"CWS" has been utilised to get your info. Please read it here closely.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5...ml?tag=nl.e589
Criminal elements are getting more and more sophisticated in what they can do to the unwary as time goes on.
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"CWS" has been utilised to get your info. Please read it here closely.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5...ml?tag=nl.e589
Criminal elements are getting more and more sophisticated in what they can do to the unwary as time goes on.
Horrible!
Quote:
The data theft is carried out by a Trojan horse downloaded at the same time as CoolWebSearch and a mail zombie, Sunbelt said. Patrick Jordan, a Sunbelt employee, discovered the identity theft ring while researching a variant of CWS, which is a malicious program that hijacks Web searches and disables security settings in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.
And how many folks were not contacted?Quote:
"In a number of cases, we were so disturbed by what we saw that we contacted individuals who were in direct jeopardy of losing a considerable amount of money."
Partial information is almost worse than no information at all. Exactly what are we, the public, supposed to do with information this incomplete?
They should make public the server and all related information pertaining to such issues, not just allude to such activity.
Is this a tip of an ice berg by chance?Quote:
Originally Posted by shiva_42
Here are a few things we can do-
We can make sure our computers are safe.
Help others as best we can.
Write a blog.
Wrtite your newspaper.
Get in touch with your politicians or write them.
Ask your banks etc how they handle security.
You will not know until after the fact that a supposedly safe account has been tampered with in most cases.
And this is the tough one - Educate people on the dangers of Malware.
Most of those things need to be done by individuals, unless some went in the form of a petition, which i doubt would be needed, and the last point....
Quote:
And this is the tough one - Educate people on the dangers of Malware.
Forums are a good start, maybe a sticky would be a good place to start, and anyone from here who is a member of any other computer related forums that can put this idea across would help also.
Just my thoughts.
Liam
But what do you do to get folks to read stickies?? :(
Quote:
But what do you do to get folks to read stickies??
Good Point, erm, what about some sort of mass PM, or a prompt before login, so that users will get a message before they even log into the forum, something eye catching, i know thats doesn't necessarily guarantee that people will read it and take note but at least it is there for them to see and take in if they wish to.
Liam
Since MS products are the overwhelmingly majority of those being used in the world of computing, it makes sense to me that they (MS) should email a comprehensive instruction to ALL pc users as to the threats and prevention measures that are available...not just issuing 'fixes' as the holes are found.....also the media in all its forms should make an effort to publicize these hazards in computing....as it is a public safety issue.
just my 4 cents worth:D
Of course the rub is, 'how' to get MS and the media to come forward and 'step up to the plate'?.....wish I had the answer to that!
poppy
edit: Addressing the issue of what the forum can do?....how about titling a thread/forum/sticky, with something like:
"If you want to continue using your computer"...or wording similar.
AMEN. Preaching to the choir in my case. I don't really want to start a big tangent here, but until I, as an individual, have a convenient and easy way of punishing these miscreants (spamming the spammers, or something really effective in that arena) I don't really see this stopping. I'm of the opinion that no legislation or anything short of my own control and retribution will ever make much of an impact. I personally am not plagued by these issues, but it still takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to stay on top of all this, and I make my living in this industry! I can just imagine how hopeless it feels to the uninitiated users out there... :mad:Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoose1
Does anyone have any statistics on how many of these malware attempts are really purposely done by the PC's that they originate from vs. something running automatically without the PC owner's knowledge?
Somewhere, SOMETIME, I know an individual has to purposely distribute such code, but anytime I've actually talked to anyone with a machine behaving this way, it's been a revelation to the owner to even discover that the machine in question was misbehaving. Aren't MOST of these issues coming from zombie machines?
I machines are made into zombies.
Even fiewalled rigs where people had given everything permanet permission as they did not want to be bothered with reporting/chasing down a problem/possible problem.
Since the would be inconvenenced they refuse to even think of anything that is not "THE THING" to do in their minds.
Cost a client about $500- 700 before they learned Safe Computing.
Now we have folks throwing away computers that are infected.
GOOD source of hdds in those dumpster now-a-days. :D
I have been a member of a PC User Group for over 15 years. We have a few members, who are still running W95 or W98 SE. A few do not use anti-virus.
Most of the people who are not keeping their systems up to date, do not visit forums or even join user groups but they are the first to coherce a friend or relative to fix their system for "FREE".
IMO, when people have to pay a fair market price to get their system fixed or spend a considerable amount of their time to fix it themselves; then they are more likely to change their behavior.
We are NOT doing our friends or relatives any favors, when we fix their systems for free. In some cases, it is their teenage children, who are causing the problem but again they don't want to take the appropriate preventive steps.
I don't think that a sticky is the solution.
If our friends, relatives or associates have a problem, then we should give them a choice, go to VDR or pay $80 / hr for an IT pro to troubleshoot their computer. This typically results in a cost of $500 - $1,000.
Cheers,
Linda
;) :rolleyes: :cool: