RANTS: The Day Has Finally Arrived

People have been saying for some time that Macs are safe and are not susceptible to malware infections. As a result, anti-malware software is not needed. The market more or less followed this trend. But, this has changed. Malware is not something that only PC users have to deal with anymore. I've been asked many times in the past whether anti-virus or other anti-malware was needed. I've always said that it's better to be proactive about protection than to wait until there's a problem. By then, the computer would've already been infected.

Here's a BBC news article about Macs becoming the right size target for attackers to pay attention:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17623422

Here's the F-Secure link about how to figure out if your Mac might be infected:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan-downloader_osx_flashback_i.shtml

Hope this helps someone.

RANTS: Hackers Targeting Credit Unions

http://threatpost.com/blogs/attackers-sending-malware-infected-cds-credit-unions-127

It's interesting that these people are targeting Credit Unions for their attacks. It's a pretty safe bet that the larger institutions will be much less vulnerable to this type of attack. How can we make Credit Unions safer? Would the person who found the CDs question the validity and source of the content? Or would he/she mindlessly try to run the CD because that's just what people do? At the end of the day, if everyone were educated on potential vulnerabilities work and we took conscious steps to protect ourselves and those things that are entrusted to us, then the hackers would have a much harder accomplishing their goals.

RANTS: OS X-targeted Malware is Increasing

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan_osx_dnschanger.shtml

As Apple gains marketshare, malware for OS X is on the rise. Here's a quote from a recent email I received:

About 35% of [some org] is OS X and 73% Windows yet [some org] has had _more_ OS X boxes infected with the DNS changer than Windows boxes.

Please make sure to practice safe surfing. Remember, just because OS X has very few viruses that you've heard of, doesn't mean that your Mac is 100% safe. Nothing is 100%.

Happy "safe" computing.

RANTS: Digital Picture Frames Come With Free Viruses

If you've purchased or received a Samsung Digital Picture frame from Amazon, take a look at this posting by Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/forum/cd/discussion.html?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx20DX5GEB7TUX8&cdThread=Tx2LOAXBDR3N47W

This is not the first time this has happened:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337848,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/cybersecurity

It won't be the last. I've already heard of these types of things happening with hard drives, which is why I do a wipe of all new hard drives before I deploy.

How To Protect Yourself:

- Always run an anti-virus program on your computer.
- Always keep that anti-virus program updated.
- When purchasing or obtaining anything that may hold data (i.e. digital picture frame, hard drives, USB flash drives, etc.), make sure to, at least, do a virus scan on the device. The better thing to do is to wipe and/or format the device before your first use.

Good luck and happy computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: Sophos Stand-Alone Installation Error 3057

In trying to install the Sophos Anti-Virus onto a Windows Vista machine using a stand-alone installer, I ran into an error message towards the end of the installation. An error message popped up that said the following:

Error 3057: There was an unexpected error while attempting to create, repair or delete a user account. Contact your support personnel.

Well, I am the support personnel. Where do I go for help? For once, tech support over the phone actually worked. I called Sophos and they had a fix. It was registry modification, which didn't sit well with me because that usually means it'll affect many users for us. But, that's another problem for another day.

For now, here's the modification:

1. Open Regedit
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
3. Open Software
4. Check the Permissions for Software to make sure the Administrators group is explicitly listed and has full permissions. There are a few other keys to check for permissions also. They are:
HKLM>Software>Classes
HKLM>Software>Classes>Interface
HKLM>Software>Classes>Interface>TypeLib
HKLM>Software>Sophos
But, the one that needed to modified for me was the first one.
5. Next, open Computer Management
6. Go to Users
7. Delete any entries that start with "SophosSAU..."
8. Finally, reattempt the reinstallation and it should work now.

Update: Found that if the HKLM>Software registry shows the Everyone group with full permissions and nothing else, then the above fix key works. However, if the permissions already shows the Administrators group, then the problem lies elsewhere.