Spam Confidential 12-10-2009

PHISHING ALERT

link contains http://online.cdc.gov.yttt4l.co.im/h1n1..... Notice that the link has cdc.gov in the link but it continues to yttt41.co.im ( co.im is for domains in the Isle of Man) If it were to really to go cdc.gov you would see something more like http://online.cdc.gov/index.html

-----Original Message-----

From: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [mailto:cdc-message-id:46024med@cdcmails.gov]

Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 6:59 AM

To:

Subject: Governmental registration program on the H1N1 vaccination



You have received this e-mail because of the launching of State Vaccination H1N1 Program.

You need to create your personal H1N1 (swine flu) Vaccination Profile on the cdc.gov website. The Vaccination is not obligatory, but every person that has reached the age of 18 has to have his personal Vaccination Profile on the cdc.gov site. This profile has to be created both for the vaccinated people and the not-vaccinated ones. This profile is used for the registering system of vaccinated and not-vaccinated people.

Create your Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile using the link:

Create Personal Profile link contains  http://online.cdc.gov.yttt4l.co.im/h1n1.....  Notice that the link has cdc.gov in the link  but it continues to yttt41.co.im ( co.im is for domains in the Isle of Man)   If it were to really to go cdc.gov you would see something more like http://online.cdc.gov/index.html    


________________________________________

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) • 1600 Clifton Rd • Atlanta GA 30333 • 800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636)

Rsync With Delta Copy.

In my earlier articles I talked about the need to have backups of your valuable information. One very popular method is to synchronize your data to a computer at a remote location. You can subscribe to a remote data replication/backup service like Carbonite.com or if like many who already have access to a second computer in your home or business, you can do the same yourself for free. I will show you how to setup such a service “Rsync” using the open source (free) Delta Copy software.

Lean and Mean, Microsoft Security Essentials Just released

Lean and Mean, Microsoft has just released to the public a great free and effective antivirus / anti=malware solution for your Windows Xp - Vista and Windows 7 computer.  Download from the Microsoft Security Essentials Website    If you have doubts please check out this first look article from Ars Technica

it's finally here - Free ANTIVIRUS protection from Microsoft

From Microsoft and it is FREE!!! This is what many have been waiting for and those that have installed it are impressed.

Here is a review from the computer trade publication Computer World It is lightweight , uses less horsepower to run and promises to be excellent. Now there is no excuse for not having AV loaded on your system. Did I mention FREE???

Here is the catch,, the free beta is limited to a set number. Get it here

Conficker test

Using basic knowledge of the blacklisting that Conficker employs to avoid attempting to infect IPs that belong to popular Anti-Virus and security firms (including Microsoft), the Conficker Working Group whipped up this very simple test to see if you can load content from the various pages. If you can see all of the images, you're more than likely Conficker-free.
CONFICKER -- Check to see if you are infected

Thanks to
Joe Stewart from the Conficker Working Group
http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/

Anatomy of a hoax virus warning email

key words to look for in emails that tell you to panic

I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus!
Hoax like wording because: Norton / Microsoft,/ CNN /etc do not gear up for viruses and assure ably if you call Norton, Microsoft, etc you will not get anyone to make a public statement such as this

I checked Snopes (URL above:), and it is for real!!
Hoax like wording because: the letter writer knows that most will never check with snopes for if they did, they would have found it to be a hoax or not listed.

Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.
Hoax like wording because: yes, that is the purpose of the email. to see it cause panic

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!
Hoax like wording because: please send it to everyone

You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled 'POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,' regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' thewhole hard disc C of your computer.
Hoax like wording because: viruses today do not destroy equipment, viruses are used today to steal your identity and control your computer, The last thing that they want to do is destroy your hardware for that would prevent them from using you for thier deeds

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
Hoax like wording because: yes please don't annoy them once. send them the same hoax every day if you can

If you receive a mail called' POSTCARD,' even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately .
Hoax like wording because: even better, shut down your pc when you receive mail, any email, ( except from me of course)

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered recently by McAfee, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.
Hoax like wording because: According to John Stewart of Comedy Central Daily Show, Cable News like CNN and CNBC cannot even keep track of financial news properly, now you think they would be in the Virus news space? In fact, MSFT, CNN, McAfee would never make a press release such as this, and if they did, you would not need the email.

COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US.
Hoax like wording because: how many times does this email remind us to send it to everyone? hmmm.....

for personal users , consider online backups

A buddy was telling me about this great service that he was using http://mozy.com/ for a backup services. Since he really does care about his data, has 100s of GB of pictures, music and audio books., keeping his data safe and protected from burglaries, hardware disasters etc were very important to him, Plus he is as cheap as I am about spending money so i perked up when he found a great deal, Mozy is only $5.00 per month and provides unlimited storage and works with both Macs and Windows . Another great alternative to consider. cheers...walter

Managers can be so pragmatic

Like many others companies this particular client has over a terabyte of storage spread out over several servers. Many of the files are old and obsolete but for legal reasons, they have to be kept. So today the office manager called me and during the discussion on data sprawl she noted that since USB external drives are so inexpensive, why not do a backup of the files to tape archive and then move the files off the server on to a USB external drive and store the drive as a convenient archive? Considering the time and resources to backup seldom used data, moving to an extermal hd to be stored away is a great solution that we can all use.

LoJack your Laptop for free

One of the concerns that you should have with your mobile users is theft, and not your employees stealing but someone stealing your employee's laptop and with it, your companies secrets. One such product that we utilize at CCI is a free software that allows you to track the location of your PC and if stolen, allow you to delete the data remotely.

So, take some time and visit http://www.thelaptoplock.com/ and give this a try.. cheers for now... walter

Email Security

Just read on http://www.digg.com/ about this sad story of another man who lost $150k to a Nigerian 419 scam. It reminds us that our beloved email is a tool and a big fat opportunity for danger.

Much of last week was spent removing Trojan horse viruses and root kits from a lot of very intelligent and Internet savvy individuals. There is a common thread in how they got tricked. Besides Google Sponsored Malicious WebLinks are Google Alert emails and CCNAlerts etc, with malicious links. They link may take you to a fake YouTube.com website , Facebook.com or other known site and a pop up warns of spyware or virus or to update Quicktime, Flash or other program.

If you find yourself going to a website from a weblink on a webpage or email and you get a popup to download a update from any website, the safe thing is to CTRL+F4 (hold the control key press the F4 key) to close the popup and do the same to close the webpage. If you still want to download a flash or quick time upgrade, then go the http://www.adobe.com/ or http://www.apple.com/ and update your program from the publisher of the application, not from a website that is not the creator of the program.

Good luck and be safe..
and you may enjoy this story from the Cybercrime and Doing Time blog.

Why is data backup so hard

Lets talk about disk to disk backup strategies. Let me share with you the method we use at Corporate Computer, Inc. We use NT backup on a daily schedule to backup to a file our network connected HP AIO 600 ISCSI Storage server We installed a HP Ultrium 920 800gb tape drive on the same storage server.

Every night each file server using NT Backup sends its backup file to the storage server. By the early am, every file server has sent the backup to the hard disk on the storage server. Then in the early am, the storage server sends all the backup files that are stored on the hard disk to the Ultrium tape drive. Our tape drive is large enough to store all the files on a single tape. The tape then gets stored off site as an archive. A system such as ours can cost a company approximately $15,000 but the ease and reliability of keeping sound backups can be your least expensive insurance from disasters.

Backup your PC -- continued

While on the topic of backups, if you store information on your pc, esp in "My Document" consider buying a inexpensive USB hard disk to backup your data to. Download Microsoft's easy to use utility SyncToy . Detail from Microsoft's website..

OverviewSyncToy 2.0 for Windows is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center. The easy to use, customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers. There are files from all kinds of sources that we want to store and manage. Files are created by our digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store, manage, retrieve and view files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation. In some cases it is necessary to regularly get copies of files from another location to add to primary location; in other cases there is a need to keep two storage locations exactly in sync. Some users manage files manually, dragging and dropping from one place to another and keeping track of whether the locations are synchronized in their heads. Other users may use two or more applications to provide this functionality.Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

Backup your data.

You may have heard that disk only backups are fine. At Corporate Computer, Inc, our policy is to always have a tape archive. Disk backups tend to provide a false sense of security. Consider having a computer with a lot of hard disk space and then setup a disk to disk backup using the ntbackup program that is included with Windows. Then backup your disk backup files to tape. There are many easy to use tape backup software, one that many of our clients find easy to use is BACKUP ASSIST . And don't forget to check your backup logs. Be proactive dangit!

Consider how bad companies have been distroyed by lack of backups. The folks at Journalspace.com just this past month lost everything when the hard disk mirror lost the data, then replicated the corruption to the mirror disks.

Welcome to Info Services Confidential

Many of you have been thrown into the duties of supporting your companies desktops and perhaps your servers. Let me share my experiences from the field with you and hopefully you will learn many of my tricks and techniques. And, perhaps you have some experiences to share with me too.