Archive for March, 2007

 

Just what is Intelligent Explorer? For your safety, you really need to know.

Consider this hypothetical situation:

I recently hit, by mistake, what I thought was an Explorer upgrade option. It turned out to be a pop-up appearing legitimate but really was not. It uploaded a product called Intelligent Explorer on my machine. What a nightmare!

I did some research on the web and found messages like this one from a BullGuard Antivirus Forum,

“PLEASE HELP!!! I HAVE A SPYWARE, TROJAN AND HIJACKER ON MY COMPUTER. I HAVE RUN BULLGUARD, CWSHREDDER AND AD-AWARE. ALL HAVE PICKED UP THE VIRUSES AND SAID THAT THEY HAVE BEEN MOVED/REMOVED BUT WHEN I LOG ONTO THE INTERNET THAT DAMN INTELLIGENT EXPLORER TOOLBAR IS SHOWING”

Another message from spywareinfo Forum goes something like this:

“Hey I’m having issues with something called Internet explorer toolbar - Intelligent explorer. I can’t find a way to remove it from my comp and I really don’t want to reinstall windows. I’ve used spybot, ad-ware, and cw shredder but nothing seems to work.”

It appears that Intelligent Explorer allows other software to be downloaded to your machine and this is where the problem occurs. What is even more remarkable is that by downloading Intelligent Explorer, their license grants them the right to install software add-ins on your computer at their will. Take a look at what the software license for Intelligent Explore says (go to http://www.ieplugin.com/terms.html to read it all):

“You grant to us the right, exercisable by us until you uninstall the Software or this agreement is otherwise terminated, to provide to you the Service of downloading and causing to be displayed advertising material on your computer, through ‘pop-up’ or other display while you use your browser. You acknowledge and agree that installation of the Software may automatically modify toolbars and other settings of your browser. By installing the Software you agree to such modifications.”

The company, IBC incorporated, is incorporated in Belize. I really can’t believe this license!

One end user found highly objectionable pop-up advertisements generated by this software bundled with Intelligent Explorer in the form of extreme pornography.

I have yet to break this.

Intelligent Explorer is a plug-in, which can create a new home page, as well as start up and endless loop of pop-ups. You can remove the view bar, but then starting up Internet Explorer will cause it to reappear. I asked some friends to help, and no one could tell me what to do.

This is what I did:

I bought a copy of a program called XoftSpy and it removed the software. It took two scans and a reboot to do it. This is not an advertisement for this product. They advertised it was free, which it was to run, but then I had to buy it to actually fix anything. It cost me $40 and I am sure that there are freeware products out there as well, but that is what ended the nightmare for me. Other spyware products I have seen out there include spybot, NoAdware, Spyware Eliminator, Pal Spyware Remover, and Spyware C.O.P.

Let the buyer beware!

Although above situation is not real for me but this shows the modus operandi of spyware.

Nilesh

Post a Comment

About Encryption and Making your System Secure.

What does encryption do for me?

Encryption and cryptographic software has been used in many different ways to make systems more secure. This article discusses only a few ways that such software can make your system more secure, including:

1) Encrypting your email

2) Encrypting your files

To programs are mentioned that will help encrypt information. There are many more programs out there that will help, but these programs are good and a good place to start as any. They have the added benefit of both being free with source code available.

Will encryption stop people from accessing my information?

Encryption simply makes it harder for people to gain access to important information, like passwords or sensitive information in a file. The first thing you should know about encryption is that the algorithm that is used to encrypt can be simple or more complex and that affects how securely what you have encrypted is protected. Encryption systems have been broken when the method of encryption is understood by hackers and is easy to break.

Why bother to encrypt my email?

It should be noted that email is far less secure than paper mail for two very good reasons: first, electronic data can be accessed easily over an Internet and secondly, electronic data is really simple to copy. There is a very good chance that someone has snooped around in your email despite your best intentions to stop it.

How do I go about encrypting my email?

There are many programs out there that can help you encrypt your email. A very popular one is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or its Gnu offshoot GPG.

PGP (http://www.pgpi.org/) self-describes itself this way: This “is a program that gives your electronic mail something that it otherwise doesn’t have: Privacy. It does this by encrypting your mail so that nobody but the intended person can read it. When encrypted, the message looks like a meaningless jumble of random characters. PGP has proven itself quite capable of resisting even the most sophisticated forms of analysis aimed at reading the encrypted text.”

Why bother to encrypt my files?

The answer to this boils down to what you store on your computer. If you have financial data with important information like social security numbers, email addresses, account numbers and passwords, then you open yourself up to losing very valuable information. Most corporate Internet security employees will attest to the widespread theft of very valuable information. As long as you are connected to the Internet you are vulnerable.

How do I go about encrypting my files?

AxCrypt File Encryption Software (http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/) Self-described as “Free Personal Privacy and Security for Windows 98/ME/NT/2K/XP with AES-128 File Encryption, Compression and transparent Decrypt and Open in the original application.”

