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Computer Virus Phone Scams

2012-02-23T23:46:57Z

Here are the take away points from this post, they are too important to get buried in this lengthy story:

Microsoft or another tech company will never call you to say your computer is broken/infected let us help you fix it
Don't bother interacting with these people just hang up
Contact your local law enforcement officials or Phone Busters (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre)
If you let them into your computer, contact a computer professional as soon as possible
If you paid them anything contact your credit card company and let them know

A Typical Scam Attempt Simplified

Step 1: A phone call will come in and the person on the other end of the line will claim to be from Microsoft or some other tech company. They will say that they have detected that your computer is infected, full of errors or give you a similar line.

Step 2: They will then try to show you proof of this by having you open up different programs in Windows that have information about internal processes and logging. These logs can easily be misinterpreted and misleading.

Step 3: They will then attempt to get you to give them access to your PC by using some sort of remote software and/or to get a credit card number out of you to "fix" the problems.

Step 4: They will steal personal information, login credentials and possibly leave a backdoor if they don't destroy your computer when they are done.

The Story

Last week we had a conversation with a reporter from the Wasaga Sun about the rise in the number of computer phone scams that we have been seeing. These scams have been going on for a number of years but as of late we have seen a sharp increase in the number of customers either calling or coming in to talk about this issue. Most have been fortunate enough to not to allow the scammers access to their computers but a few unfortunate souls have been tricked.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre put together a press release on September 29, 2011 explaining this type of scam; see the references below for a link to the PDF. On their home page this is one of the scams of the week and to quote them; "The virus scam has grown to epidemic proportions in Canada, now accounting for between 70 and 80 per cent of frauds reported daily to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC)." We have also had a chance to talk with Huronia West OPP about what to do should you receive a call, Constable Mark Kinney recommended that you either call your local law enforcement officials or Phone Busters (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre). The OPPs press release is also linked at the bottom of this post.

If you are one of the unfortunate few to have taken in by this scam and you've allowed them in to your computer it is imperative that you talk to a computer professional about this situation. The scammer may have stolen personal information and some steps need to be taken. They may have also left behind a backdoor to get into your computer. If you gave them a credit card please contact your credit card company and let them know what has happened. They will have recommendations and procedures in place.

Our store policy in the event that a computer is compromised in this nature, is to recommend a format/reinstall of the operating system. To be clear we aren't talking about malicious software or a virus. We're talking about the steps that should be taken once an unknown party has been allowed remote access to the computer. If a customer does not want to format the computer we can attempt a virus/malware clean out in the hopes that we can catch any tools/backdoors left behind. These two procedures are the same cost on our rate table so ultimately the choice lies with the customer. We choose to err on the side of caution in our recommendation because our customer’s safety and security is extremely important to us.

We take time with the customer prior to doing any work to assess if the computer was accessed or not, we have had a number of instances where people thought they may have been compromised but didn't actually go through the entire process and were safe because of it.

The final step we take happens after your computer leaves the door. During the assessment phase we try to figure out what method was used to gain remote access, most of the time the tools used are from legitimate companies like TeamViewer or LogMeInRescue. We then take the information we gather and if possible notify the company that makes the tool, to hopefully get the account that was used banned.

Stay safe and never let anyone you don't personally know and trust into your computer.

References

Wasaga Sun Article - February 22, 2012

OPP Press Release - February 2, 2012

Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre Press Release - September 29, 2011

Christmas 2011 Special

2011-12-02T20:34:53Z

We are beating last years off lease laptop specials by $40.00. We currently have Lenovo T-61 Thikpads for sale! These laptops are off lease and only around 3 years old. Here are the details:

Dual Core 1.83 GHz Intel Processor
2GB of RAM
14.1 Inch Widescreen
80GB Harddrive
1 Year Warranty

Here is the best part they are going for only: $259!!!

