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Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography. Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen. Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites. Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on...

Had a virus alert yesterday from AVAST. As usually, it allowed me to abort connection and proceed. Cyber Security popups came up on my sceen and thinking it was AVAST prompting me, I ran a program. Turns out it was a fake site trying to get info and now it's embedded in my system. CAN ANYONE HELP? It's trying to block FR as a malicious website.

SNIPPET: "After the 4 July DDoS attacks, wrongly attributed to North Korea, it’s wise to treat reports of DPRK security hacks with some caution. Nevertheless, The Korea Times reports the following: Classified Info on Dangerous Chemicals Hacked Hackers stole classified information on dangerous chemicals in their raid on the South Korean army computer network in what was believed to be an attack by North Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, quoting government officials." SNIPPET: "The Sydney Morning Herald adds more information: A North Korea cyber warfare unit hacked into a South Korean military command earlier this year and stole some...

Yesterday I got a notice that my computer was infected with a worm that gathers email addresses from a compromised computer, also a trojan. I started getting a critical warning on the desktop. I have long been a customer of McAfee and thought that McAfee would keep these kind of vermin off my computer. However, now it appears that problems are getting through. Need any suggestions you may have. My field is analytical chemistry, not computer science. Does anyone have a better source than McAfee. I'm willing to change -- especially if I can get a vendor that provides a...

BOSTON (Reuters) - A malicious software program known as Conficker that many feared would wreak havoc on April 1 is slowly being activated, weeks after being dismissed as a false alarm, security experts said. Conficker, also known as Downadup or Kido, is quietly turning thousands of personal computers into servers of e-mail spam and installing spyware, they said. The worm started spreading late last year, infecting millions of computers and turning them into "slaves" that respond to commands sent from a remote server that effectively controls an army of computers known as a botnet. Its unidentified creators started using those...

Can any freepers give me some advice on how to get rid of the Rapid Antivirus that appartently has infected my laptop? I am desperate. I have some deadlines and even my Internet Explorer, Firefox won't operate. FRUSTRATING!! Thanks in advance for any advice.

The Conficker worm has started to update infected machines with a mystery package of data. Computer security firms watching the malicious program noticed that it sprang into life late on 8 April. The activity on its update system delivered encrypted software to compromised machines. It is not yet clear what the payload contains. The Conficker virus variants are thought to be present on millions of PCs around the world. Spam connection The updating activity has begun about a week later than expected. Analysis of the "C" variant of Conficker (aka Downadup) revealed that its updating mechanism was due to go...

A fired Fannie Mae contract employee allegedly placed a virus in the mortgage giant’s software that could have shut the company down for at least a week and caused millions of dollars in damage, prosecutors say.

Sorry for the vanity but it's part warning/part SOS. My computer has been infected with a rather nasty virus and I'm wondering if anyone else has faced it. I was watching the bowl game last night about 9 when my wife called me. She was doing some research on vacations and she got a warning about a virus. I go up there and it's a pop-up for some spy-ware download. Warnings that my computer may be infected, down load the software and save my system, the usual stuff. My wife is pretty savy and knows better than to respond to...

You've received a postcard from a family member.

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS). Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG. The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games. Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected. Orbital outbreak Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS....

PLEASE READ - Malicious email If you receive an email with any of the following subjet lines, please delete the email immediately.

Mac users targeted by financially-motivated hackers for the first timeIT security and control firm, Sophos, has published its Security Threat Report 2008 examining the threat landscape over the previous twelve months, and predicting emerging cybercrime trends for 2008. The report reveals that in 2007 organised criminal gangs for the first time arrived at Apple's doorstep with the intention of stealing money. With proof that hackers are extending their efforts beyond Windows, Sophos is warning computer users of all operating systems not to be complacent about security. Sophos experts note that malware for Macs has been seen before, but until recently,...

Computer virus uses European storms to spread quickly Fri Jan 19, 10:47 AM ET A computer virus has made use of storms sweeping across Europe to infect email systems and spread rapidly before dying down, a Finnish IT security company has said. The virus appeared in emails with the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe" and attachments bearing names such as "Full Clip.exe", "Full Story.exe", "Read More.exe" and "Video.exe". The programme infects computers when users click on the message. "A significant network attack was launched globally in the early hours of Thursday morning using news of a European...

