Nine Common Myths and Misconceptions About Viruses, Examined and Debunked [Malware]
Samsung Wave shipping with infected microSD card (confirmed, limited to first run)
Did you get a Samsung Wave today, or perhaps early last week? You might not want to connect it to your computer, just in case. We’re hearing anecdotal reports that the 1GB microSD card shipped with certain German units includes a nasty surprise: it automatically installs the trojan Win32/Heur using the file “slmvsrv.exe.” While we’re not sure exactly what the virus does or if it’s widespread, there’s no point in finding out the hard way, right? Install a good antivirus program and then format that sucker, or better yet, simply drop in a larger microSDHC card. Don’t forget this thing plays DivX HD, people — you’re going to need more than a single gigabyte of storage.
Update: Samsung HQ got in touch with MobileBurn to confirm the existence of the virus in shipping S8500 Wave handsets, but said that the outbreak was confined to the German market’s initial production run and all other shipments are A-OK. Still, there’s no harm in disabling autorun before connecting one to your PC, eh?
Samsung Wave shipping with infected microSD card (confirmed, limited to first run) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 07:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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British scientist becomes first human ‘infected’ with a computer virus
Sure, a cybernetic-filled, dystopian future may sound nice and cheery, but what happens when all your snazzy implants get infected with a computer virus? That’s what one brave researcher at the University of Reading is attempting to find out, and he’s now actually gone so far as to willingly “infect” himself in the name of science. As you might expect, however, this is all this very much a proof of concept, but Dr. Mark Gasson says that the infected RFID chip in his hand was indeed able to pass on the virus to an external control device in his trials, and he warns that the eventual real world implications could be far more dire. Gasson is particularly concerned when it comes to medical implants, which he says could potentially become infected by other implants in the body, and even pass on the “infection” to other people. Head on past the break for the BBC’s report, and try not to be too startled by the Dalek in the room.
[Thanks, Mark S]
Continue reading British scientist becomes first human ‘infected’ with a computer virus
British scientist becomes first human ‘infected’ with a computer virus originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Scan for Viruses from the Windows AutoPlay Dialog [Windows]
How to Troubleshoot Your Friends’ Computers From Far Away [Troubleshooting]
How Do You Know If Your Download Really Has a Virus? [Antivirus]
Botched McAfee update shutting down corporate XP machines worldwide
We can’t officially confirm this yet but, We’re hearing from all over that a bad McAfee for Windows XP update is causing computers worldwide to shut down. Apparently DAT update 5958 deletes the svchost.exe file, which then triggers a false-positive in McAfee itself and sets off a chain of uncontrolled restarts and loss of networking functionality. Yeah, wild — Twitter is basically going nuts, and McAfee’s support site appears to be down. There are some fixes floating around out there, but it may be too late — the final tally of borked PCs today may reach into the millions. We’ve already heard anecdotally that an Intel facility has been affected, as well as Dish Network call centers, and we’re sure there are going to be more reports as the day wears on.
Update: McAfee just sent us a statement — they’ve pulled the update from their corporate download servers, and consumers shouldn’t be affected.
McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to incorrect malware alerts on Wednesday, April 21. The problem occurs with the 5958 virus definition file (DAT) that was released on April 21 at 2.00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time).Our initial investigation indicates that the error can result in moderate to significant performance issues on systems running Windows XP Service Pack 3.
The faulty update has been removed from McAfee download servers for corporate users, preventing any further impact on those customers. We are not aware of significant impact on consumer customers and believe we have effectively limited such occurrence.
McAfee teams are working with the highest priority to support impacted customers and plan to provide an update virus definition file shortly. McAfee apologizes for any inconvenience to our customers
Ouch — that might be the understatement of the year. We’ve definitely hearing this affects SP2 as well, we’ll keep looking for more.
Update 2: The anecdotal numbers keep rolling in, and they’re not small — 30,000 machines are knocked out here, 60,000 there. Given that the only fixes right now involve techs spending time with each affected machine individually, things could get seriously messy. We’ll keep you updated if you keep us updated, okay?
Update 3: Here’s an official McAfee fix, although like we said, it requires tech to hit each machine in person. We’ll see what the story is for bigger institutions with tens of thousands of seats.
Update 4: We’re told the official fix only helps those who haven’t been hit with the bug yet, so there’s obviously still issues to be sorted out. [Thanks, Tyler.]
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Developing…
Botched McAfee update shutting down corporate XP machines worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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New Virus Uses Porn-laden Web History to Extort Cash
Users of the Japanese file-sharing service Winny are grappling with a new threat today. Trend Micro is tracking a trojan called Kenzero that steals a user’s web history and posts it online until such time as the user pays up. The virus is masquerading as illegal copies of explicit Hentai games, assuring the affected individuals likely have at least some embarrassing items in their browser history.
The virus appears to be a game installation screen that requests the personal details of the user. It then posts the web history along with the personally identifiable information. Users are confronted with an email or popup demanding 1500 yen (about $16) to "settle your violation of copyright law" and remove the stolen information from the website.
The website the history is published on is owned by a shell company known to be associated with other malware scams. Security experts warn that paying the ransom is unlikely to result in the removal of the information. It’s more probable that the malware makers will just sell the card number. Over 5500 users have admitted to being infected. Might be a good time to update your antivirus, in case Kenzero variants spread.
Viruses? Malware? The Simple (and Free) Way To Bash the Bugs!
No need to take the computer to Geek Squad! Below, I’ll show you exactly how to rid your machine of the baddies and get it running up to par again with a few quick and easy steps!