Rosewill RCX-SC1U 1U CPU Cooler Review

2011-12-02T19:21:16Z

Recently one of our clients needed a server built up but had some very limited space constraints. The server could be more than 2U in height but needed to have 4 hard drives in it. We based the build on an Intel Xeon E3-1220. The TDP of this processor is 80 Watts so it isn't some heat generating monster and is actually pretty efficient when it comes to power usage. A case of this of this limited height has some serious space constraints internally. The stock cooler from intel wouldn't fit because it was trying to take up some of the space that one of the hard drives needed. We opted for a Rosewill RCX-SC1U a small 1U heatsink and fan. The entire heatsink is made of copper and the fan is designed to pull air in through the heatsink and eject out of the vent on the top. This is really nice because we can focus where we want the heat to go and make it work with the fans already in the case. The installation of this little cooler was a snap and thanks to reading some of the reviews online we avoided some potential work. Apparently the glue that they use on the sticker that protects the bottom of the heatsink likes to leave a lot of residue behind. We used a heat gun to get the heatsink nice and hot then removed the sticker with out a problem. We performed some stress tests on the CPU to make sure that the cooler would be able to keep up with the demand and it performed perfectly, the CPU was at 100% for about an hour and never climbed over 72C. We could occasionally hear the motherboard ramping the speed of the CPU fan up in order to compensate and it was very noticeable, though it was relatively quiet when running at idle and under normal operation. This cooler was designed for a server case and to that length we are very happy with it's performance and would recommend it for that kind of usage.

Change Your Facebook Password!

2011-05-18T13:40:40Z

So there has been a bit of a security development with Facebook over the course of the last week. Take the time and read the Symantec Blog Post: Facebook Applications Accidentally Leaking Access to Third Parties. To summarize what all that technospeak actually means, through this vulnerability there is the potential for some with access to these tokens to actually interact with your account. This all depends on the level of access that you gave the Facebook application that leaked your token. For example if the application you gave permission to has the ability to post to your wall then the who ever gets that token can also do the same. Why should you care? Simply put some could put a link to a malicious website on you wall for all your friends to see. They would be likely to follow it because it appears to be coming from you a trusted source. Facebook has fixed this issue going forward but in order to invalidate old tokens all you need to do is change your password. So go do it, now. www.facebook.com

Summary:

There was a problem with Facebook security, change your facebbook password and you will be fine.

We've extended our hours

2011-01-06T23:14:41Z

To service our growing customer base better we have increased our hours to the following.

Monday	10-6
Tuesday	10-6
Wednesday	10-6
Thursday	10-6
Friday	10-6

Tis the season

2010-12-19T20:28:28Z

We have a bunch of off lease gear for sale just in time for the holidays.

IBM T60 Laptops only $299.00

Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz CPU
1 GB of RAM
60 GB Hard Drive
Approx. 3 years in age
Windows XP Pro

These laptops are still very viable machines. I use a T60 at home for my personal computing, and I am picky when it comes to this kind of thing. One of our off lease laptops was used in the Sudan desert on deployment. It worked without a flaw and the customer was very happy with it.

IBM M52 Desktops only $169.00

Intel P4 3.2 GHz CPU
1 GB of Ram
80 GB Hard Drive
Approx 3 years in age
Windows XP Pro

You can't beat this deal if you are looking to speed up your desktop experience. If you need a monitor to go with it we have dell flat panel monitors for a very reasonable price.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Wasaga Computers

Call us 705-429-6100 to find out more.

Malware and Viruses

2010-09-22T14:12:55Z

It is important to understand the difference between these 2 classes of software. To help better understand the difference I am going to pull the various definitions from http://www.wikipeida.org.

Computer Virus is a computer program that can copy itselfand infect a computer. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive.

Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to secretly access a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. The term "computer virus" is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, including true viruses.

The best way to differentiate between the two is by looking at the method in which they get into computers. A virus doesn't need the user to install it by running an application; all the user has to do is expose their computer to it. This could by plugging in an infected USB memory stick or by opening up an infected email. Malware on the other hand needs user interaction. One of the most common ways I see people catching malware is by searching for something on google (this could be anything... guitar music for example), and ending up at a malicious site that is designed to lure the user into downloading or installing software, essentially tricking them into doing it. A common lure is a popup window that says "your machine is infected click here to clean it out". The user doesn't know any better and clicks the link to download and install the malicious software. The computer then becomes infected.