A lot of readers emailed about a new Iranian web site that purports to be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s blog, and a lot of other blogs have linked to it. But before you click through to the site (from somewhere else, I won’t post the link here), make sure your virus prevention software is up to date—because it may try to exploit a weakness in Internet Explorer to install a “back door” in your computer: Pres. Ahmadinejad trying to infect Israelis with web viruses? http://olehgirl.blogspot.com/2006/08/pres-ahmadinejad-trying-to-infect.html

A day after Microsoft posted a dozen patches for Windows and Office, the one pegged by security analysts as the most dangerous is being used in attacks, the federal cyber-agency said.

In a rare alert, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has urged Windows users to plug a potential worm hole in the Microsoft operating system. You can view the DHS Press Release here

File-share can be a dangerous business, or so Japanese government agencies are finding out the hard way. Two weeks after the country's Maritime Self-Defense Force found out that some highly classified information had been posted on the World Wide Web for all to read as a result of a programming error in its file-sharing Winny system, a slew of other agencies are finding similar problems. Winny itself is a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that has been charged with violating copyright laws in Japan. It has, however, proved to be popular with much of the population because of its cheap cost and...

The dream of a connected world where PCs and mobile phones can communicate with the digital home and other devices is supposed to make life easier. But it could instead make life far more dangerous if malware developers have their way.

For the last two days, every time I visit Drudge, my computer gets hijacked by some pop-up virus. Am I the only one? I have to put the Yahoo-toolbar virus scanner on it and it tells me I got a Trojan horse hijacking my computer. It does get rid of it, but what's going on? Can someone please proof me wrong, so I can look for the cause somewhere else? Or have you experienced it too. Is drudge out of money or something to allow this scumware to infect his readers' computers?

I received the following email today: hi, [my email user name], I have been receiving this email from [my email address] for a long time which has had a virus in it. My anti-virus has detected it and cleaned it but it seems that you are unable to keep your computer clean from this virus. I'm starting to get a little tired of getting viruses from your computer and/or email address. If you do not clean your system soon, your ISP (Internet Service Providor) will be contacted and told about how your computer has been mailing me viruses for weeks....

update Major Internet search engines were crippled Monday morning by a variant of the MyDoom worm, rendering Google inaccessible to many users and slowing results from Yahoo. The attack also affected smaller engines, including Alta Vista, a Yahoo subsidiary, and Lycos. Google representatives confirmed that the MyDoom worm affected performance of the search engine, but, despite numerous e-mail complaints received by News.com, said the attack had a limited impact. "At no point was the Google Web site significantly impaired, and service for all users and networks is expected to be restored shortly," the company said in a statement. A Lycos...

First Windows CE virus emerges Virus known as 'Dust' demonstrates holes in Win CE running on ARM processors By David Legard, IDG News Service A virus designed to demonstrate security holes in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE operating system but not to cause damage was identified by security companies over the weekend. The WinCE4.Duts.A virus (sometimes known as Dust) only affects devices running ARM Ltd. processors and infects Pocket PC PE files in the root directory, according to Bucharest-based Softwin S.R.L., which first reported the virus on Saturday. It raises a dialog box which asks "Dear User, am I allowed to...

Special to CNET News.com Computer security experts fear a new worm that began spreading rapidly across Australian e-mail networks on Sunday could be a rehearsal for a more concerted attack in coming weeks. The worm--dubbed Bagle-A--carries an expiration date, possibly indicating that more robust versions of the worm could be slated for release soon, said Daniel Zatz, security director for Computer Associates Australia. While Bagle-A is already successful--responsible for an 80 percent increase in queries to CA's help desk and in virus submissions to rival computer security company Sophos--the current version of the worm contains bugs, Zatz said. Comparing Bagle...

