pidief.H, Pidief.H Trojan, Trojan Horses, Viruses

Computer viruses at one time could only attack our computers through e-mail attachments. It could be said that these were in the "good old days", when most home computers at least were subject to seemingly never-ending waves of spam, and an unsuspecting surfer could open a virus-infested e-mail attachment, temporarily blinded by the promise of great riches, or a weekend for two in Bognor Regis. Thankfully, these days most of the computer-owning public have become alert to the dangers of opening e-mail from unclear sources and with anti-virus software becoming increasingly sophisticated, this threat has been largely removed from our radar, only to be replaced by more sinister threats. That doesn’t mean that we should now begin to open all our e-mail attachments without fear. There are still plenty viruses out there to attack our computers through opening the wrong e-mail attachment. So here are a few tips to help the innocent and unsuspecting to recognize a potential e-mail attachment threat.

Basically, if you are not totally acquainted with the person who sent you an e-mail with an attachment, you shouldn’t open it. If the sender has advised you that a specific e-mail is on its way with a specific attachment, and then it is a risk worth taking; otherwise think twice. If the attachment is a Word files (.DOC), Excel spreadsheet (.XLS), or an image such as JPG or GIF, then you should be able to open them with confidence. If you open a Word or Excel file before proceeding too far, you should make sure that it doesn’t contain any macro files, which could disguise a virus. If the attachment is an EXE, COM or VBS file, then it should be discarded without any second thought. These are executable files and will more than likely contain a virus, which can and probably will do tremendous damage to your computer. The only defense that you can have is to never run executables that arrive via e-mail, even at the risk of offending the person that supposedly sent it.

Computer viruses have sadly moved on a great deal since the hey-day of the attachment transmitted babies of just a year or two ago. That doesn’t mean that complacency be allowed to creep in. Anyone who regularly receives e-mails and sends them needs to make sure that there is an anti-virus software installed and active on the computer. Doing so will protect them from any of the dangers of these innocent looking and tempting “to open” e-mail attachments.

This article was sourced from www.mcafee-downloads.co.uk/

Tags: Anti Virus, anti-virus software, Computer virus, Digital Download Products, E-mail, e-mail attachment, executable files, Home Electricals and Computers, Mcafee, Phishing Scams, risk, Spam, Trojan Horses, virus-infested e-mail, Viruses

Computer viruses come in a number of formats, yet all with the same intention: To attack your computer and make life difficult. Some viruses are designed to do malicious damage to your computer, simply because they can. This harm that they can do begins and ends on your computer’s hard disc. And when this kind of damage occurs on your computer and vital files have not been backed up, the effects can be fairly disastrous, leaving the person whose computer has been attacked in such a way that the questions begs to be asked: " Haven’t these people got anything better do with their time and their abilities?"

Another and more powerful form of malicious virus is the worm form of a virus. Computer worms are especially unpleasant because they have been programmed to replicate themselves and never contain themselves within one computer. In fact, the opposite applies. The worm is totally self-contained and can spread itself without being part of a host program. Once a worm has found itself in a computer, it will place itself in a position where it can be rapidly spread throughout the internet, usually through e-mails. The worm will simply infiltrate the victim’s e-mail address book and this spreads to the addresses that appear there, and forever onwards and outwards through the system. While they bear a strong similarity to the "simple" computer virus, worms are potentially more damaging and much more difficult to get rid of. It can appear several times on the same computer, running in a seemingly never-ending loop.

Apart from the damage they can cause worms, more than any other of the forms of viruses, have brought about the end of the age of innocence on the internet. Nowadays people have learned to be very suspicious about opening e-mails, and especially attachments, even from people that they know very well, for fear that they may be "contaminated". The spread of viruses in the last five to ten years has been considerable, and has even been responsible for inspiring a whole sub-industry within the internet world: anti virus software.

Nowadays, anyone who leaves their computer unprotected from viruses does so at their own peril entirely, and is risking not only their own computer but those of their friends and colleague: An irresponsible act within itself. Too many times, under pressure, computer owners who don’t take the threat of malware as seriously as they should will rush to the internet to download the first "free" software that they can find. And while there are many excellent "freewares" available on line, they are often not powerful or all-encompassing enough to handle the increasingly sophisticated threats being thrown at it.

Once the computer owner realizes that the threats that computer viruses in their various forms present to the computer, and hopefully not before it is too late, he will rush to invest in a top level Anti-Virus from one of the well-known and reputable publishers. The cost in terms of money is totally negligible in respect to the important work that it does. Anti-virus protection from MacAfee means that the computer owner or operator has done all that can be done to protect themselves and those within their circle, from the never-ending threats which malware presents.

Tags: Anti Virus, anti-virus software, Computer virus, Home Electricals and Computers, MacAfee, Malware, Phishing Scams, Worm