Worm Nuwar themes World War III

The other day I was flipping through the channels on our satellite TV and stopped for a couple of minutes on a FOX news program. I just happened to be the Hannity and Colmes talk show. I was concerned when I heard them talk about the pros and cons of a possible conflict with Iran. With that said, I get email from friends and family about supporting our troops and I appreciate the messages and support the content.

I came across a virus warning from McAfee that talks about how the Storm worm authors are coming up with war themes in order to infect user computers. Watch out for subjects such as The beginning of The World War III, US Army crossed Iran's borders, US Army invaded Iran, US soldiers occupied Iran, USA unleashed war on Iran and War between USA & Iran. This is not a new virus, but it has been renamed "Nuwar" because it uses sensational war themes.

Unsuspecting users who follow the link in the spammed email are directed to a Storm bait page hosting a video that purportedly shows the first minutes of the beginning of WWIII. except that clicking o the video would download an infected program and virus.

Be careful about following links in any email, especially email from someone you don't know. There are Storm bait pages that can be blocked. I have a list of these pages for administrators that might want to block the page URL's. Send me some email with your request and I'll send the ones I know about to you.

As always, safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

Sun Updates for Multiple Vulnerabilities

The following is from the National Cyber Alert System - July 11, 2008

Sun Updates for Multiple Vulnerabilities

What to do:

Solution

Apply an update from Sun

Sun has released updates that fix these vulnerabilities. As illustrated on
the Java website, follow these instructions to update your version of
Java:
1. From the Start menu, open the Control Panel.
2. Click the Java icon to open the Java Control Panel. (If you do not see
the icon, Java is probably not installed on your computer.)
3. Select the Update tab and click the Update Now button. (If you do not
see an Update tab, your version of Java does not support updates, or you
must log in as an Administrator.)

We also recommend enabling Automatic Updates for Java. To enable Automatic
Updates, go to the Update tab of the Java Control Panel and select the
Check for Updates Automatically check box.

Leaving older versions of Java on your computer after the update could
expose you to security risks. You may want to remove the older versions by
following Sun's instructions.

If you need more details, view the CERT advisory at:

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA08-193A.html

Safe surfing,

Darrell Mishler

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M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

The Browser Wars Loses a Player

A once mighty competitor has decided to go into oblivion. Since just after its first release in October 1994 Netscape has been a household word in the computing world. At one point in time it commanded at least 80% market share.

Netscape was and is merely a teenager, just 14 years old and has now seen its last release. The final release distributed is 9.0.0.6 and will no longer be supported after May 1, 2008.

A little background:

Born in 1994 as Mosaic it became Netscape and was sold to AOL for around $9 billion dollars. By the time Internet Explorer and Netscape had reached the fourth generation it started losing market share. Today the market share of Netscape is less than 1%.

As of July 2003 AOL Mozilla (Mosaic and Netscape based browser) was allowed to become independent and Mozilla became an open source project into a non-profit organization. Since then Mozilla has become an active player in the browser wars.

As a web designer, one of the activities that I perform when building a web site is to make sure the web site views the same in a variety of web browsers. Now I won’t have to be testing with Netscape any more. I’ll still be testing with FireFox (Mozilla), Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera.

It’s time to bid a fond farewell to an application that allowed for the every day internet user and lay person to enjoy the experience of surfing the web.

Darrell Mishler

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M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

Automobile identity theft – watch our, your could be next

After receiving several reports, I thought I would pass this along to you. There is a gas theft scam going on around the country that police agencies are warning about. Being forewarned is being forearmed.

This from the WJON Local News - Saint Cloud, MN. ST. CLOUD -- The St. Cloud police chief is warning you to check your license plates.

Dennis Ballantine says they've seen an increase in cases of people stealing license plates, and then using them to drive-off and not pay for their gas.

Ballantine says they've had six of these cases reported since April 15th.

He says you should check your plates every day, and if you notice that they are missing, contact the police department right away.

Madison Wisconsin has a similar warning on their NBC news station.

If you notice that you license plate is missing, report it to the Sheriffs office right away. If a gas station owner reports a gas theft with a license number, you will avoid a lot of innocent explaining.