It's time once again for Keyboard Korner, the computer advice column that uses simple, jargon-free terminology that even an idiot like you can grasp; the column that shows you how to take command of your personal computer, even if that means reducing it to tiny smoking shards with a hatchet. Today on Keyboard Korner we will address a very important topic: computer security. If you own a computer, or have touched a computer, or have ever shaken hands with somebody who might have touched a computer, you need to take precautionary measures NOW. Because modern cyberspace is not the friendly,...

I sat dont at my station over an hour ago and responded to an Explorer upgrade option without thinking. This ISN'T a normal option, it was simply a pop-up. Without thinking I responded to upgrade and downloaded a nightmare. I have yet to break this. It consists of an additional bar which creates a new home page, http://find.intelius.com with files I've deleted in addition to wwd.ieplugin[1] - and proceeds to iniate infinite pop-ups of EVERY type out of http://www.n-case.com. ANYTHING internet related will be tattooed with the new bar. View - Toolbars - Intelligent Explorer" will eliminate the bar from...

Alert Alert The conservative website NewsMax www.newsmax.com places spybots on any visitor to it URL site. I just installed my spybot software 10 days ago. As I travels to my favorite watering holes, suprise visiting newsmax website alarm bells indicated targetnet spybot was trying to load. Every time I visited newsmax over the last 10 days newsmax tried to load the spybot targetnet during load up of newsmax URL. If you are enraged by this spying let newsmax know.

<p>It turns out that SoBig.F is even less original than previously thought.</p> <p>The self-updating capability that had anti-virus experts, users and even the FBI scrambling this weekend was in fact present in some of the earlier versions of the virus, albeit in a somewhat less advanced form.</p>

Rail traffic throughout the Southeast was slowly returning to normal Wednesday afternoon after a computer virus disrupted CSX's telecommunications network which some systems use to control signaling, dispatching and other systems. As a result, passenger and freight train traffic was halted immediately, including the morning commuter train service in metropolitan Washington, D.C. The Jacksonville-based rail line said the cause was believed to be a worm virus similar to those that have infected the systems of other major companies and agencies in recent days. The signaling system went down about 1:15 a.m. and briefly affected the entire CSX system, which covers...

The latest variant of the SoBig lineage has mulitple infection vectors and hidden exploit channels. For example, spam normally represents 30 to 60 percent of daily e-mail volume on the Internet. The new capabilities embedded in the SoBig.E worm will increase that volume by a factor of 10. The SoBig.E worm , released two months ago on the Internet, continues to spread from unprotected computers. Some Internet security analysts fear that this latest variant of the SoBig family -- much like possible future variants of the new Microsoft Blaster or LovSan worm that began to proliferate early this week --...

We just received the following e-mail and I thought I should alert my fellow Freepers: [Our] IT Organization has been alerted to a Microsoft Windows exposure, separate from last week's alert, that could potentially be exploited to cause destructive behavior in our network. We are not currently aware of any viruses or malicious software that specifically exploit the exposure. However, we are taking precautionary measures to protect our environment. This includes the roll out of a Microsoft-supplied corrective patch to all Windows Servers, desktops, and laptops. Additionally, given that the exposure involves the activation of sound or music files, we...

A fast-spreading Internet worm infecting more than a million computers worldwide forced the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration to shut its offices for the day and is causing problems for other computer networks in the Washington region. The worm, dubbed "Blaster" by security experts, is having a "sporadic" effect on federal agency networks, said a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security......(snip) [Article is long but good]

This morning I got 17 emails in my inbox with the subject line either "Re: Application" or "Re: Movie", with .zip attachments. One of them was "from" my own email address with "3D" prepended. I also got back a notification from a ".mil" site saying that it was returning mail to me because there was a virus attached, so it appears that somebody is sending out these things with faked return email addresses from one or more spam lists It looks like we might have another worm storm happening like the "I Love You" virus from a couple of years...

The mysterious trojan horse that's been making security experts scratch their heads now has a name as more details of the oddball malware were made available. The trojan horse that has been causing confusion and concern among security researchers for over a month now has been dubbed 'Stumbler' by experts at Internet Security Systems (ISS). As reported earlier, Stumbler embeds itself in Unix systems and seems to be part of a concerted effort to map Internet-connected networks using port scanning techniques. A copy of the trojan was finally captured Wednesday, and investigation of its code began Thursday. After additional analysis,...