There are couple things that you can do keep your machine safe:

Keep Windows up to date, this is an absolute must. Windows updates are not just there to fix small problems with the operating system, they close security holes and fix vulnerabilities.
Keep other software up to date like Flash, Adobe Reader, etc. Recently there has been a lot more focus by virus and malware creators on what we refer to as 3rd party software. This is software that doesn't come with Windows but that the user installs after the fact, a good example being Adobe Reader. There are exploits coming out almost weekly now.
Run a good antivirus program that is up to date and not expired. Most companies stop providing antivirus updates if the software has expired. This basically means any new viruses that come out won't be detected.
Familiarize yourself with look and feel of your antivirus program so that you can quickly tell if a window that pops up is legitimate or not.
If you aren't sure, ignore whatever is in the popup window and hit the 'X' in the top right corner of the window to close it, Just because it says "Click here to close" doesn't mean that is what it will do.
Call someone in the know. If you aren't sure about what is going on with your computer do not wait! Take care if it immediately. Things only get worse as time goes on. The computer will get more infected as more and more malicious software works its way on to the machine now that it has been compromised.

Why do the bad guys do what they do? Simply put, financial gain. In the past, viruses were used to destroy data if a computer got infected. Nowadays, they steal personal information and can turn a computer into a zombie computer or install a trojan. A trojan is a program that allows a hacker to gain access to a computer. Malware can steal data and try to scam the user into paying money. A common scam is for a fake antivirus to pop up saying that needs to be activated in order to fix the problem. There is a fee associated with this activation and it's usually not large sum of money. This activation process will do nothing, and users should never pay it. Two things happen once a user pays this fee:

The bad guys now have the credit card number.
They will actually charge you the fee.

The reason this scam works is because users who pay the activation fee don't put a stop payment on it because the fee is small enough that it's not worth their time. If it's asking for money be suspicious.

Viruses and malicious software aren't going anywhere. We need to protect ourselves by doing updates, running a good antivirus and by using a dash of common sense. If you're not sure, ask someone who knows.

Tutorial - Site to Site VPN Using Tomato Firmware and OpenVPN

2010-08-11T01:58:03Z

Tutorial on how to build a site to site VPN using 2 Linksys WRT54GL routers and TomatoVPN.

Our Twitter Feed is Live

2010-07-26T22:56:20Z

We are going to incorporate Twitter into our webpage. As we come across interesting things online we will be pushing them to the @wasagacomputers account. For those of you who might be new to twitter we can give a you a really brief description. You have 140 characters to put together a message that you then post to twitter.com. Some people use it to share every facet of their lives. We feel the benefit of twitter is to pass along interesting links and things that we find online. This could come in the form of articles, pictures or videos. We promish we won't tell about the wonderful cornbeef sandwich we had at lunch.

Backup backup backup.....

2010-06-04T02:27:44Z

On a monthly basis we deal with computers that have had a hard drive fail. Sometimes we get lucky and are able to retrieve some or even all of the data. Other times we have the displeasure of explaining to a customer that the drive is dead and we can't recover it. There are companies that specialize in low level data recovery but it can be a very very costly process and results might not be guarantied.

This could all be avoided by using some form of backup.

There are several methodologies to backing up. I follow a 3-2-1 strategy It's a very simple idea and breaks down like this:

3. No file exists till it exists in triplicate, the original and two backup copies.
- Protects against having a bad backup file.

2. The two backup copies need to be on different media for example two different external hard drives.
- Protects against failing backup media.

1. One of the backup copies need to be off site at a different location.
- Protects against fire, theft, act of god.

This may make it sound like I am being a little over cautious but I can't chance losing the pictures of our newborn. I don't think I would ever live it down so why take the chance.

The only other key to backups is that they must be automated. I don't want to have to rely on myself to do a backup every night. I want it to just happen. People are the weakest link when it comes to backup, we either forget and put it off till it's too late.

We sell one year licenses for product called Carbonite. For around $5.00 a month (probably less than you spend at Tim Horton's every couple of days) you can rest assured that you backup is happening offsite and automatically. Carbonite installs an agent on your computer that monitors for changes and automatically sends new and modified files to a datacentre that is located on the internet. They encrypt your data to ensure your privacy. Contact us to find out more information or to sign up.