Nilesh

Post a Comment

Hi friends,
There is a lot going on in the information security space. 2006 looks to be an interesting year in these regards. Below are some things to watch for in 2006, some of them are good and, unfortunately, some aren’t-

First the good news:

- We are getting a lot more serious about our security. This has a lot of reasons behind it. For example, new privacy laws are mandating organizations to tighten their security. Look, see more number of consumer privacy laws are being passed in the coming year and tightening security systems.

- Authentication requirements are increasing. This is closing large security holes. Corporations are requiring a great deal more of authentication to get into secure systems (this also is on the bad news side)

- There is a plethora of sophisticated programs to help us be more secure and they will continue to get better. Competition right now is most strong in the security industry sparking a lot of innovation.

- ISPs are now taking on the responsibility to help us with our security. Take AOL’s recent commercials as a good sign that others will follow the trend.

Now the bad news:

- Securing our networks is costing us. Most companies are globalizing their organizations and making them secure involve a lot of money. It will get worse before it gets better.

- Authentication requirements are increasing. This is getting claustrophobic. Corporations are requiring a great deal more authentication to get into secure systems (This is also on the good news side) Unfortunately, for the end user, it is one more thing to be unhappy about, not unlike airport security lines.

- Hackers are getting more sophisticated. For example, Botnets are becoming more complex and harder and harder to catch and stop. Do a search on botnets on the Internet. They really are causing a whole lot of problems, but it does not stop there. The number of viruses and malware out there is staggering.

- Spammers keep finding more creative ways to fill our email boxes. Don’t look for this trend to stop anytime soon.

Nilesh

Comments (1)

Dear Friends,
I am posting this so that you can be updated with
some of the VERY DANGEROUS viruses created daily by hackers to create
havoc on our computers. Below there is a list of 10 viruses currently
cited as being the most prevalent in terms of being seen the most or
in their ability to potentially cause damage. New viruses are created
daily. This is by no means an all inclusive list. The best thing you
can do is to remain vigilant, keep your anti-virus software updated,
and stay aware of the current computer virus threats.

Virus: Trojan.Lodear
A Trojan horse that attempts to download remote files. It will inject
a .dll file into the EXPLORER.EXE process causing system instability.
The explorer.exe is the main process in Windows without which even the
desktop can be displayed.

Virus: W32.Beagle.CO@mm
A mass-mailing worm that lowers security settings. It can delete
security-related registry sub keys and may block access to security-
related websites.

Virus: Backdoor.Zagaban
A Trojan horse that allows the compromised computer to be used as a
covert proxy and which may degrade network performance.
Virus: W32/Netsky-P
A mass-mailing worm which spreads by emailing itself to addresses
produced from files on the local drives.

Virus: W32/Mytob-GH
A mass-mailing worm and IRC backdoor Trojan for the Windows platform.
Messages sent by this worm will have the subject chosen randomly from
a list including titles such as: Notice of account limitation, Email
Account Suspension, Security measures, Members Support, Important
Notification.

Virus: W32/Mytob-EX
A mass-mailing worm and IRC backdoor Trojan similar in nature to W32-
Mytob-GH. W32/Mytob-EX runs continuously in the background, providing
a backdoor server which allows a remote intruder to gain access and
control over the computer via IRC channels. This virus spreads by
sending itself to email attachments harvested from your email
addresses.

Virus: W32/Mytob-AS, Mytob-BE, Mytob-C, and Mytob-ER
This family of worm variations possesses similar characteristics in
terms of what they can do. They are mass-mailing worms with backdoor
functionality that can be controlled through the Internet Relay Chat
(IRC) network. Additionally, they can spread through email and through
various operating system vulnerabilities such as the LSASS (MS04-011).

Nilesh

Comments (2)

YouTube the popular video sharing site, which is recently acquired by Google has been banned in Turkey.

 

The Turkish court has given the order to completely blocked access to YouTube. This is done because of a video that allegedly insults Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder.

 

Turk Telecom which is the largest ISP of turkey has blocked the access to youtube, Turkish users who are trying to visit YouTube receiving a message that: “Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court.�

 

This type of problem is not uncommon, we in India has already seen about eight months ago blogspot and some other sites were blocked in India, however that banned was lifted after 3-4 days.

 

Recently YouTube was also in news in india for an insulting video on Mahatma Gandhi and many people had demanded for the ban of youtube.

 

Hope this ban will also get lifted soon.

 

Technorati Tags: Ban, Turkey, Youtube, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

ashok

Comments (5)

Last year has seen the emergence of indian search engines. There are four Indian search engines which appears to have some potential.

1. Guruji.com
2. Byindia.com
3. Raftaar.com
4. search.t6labs.com

Now Byindia.com which is purchased by web2corp is planning to start its own PPC program. They are planning to start their own PPC program from March 15th 2007, and will display ad on right side and top of the search results.

Definately there is potential of PPC program, but success of it depends on the number of people using their search engines. Let’s wait and watch how it goes.

Technorati Tags: indian search engines, byindia, PPC

ashok

Comments (2)