Sunday, May 9, 2010

“McAfee antivirus program goes berserk, freezes PCs” plus 2 more

“McAfee antivirus program goes berserk, freezes PCs” plus 2 more

McAfee antivirus program goes berserk, freezes PCs

Posted: 09 May 2010 12:56 AM PDT

NEW YORK – Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update it posted at 9 a.m. Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

McAfee could not say how many computers were affected, but judging by online postings, the number was at least in the thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands.

McAfee said it did not appear that consumer versions of its software caused similar problems. It is investigating how the error happened "and will take measures" to prevent it from recurring, the company said in a statement.

The computer problem forced about a third of the hospitals in Rhode Island to postpone elective surgeries and stop treating patients without traumas in emergency rooms, said Nancy Jean, a spokeswoman for the Lifespan system of hospitals. The system includes Rhode Island Hospital, the state's largest, and Newport Hospital. Jean said patients who required treatment for gunshot wounds, car accidents, blunt trauma and other potentially fatal injuries were still being admitted to the emergency rooms.

In Kentucky, state police were told to shut down the computers in their patrol cars as technicians tried to fix the problem. The National Science Foundation headquarters in Arlington, Va., also lost computer access.

Intel Corp. appeared to be among the victims, according to employee posts on Twitter. Intel did not immediately return calls for comment.

Peter Juvinall, systems administrator at Illinois State University in Normal, said that when the first computer started rebooting it quickly became evident that it was a major problem, affecting dozens of computers at the College of Business alone.

"I originally thought it was a virus," he said. When the tech support people concluded McAfee's update was to blame, they stopped further downloads of the faulty software update and started shuttling from computer to computer to get the machines working again.

In many offices, personal attention to each PC from a technician appeared to be the only way to fix the problem because the computers weren't receptive to remote software updates when stuck in the reboot cycle. That slowed the recovery.

It's not uncommon for antivirus programs to misidentify legitimate files as viruses. Last month, antivirus software from Bitdefender locked up PCs running several different versions of Windows.

However, the scale of this outage was unusual, said Mike Rothman, president of computer security firm Securosis.

"It looks to be a train wreck," Rothman said.—AP

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ENT: Got a virus? Plenty of help online - column by Bob Vaillancourt

Posted: 08 May 2010 01:17 PM PDT

Posted By BOB VAILLANCOURT

Updated 17 hours ago

The other day, I was moving some files on my home PC, which runs the Windows XP operating system, when my antivirus program popped up with a message that said I had a trojan infection. However, when I told the program to remove the infection, it came back with an error message that it couldn't do that.

Anti-virus programs are like that. They can remove most viruses readily, but when it comes to malware, adware, spyware and just plain trojans, they sometimes fall short.

That's why it's always a good idea to have software on your machine to detect malicious software, like trojans, dialers, worms, backdoors, denial of service (DOS) tools, keyloggers, sniffers and the like.

Yup, you guessed it, I didn't. Although, like many people, I thought I had adequately protected myself with a firewall program.

That lead me to do a search for what is out there to help a user clean up a computer system. What I found was that there is help a plenty.

One of the best freeware programs for that sort of thing is called Superantispyware. There are two versions of this program. The free version will do a thorough search of your computer and come back with a report and a method for cleaning the computer out. I was surprised what this program turned up. It was effective for sure.

While the free version runs a scan and cleans out your system, the paid version, which sells for $29.95 U.S., provides ongoing, or what is called "real time" protection while your computer is running.

Microsoft has also provided a malicious software blocker, as well. The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software -- including Blaster, Sasser and Mydoom -- and helps remove any infection found.

Microsoft updates the tool on a regular basis each month and also when a particular threat is identified. It is available through Microsoft Update, Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center.

There is also free and paid versions of an anti-malware program at Malwarebytes.org,as well.

Like Superantispyware, the Malwarebytes product comes in two flavours, free and paid. And like Superantispyware, the free version does a one-time sweep of your system and then reports back its findings, before cleaning the system out. You can do the sweep as many times as you like with the free version. And just like it's competitors, the paid version provides ongoing or real time protection while the computer is on. The paid version sells for $24.95 U.S. Corporate and business users require annual licenses.

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The folks at www.lavasoft.comalso have a free malware removal tool on their site. The company also produces a professional and plus versions of the software. The plus and pro versions, which sell for $26.95 and $39.95 respectively, include free anti-virus in the plus version and real time network protection in the pro version.

There is also free software at www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html,

the home of the Spybot program.

For free real time protection, i.e. the program runs in the background while you go about your computing chores, check out SpywareGuard from Javacool software. You can find it at www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html

All of these products, of course, are for the Windows operating system.

Mac users have less to worry about, but it is still possible to receive malware on that platform, too.

If your operating system is Mac-based, there is a utility Mac users can use, Rootkit Hunter is a free program from sourceforg.net.It is available at www.christian-hornung.de.Of course, there are plenty of antivirus programs out there for both Windows and Mac operating systems, but to go deeper, a good malware program is also needed.

Bob Vaillancourt is our web guy. E-mail your questions to bvaillancourt@thesudburystar.com.

Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Five hidden dangers of Facebook (Q&A)

Posted: 08 May 2010 02:38 PM PDT

Facebook claims that it has 400 million users. But are they well-protected from prying eyes, scammers, and unwanted marketers?

