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.
]]>
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.
Permalink |
BBC News | Email this | Comments]]>
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.
Permalink | BBC News | Email this | Comments
]]>
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.
Permalink | McAfee | Email this | Comments
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.
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.
Step 1: Download the free version of Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware.
Step 2: Save the installer to convenient place (Desktop for now) and run the installer. 
Step 3: After selecting your language, (most likely English) you’ll be at the welcome screen, just hit the Next button.
Step 4: You’ll be prompted to accept the license agreement to use the program. Accept the terms and click Next again.
Step 5: Just a simple information screen, read it if you’d like, otherwise click Next. 
Step 6: This is the installation path. Leave the default unless you know 100% what you’re doing and don’t mind tempering with the settings. 
Step 7: A Program File folder will be created in your Start menu. Leave the default and click on Next unless you don’t want a folder for the program to be listed. 
Step 8: Create a desktop icon by default, and check Create a Quick Launch icon and click Next. Don’t worry about the Quick Launch icon if you have Windows 7. 
Step 9: Confirm your locations and that you’ve chosen the correct options. Click Next. 
Step 10: Leave the defaults alone! If for any reason they are different than what is pictured, choose to Update and Launch the program. Then click Next. 
Step 11: After the program launched you’ll be prompted to run a Quick or Full scan. Choose to run a Full scan and then click Scan. Be warned that if you have a slower machine or a lot of files, the scan will take a long time. The scan on my aunt’s 8+ year old Sony Vaio desktop took more than 6 hours. 
Step 12: You’ll be asked which drives you’d like to scan. If you can more than one, select them, otherwise just choose the C:\ drive and click Start Scan. 
Step 13: During the scan, if the program finds any infections, you’ll see the number(s) start to rise. After the scan is complete, click Show Results. 
Step 14: If the scan finds any infections, they will be listed here. By default, all infections are checked for removal. Choose Remove Selected and continue to the next step. 
Step 15: A log of your scan results will open after the scan is complete. Some items that were found may currently be open or in use and a restart may be required to fully remove them. If you are prompted to restart, save your work and click Yes.
That’s it! If you followed everything step by step, the infections have been removed thanks to a free little tool that Geek Squad probably uses themselves and charges you for! 