PC-Armor Computer Security News Blog

Strange E-mails are Flooding my Inbox…

I started receiving a barrage of e-mails with no subject today and the sender’s address is nothing but gibberish.  I researched the originating IP address of some of these e-mails and they were coming from overseas.  Continue reading Strange E-mails are Flooding my Inbox……

Credit Union National Association Phishing E-mail is making the Rounds

There is another phishing scam with the subject of “Credit Union Online® $50 Reward Survey” finding its way into e-mail inboxes.  This phishing scam, like so many others, looks harmless enough if the victim takes the bait.    Continue reading Credit Union National Association Phishing E-mail is making the Rounds…

You might want to think twice before opening Microsoft Word Attachments!

According to eEye Digital Security, there are currently three “active” Zero-Day Vulnerabilities for Microsoft Word, which are vulnerabilities that have been publicly disclosed and/or used in attacks and do not have any published vendor-supplied patches.  You can find this listing at:

http://research.eeye.com/html/alerts/zeroday/index.html

Continue reading You might want to think twice before opening Microsoft Word Attachments!…

Read the “Opt Out” Notices from your Banks and Other Financial Institutions

Last night, CNN Special Investigations aired a very informative special report, “How to Rob a Bank”.  This report showed some very good examples of how consumers and businesses were victimized by Identity Theft and some protective measures everyone can and should implement to safeguard their personal information.  Continue reading Read the “Opt Out” Notices from your Banks and Other Financial Institutions…

Rising costs from Identity Theft may Ultimately hit the Victims in the Pocketbook Harder than ever before!

The latest SANS NewsBites article, Vol. 9 Num. 7, discusses how losses to banks arising from incidents related to identity theft are growing at an alarming rate of 400% per year and if this trend continues, the financial burden could ultimately fall on the shoulders of the victim.  This article can be found at http://www.sans.org/newsletters/?ref=1701#newsbites

The article also points out how important end-user education is to ward off potential threats in the work place.  We encourage you to read this informative newsletter, because it discusses some possibilities that may not be too far down the road.

Banks are Stepping up their Efforts of Protecting Your Identity

This evening, our local news had a piece of how banks are now doing away with requesting social security numbers as a means of identifying their customers and leaning towards inquiring with “unusual” questions to help ensure the person making charges on credit card accounts from their institution is the owner of those accounts.  Continue reading Banks are Stepping up their Efforts of Protecting Your Identity…

How well do you Protect your Identity?

Since the ChoicePoint breach that affected an estimated 163,000 records on February 15, 2005, consumer information breaches have grown at an alarming rate.  As of January 19, 2007, there have been 100,738,417 records containing sensitive personal information involved in security breaches, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.  You can find a breakdown of all the security breaches contributing to this figure at:

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm.

Continue reading How well do you Protect your Identity?…

Is your Computer Infected with a Rootkit?

Rootkits are one of the most threatening types of compromise to computers and the use of this threat is gaining popularity with the bad guys.  If you would like to learn more about this very serious threat, Microsoft  has a great page full of information about Rootkits and you can find it at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/RootkitRevealer.mspx

You will also be able to download a copy of RootkitRevealer, which is a program that can used to detect the presence of Rootkits on Windows NT or newer computers.  This page also contains links to other sites and articles about Rootkits.

Infectious E-mail Attachments are on the Rise!

Over the past couple of weeks, my F-Secure Anti-virus 2007 program has blocked and cleaned at least one infectious e-mail attachment each day before they made it into my Inbox and almost every one of them has been a backdoor Trojan. 

One common theme I noticed is that most of the e-mails appeared to be a news story, such as the inclement weather warnings.  However, today I received one with the subject being, “The King of Russia is Dead”.  Again, this appears to be a news story and it had an executable attachment.

Exercise good judgment and delete these types of e-mails… you can always check out CNN for the latest in breaking news stories if you feel like you’re missing something.

There is a new Trojan making its way into Inboxes

Today, the “F-Secure Security News Alert” popped up on my computer with the following message:

“New trojan has been spammed widely, using a real storm in Europe as a decoy message. The emails have a variable subject, including “230 dead as storm batters Europe”. Attachment names include “Full Story.exe” or “Video.exe”.  The story can be found at: http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/small_dam.shtml  Continue reading There is a new Trojan making its way into Inboxes…