Not according to Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online.

She says your privacy may be at far greater risk of being violated than you know, when you log onto the social-networking site, due to security gaffes or marketing efforts by the company.

Facebook came under fire this past week, when 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, charging that the site, among other things, manipulates privacy settings to make users' personal information available for commercial use. Also, some Facebook users found their private chats accessible to everyone on their contact list--a major security breach that's left a lot of people wondering just how secure the site is.

In two words, asserts Goodchild: not very.

On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," Goodchild spotlighted five dangers she says Facebook users expose themselves to, probably without being aware of them:

  1. Your information is being shared with third parties
  2. Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign
  3. Facebook ads may contain malware
  4. Your real friends unknowingly make you vulnerable
  5. Scammers are creating fake profiles

Below is an edited transcript of the interview.

Is Facebook a secure platform to communicate with your friends?
Here's the thing: Facebook is one of the most popular sites in the world. Security holes are being found on a regular basis. It is not as inherently secure as people think it is, when they log on every day.

Certainly, there are growing pains. Facebook is considered a young company, and it has been around a few years now. It is continuing to figure this out. They are so young, they are still trying to figure out how they are going to make money. It is hard to compare this to others; we have never had this phenomenon before in the way [so many] people are communicating with each other--only e-mail comes close.

The potential for crime is real. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, victims of Internet-related crimes lost $559 million in 2009. That was up 110 percent from the previous year. If you're not careful using Facebook, you are looking at the potential for identity theft, or possibly even something like assault, if you share information with a dangerous person you think is actually a "friend." One British police agency recently reported that the number of crimes it has responded to in the last year involving Facebook climbed 346 percent. These are real threats.

Lately, it seems a week doesn't go by without some news about a Facebook-related security problem. Earlier this week, TechCrunch discovered a security hole that made it possible for users to read their friends' private chats. Facebook has since patched it, but who knows how long that flaw existed? Some speculate it may have been that way for years.

Last month, researchers at VeriSign's iDefense group discovered that a hacker was selling Facebook usernames and passwords in an underground hacker forum. It was estimated that he had about 1.5 million accounts--and was selling them for between $25 and $45.

And the site is constantly under attack from hackers trying to spam these 400 million users, or harvest their data, or run other scams. Certainly, there is a lot of criticism in the security community of Facebook's handling of security. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that the company rarely responds to inquiries.

Do people really have privacy on Facebook?
No. There are all kinds of ways third parties can access information about you. For instance, you may not realize that, when you are playing the popular games on Facebook, such as FarmVille, or take those popular quizzes--every time you do that, you authorize an application to be downloaded to your profile that gives information to third parties about you that you have never signed off on.

Does Facebook share info about users with third parties through things such as Open Graph?
Open Graph is a new concept for Facebook, which unveiled it last month at its F8 conference. It actually is basically a way to share the information in your profile with all kinds of third parties, such as advertisers, so they can have a better idea of your interests and what you are discussing, so Facebook can--as portrayed--"make it a more personal experience."

The theory behind Open Graph--even if it has not implemented it--is its whole business model, isn't it?
That is the business model--Facebook is trying to get you to share as much information as possible so it can monetize it by sharing it with advertisers.

Isn't it in Facebook's best interest to get you to share as much info as possible?
It absolutely is. Facebook's mission is to get you to share as much information as it can so it can share it with advertisers. As it looks now, the more info you share, the more money it is going to make with advertisers.

Isn't there also a security problem every time it redesigns the site?
Every time Facebook redesigns the site, which [usually] happens a few times a year, it puts your privacy settings back to a default in which, essentially, all of your information is made public. It is up to you, the user, to check the privacy settings and decide what you want to share and what you don't want to share.

Facebook does not [necessarily] notify you of the changes, and your privacy settings are set back to a public default. Many times, you may find out through friends. Facebook is not alerting you to these changes; it is just letting you know the site has been redesigned.

Can your real friends on Facebook also can make you vulnerable?
Absolutely. Your security is only as good as your friend's security. If someone in your network of friends has a weak password, and his or her profile is hacked, he or she can now send you malware, for example.

There is a common scam called a 419 scam, in which someone hacks your profile and sends messages to your friends asking for money - claiming to be you--saying, "Hey, I was in London, I was mugged, please wire me money." People fall for it. People think their good friend needs help--and end up wiring money to Nigeria.

A lot of Web sites we use display banner ads, but do we have to be wary of them on Facebook?
Absolutely: Facebook has not been able to screen all of its ads. It hasn't done a great job of vetting which ads are safe and which are not. As a result, you may get an ad in your profile when you are browsing around one day that has malicious code in it. In fact, last month, there was an ad with malware that asked people to download antivirus software that was actually a virus.

Is too big a network of friends dangerous?
You know people with a lot of friends--500, 1,000 friends on Facebook? What is the likelihood they are all real? There was a study in 2008 that concluded that 40 percent of all Facebook profiles are fake. They have been set up by bots or impostors.

If you have 500 friends, it is likely there is a percentage of people you don't really know, and you are sharing a lot of information with them, such as when you are on vacation, your children's pictures, their names. Is this information you really want to put out there to people you don't even know?

This interview, "Five Hidden Dangers of Facebook," was originally published on CBSNews.com.

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