4 Your Computer Repairs

Posts Tagged ‘botnet’

Trusteer, a security company, reports that Zeus is the number 1 botnet with over 3.6 million pc’s infected and that is only in America.  Now that is a scary figure.

What is a botnet and what does Zeus do?

Botnet is a term for a collection of softyware agents or robots that run autonomously and automatically.  A bot typically runs hidden and uses a covert channel to communicate with its C&C server. Generally, the perpetrator of the botnet has compromised a series of systems using various tools. Newer bots can automatically scan their environment and propagate themselves using vulnerabilities and weak passwords. Generally, the more vulnerabilities a bot can scan and propagate through, the more valuable it becomes to a botnet controller community

See the Wikipedia definition

Zeus steals you information like back details and other usernames and passwords and reports them back to someone who can then sell this information onto criminals.  The BIG problems with zeus is even if you have a good anti virus program and keep it up to date it only reduces your chances of being infected by 23%.  It spreads by email and by downloading or activating activ-x controls on infected websites.

Another security company called Prevx said in their blog that only a few computers are infected by each variant of this virus to help prevent it from being detected and by the time it is detected it usually has done it’s job.

If you want to search for it Prevx also says what to look out for, although these name may have changed

The ZEUS trojan will commonly use names like NTOS.EXE, LD08.EXE, LD12.EXE,PP06.EXE, PP08.EXE, LDnn.EXE and PPnn.EXE etc, so search your PCs for files with names like this. The ZEUS Trojan will typically be between 40KBytes and 150Kbytes in size.

Also look for a folder with the name WSNPOEM, this is also a common sign of infection for the ZEUS Trojan.

Finally, check the Registry lloking for RUN keys referencing any of these names.

According to the BBC news the latest version 1.6 can only infect people using Internet Explorer or Firefox but I would be careful no matter which browser you are using

The guardian has also reported that two people were held over this virus but is continues to be a major problem today so please watch out and search for the above.

We have all heard about the dangers of allowing your child online without supervision but what stops can you put in place to help prevent these horror stories.   Here are a few tip on how to do this.

1. Make sure you make a separate account in windows that is either a standard user or limited user, this stops them changing any setting you make or even installing any programs you don’t know about.  To see how to do this click on the appropriate link.  XP, Vista and Windows 7
2. Never give then the password to the administrator account, again this would enable them to undo your settings.
3. Tell them never to give out any details, like address, phone number, email address, online usernames and passwords
4. If they have a laptop or computer in their rooms and you also have one downstairs then heavily restrict the one in their rooms and make then use the one you can see them use for social sites like facebook, myspace, bebo and twitter.
5. Talk to them about their online activity encase someone is bullying them online, let them know they can talk to you if they want to.
6. Use parental control.  Windows vista and 7 came with useful controls that let you limit what hours someone could log in as well, blocking certain websites and programs.  The other option you have is to get an activity report so you know what they have been getting up to.  Vista controls, Windows 7 controls.  You can see windows 7 parental controls in action here remember to set limits for games as well.  As for XP it does not have any built in but later I will look at a program that will help you.
7. Set restrictions on windows media player.  If you want to prevent R rated movies being played on the family computer then you can block films above a certain age rating being played. To do this go to ‘Tools’ then ‘Options’ then select the ‘DVD’ tab. Select the ‘Change’ button under DVD playback restrictions. Select the highest rating you want to be played and select OK
8. Set restrictions on Internet Explorer, this will block any content you think is too old for them
9. Don’t use your ISP’s DNS server, DNS explained (quite techie), one is OpenDNS.  OpenDNS has a free service that can block harmful website that have phishing or botnet sites. Other include DNSadvantage, openNIC, Scrubit and Google
10. If you have XP and don’t have the parental controls you can get software that will help, while they can not stop someone logging in when you don’t want them to you can however stop them accessing the internet.  One of the biggest and best know is Net Nanny, Bitdefender has it as part of it’s total security, which also has antivirus and firewall included.  For a list of other software click here This may seem like a lot of hard work but in most cases once it is set up you don’t need to go over it again unless circumstances change.  By following these tip, even if it only a few, then hopefully your child will have a good experience on the computer and the internet.Here are some extra links you might find handySuper nanny on video games
    Click Clever Click Safe: The first UK Child Internet Safety Strategy