Comments on: Security expert: User education is pointless

Most office workers can't be made to care about phishing, rootkits or spyware, he says. Other specialists disagree.

[kevinwatneways]

Not Educating Users is Naive

Isn't it a little naive to say that you don't need to educate users? Are you saying that you can, without an exception, prevent unwanted security risks to reach workers? If you do say so, I think that you are overconfident and that could be the beginning of your problem.

willeitner.org

[the_webninja]

Virus Alert!!

Virus Report

I know the people who keep up on all the Viruses probably know a lot more about them than I do,
But I got a Virus yesterday, so I wanted to let everyone know How I got it, what it does, and what I did to clean it, and the Companies who are involved with the Virus I received.

I got the Virus on Myspace, someone requested to be my friend, and when I went to their Profile page to check them out to see if I wanted to be their Friend or not, another page auto-loaded on top of their Profile Page, with a Link on it that said ?Download Myspace Adult Viewer? I assumed this was because this particular Girl had Nude Pics of herself or something and this was the way that Myspace regulated adult viewers. WRONG!

I Clicked on the Link and Downloaded the Program which I THOUGHT was some kind of Myspace Adult media player, and after it installed, I realized I just made a terrible mistake. The link I had Clicked on that said ?Download Myspace Adult Viewer? downloaded a Virus into my Computer, which immediately took over my Internet Explorer. I wasn?t even USING internet Explorer for the Internet I use Firefox, so I thought I was safe, but I forgot that Internet Explorer still exists on your Computer as long as you are using Windows. Regardless of what Browser is your default browser, the Virus will take over Internet Explorer and begin to Launch Internet Explorer and use the Back Door Channels in Internet Explorer to stream you Endless amounts of Pop up ads.

Then it wants you to BUY a particular Software Program called ?Virus Burster? to fix the problem. This leads me to believe that the people at Virus Burster CREATED the Virus (which Mcafee could not clean) just to Force you to buy their Program. And if you buy their Program, then they have all of your Credit Card Information, and judging from the way they marketed their product I don?t think I want to trust them with my Credit Card Information.

On top of all of this, while you are Busy trying to fight off all the Pop Ups and make sense of what is happening to your Computer, the Hackers have complete access to your Computer through the Back door in Internet Explorer, allowing them to collect information such as Passwords from your Cookies Folder, or Addresses and Phone Numbers from Software Registration Forms stored on your Computer, all of which they can use to either Hack your Sites and Spread their Virus by Posting their Virus on YOUR Myspace Profile, and or, hacking other Sites you have passwords stored for in your Cookies Folder, or Using your Personal Information from Software Registration forms to engage in Identity Theft.

I tried cleaning the Virus by using Mcafee. Mcafee at first detected the Virus, then said it Cleaned it, but the Virus Self Replicates, and then Mcafee doesn?t try to clean it anymore. It just forgets about it, or the Virus contains something in it to disable Mcafee. I Tried using Ad-Aware Scanner to remove pieces of the Virus, it Cleaned parts of it also, yet, the Virus still functioned. Then I went through every single File associated with the Virus in my Registry and tried to Manually Clean it, but even with the related files were deleted from my Registry the Virus Still functioned.
I unchecked all my windows Services to Block the Hackers from Remote Access to my Computer, but the Virus still functioned even though it could not access the Internet. I tried unchecking all the things in my Start up using msconfig one by one to determine what was infected. It appears that the file ctfmon.exe was related in someway to the Virus, and that is how the Virus was unable to be deleted or removed. I am not a Software programmer, so I can get that specific, I can only tell you the behavior of the Virus and by process of elimination which files I found were associated with the Virus. I can tell you that the Majority of the Files were hidden, so I could not even FIND them on my Computer. But the Virus still functioned so I know it was there. It seems to infect any Toolbars that you have such as Yahoo or Google, to access your Computer.

The Companies Involved with this Virus either by paying these people to Create it, or paying them for Advertising in USE with the Virus are:
Virus Burster.com
Greatdate.com
*****************.com
Mmedia Codecs
Spyware.Cyberlog-X

I Received the Virus from Myspace, and the Following Display Names on Myspace were also found to contain the Virus:
Tessa
Madalynn
Bena
Pearl
Bronwyn

If you know about Viruses or if you are involved in helping Protect people from Viruses, please address this Problem. I would really like to see these people arrested for the aggravation they cause others.

The only way I was able to Clean the Virus was to Delete the Partition, Format my Hard Drive and Completely re-install everything. I want to see these people arrested.

Thank you,

Mark
[e-mail]