Darrell Mishler

LinkedIn Profile

M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT): Potential Flash Player issue

Direct reprint from Adobe - Posted by David Lenoe on May 28, 2008 11:09 AM

Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT): Potential Flash Player issue - update

Potential Flash Player issue - update

Here’s a quick update on our progress investigating the recent reports of a potential Flash Player exploit in the wild. The exploit appears to be taking advantage of a known vulnerability, reported by Mark Dowd of the ISS X-Force and wushi of team509, that was resolved in Flash Player 9.0.124.0 (CVE-2007-0071). This exploit does NOT appear to include a new, unpatched vulnerability as has been reported elsewhere – customers with Flash Player 9.0.124.0 should not be vulnerable to this exploit. We’re still looking in to the exploit files, and will update everyone with further information as we get it, but for now, we strongly encourage everyone to download and install the latest Flash Player update, 9.0.124.0.

Darrell Mishler

LinkedIn Profile

M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

FTC Tightens Regulations on Spammers

FTC responds to requests for comments on what needs to be done to enhance the CAN-SPAN act of 2003. There were over 30,000 responses that were sorted through, prioritized and evaluated. The results of what the FTC came up with enhance the nature of consumer protection and education.

Here are the items that have been changed (numbered items are taken from the FTC news release):

Four topics are addressed in the new rule provisions:

(1) An e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender.

According to this statement, all a person needs to do going forward is to send a reply to the spam message to be removed from the mailing list.

(2) The definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the act’s opt-out requirements.

A prime example is that of a credit card company that includes offers from stores and movie rental companies. The sender is the initiating source for the specific email message.

(3) A “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under U.S. Postal Service regulations to satisfy the act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address.”

The previous definition indicated that a business address had to be included with the email in order to identify a location of the entity sending the spam, this has been changed to allow for a USPS identified postal address. The address can now be a post office box or private residence.

(4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

This can be translated to an entity that is in the business of sending marketing material identified as spam.

Summary:

Reply to a spam email to be removed from a mailing list. There can not be a ghost sender for spam that is for a variety of offers, someone has to take responsibility. The sender can identify a valid USPS mailing address other than a just a specific business address and that a business can be identified rather than a specific person.

Darrell Mishler

M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

Package delivery redirect fraud (Credit Card Fraud), Identity Theft

Somehow, someway my credit card information found its way into the hands of evil. I heard from eCost.com, an online computer shop that someone ordered a computer and verified my “home address” as the deliver to address. What that evil person did not expect was that the eCost would double check the IP geography of the ordered from computer and the geography of my published home address IP location. The evil doer was using an IP from an upper western state and my published home address just happens to be in a mid-west state. Alarm bells went off for eCost and they called me using the telephone number verified with my credit card account. I denied the purchase and they canceled the order. I called my credit card company and reported the incident.

Another situation arose with another credit card; this one involved Dell. There was a $3000.00 computer purchase that was denied by Dell, another purchase of $49.00 and yet another for $99.00. When the fourth purchase was attempted, Dell contacted me and asked if I authorized these purchases. I denied the purchases and contacted that credit card company to report that one too.

Here is the process from what I can discover:

· A credit card number is captured and used to make a purchase
· The evil doer uses an email address other than the credit card holder for information on the purchase order
· The evil doer confirms the credit card holders delivery address
· When shipping conformation is delivered to the evil doers email a redirect, delivery intercept or reroute is ordered from the shipping carrier to cause the delivery of goods to another address (the evil doers)

Solutions to the aforementioned fraud

· Credit Card Company validates customer email address verification anything other than the email of the credit card holder will cause the charge to be denied
· Shipper to maintain an Opt-out of redirect or reroute capability
· Merchant checks the IP address of the order to validate the geography of the order placer and the card holder.

One of the problems that I have encountered is the lack of information that I have gotten from the merchants or credit card companies. I would like to be able to report this to my states attorney general and Sheriffs Office, but do not have the necessary details.

What can be done to protect credit card holders and businesses from this kind of identity theft and credit card fraud? Feedback and comments requested.

Darrell Mishler

M & D Creative Concepts LLC

Web Design Services

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