<p>Security researchers believe they have identified a new breed of Trojan horse that is infecting machines on the Internet, possibly in preparation for a larger coordinated attack.</p> <p>However, experts have been unable to pin down many of the details of the program's behavior and are unsure how many machines might be compromised by the Trojan.</p>

<p>June 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into a virus-like infection that has targeted the computers of banks worldwide, and officials warned financial institutions about the attack, the Associated Press reported.</p> <p>Computers of about 1,200 banks have been targeted by the virus, which tries to steal corporate passwords, AP said. The infection is known as ``BugBear.B'' and has spread to tens of thousands of consumer computers since last week.</p>

June 3 2003 A computer virus that traversed the globe last week struck again in a slightly mutated form over the weekend and continued to spread aggressively through email systems worldwide today. Both viruses try to trick recipients into opening their infectious attachments by pretending to originate from Microsoft Corp. This week's virus, dubbed "Sobig.C" by antivirus companies, forges its sender address, sometimes appearing to be from Bill Gates by using the address bill@microsoft.com and other times grabbing addresses from a victim's address book. "Sobig.B" - the other virus - faked, or "spoofed", the sender address to read support@microsoft.com. As...

<p>A notorious computer hacker has threatened to launch the most destructive computer virus the Internet has seen if the United States invades Iraq.</p> <p>Vladimor "Melhacker" Chamlkovic, 23, a Malaysia-based computer-geek who named a previous virus after Osama bin Laden, told The Post he has developed a new super virus.</p>

'Tis the Season…for Fake Email Greeting Cards Although most e-cards are from legitimate sources, the holidays create a prime opportunity for those seeking to do harm or take advantage of our festive spirit. This is the time of year to be especially aware of fraudulent, and potentially damaging, e-greeting cards. The recent Friends Greeting Applications (I, II & III) are prime examples of this type of threat. Get complete details in the McAfee Virus Information Library. How can you tell the good from the bad? First, you should remember that e-cards can contain viruses, and therefore, unless you KNOW they...

MEMORANDUM FOR: All NOAA Employees FROM: B---- V------, Director, NOAA IT Security Office SUBJECT: Computer Security Warning: W32/Bugbear@MM Worm The NOAA Computer Incident Response Team (N-CIRT) is receiving reports of widespread virus activity attributable to the W32/Bugbear@MM. McAfee AVERT has raised W32/Bugbear@mm to 'High' risk status. All NOAA users are reminded to exercise caution before opening any attachment received by email. System Administrators should ensure that the latest version of signature files is installed on all desktop PCs to protect against this worm and all other malicious software. Trojan component: The worm opens a port on the victim machine -...

<p>But initially, at least, the virus was not causing major problems for computer users, because its purpose appeared to be to open communication ports on infected systems and to replicate itself, not to destroy files.</p> <p>"It appears to be designed by someone who intended to steal credit card info or other data, not necessarily destroy files," said George Stagonis, a researcher for anti-virus company Central Command.</p>

My husband is out of town and unfortunately, he is the only computer capable one in my house. Please help! The following Alert popped up on my screen:Infected file name: C:Documents and Settings/Sales2/Local Settings/TempVirus name:JS/IEStart.gen.cVirus Scan Suggests: This infected file cannot be cleaned. You should delete the file and replace it with clean copy. Your data will not be affected.Problem is, when I try to delete it, it tells me I can't do that either. I'm clueless. If I just shut everything down and wait until he returns on Friday, isn't it possible my system will be destroyed? Any and...

As in same old......s The virus gets onto your computer through dubious unsolicited spam propaganda. It immediately attempts to deceive and shock the motherboard into thinking that its power will be cut off. It proceeds to gerrymander through the hard drive and section off various noncontiguous blocks for its own self preserving and nefarious purposes. It continues to scare the motherboard into thinking its power will be cut and also sends a message that the daughter boards will be starved of electrons. It attempts to disable personal protection such as anti-virus and maintains that only computers that serve in a...