Yourcomputerfriends's Weblog

Virus – ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK

yourcomputerfriends — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:34:41 +0000

Here is the issue with this – the sole purpose of this scary email is to collect email address that can later be used to SPAM you. So STOP FORWARDING THE EMAIL!

Please!

When you forward emails you should NEVER include all the email address that came on the email to you. DELETE THEM if you must forward jokes, virus warnings and other emails that have been around the world 9 times.

Here is the email:

YOU NEVER KNOW IF THESE ARE TRUE OR NOT SO I WILL FORWARD JUST IN CASE…. (trick to get you to believe)

HUGE VIRUS COMING ! PLEASE READ & FORWARD !

Hi All,

I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus!
I checked Snopes, and it is for real. Get this E-mail message sent around to all your contacts ASAP.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!

You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,’regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C drive of your computer.

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address on his/her contact list. That is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it!

If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even if it is sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN.

It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS.
REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT TO THEM, IT WILL BE TO EVERYONES BENEFIT

N2Publishing’s First Annual Magnolia Greens Fall Festival – 2009

yourcomputerfriends — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:20:12 +0000

Parade Photo

A good time was had by most at the First Annual Magnoia Greens Fall Festival.

BUY LOCAL!

yourcomputerfriends — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:41:11 +0000

Your Computer Friends attended the kick off meeting of the Buy Local campaign on Wednesday, October 28, 2009. 70 cents of every dollar spent at a local business stays locally, unlike money spent with National Chain stores. Since all that money stays local, it helps keep our local economy healthy and stable in these tough economic times. For more about the Buy Local initiative see this article by Judy Royal of the Star News:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20091028/ARTICLES/910289943/1004?Title=Business-owners-start-buy-local-initiative

www.buylocalilm.com

Acer Recall – Aspire Notebooks may overheat.

yourcomputerfriends — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:33:21 +0000

Acer has voluntarily recalled certain models of their Aspire series. Affected units are models AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3910TZ and AS3810TZG. In the affected units the microphone cable may overheat when extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest. The case may melt and the unit may malfunciton.

See the attached link to contact Acer about your product:

http://customercare.acer-euro.com/customercare/AcerUpdate.aspx?CID=SG&LID=ENG&IType=JM31

Laptop Skins are in! Check this out!

yourcomputerfriends — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:20:37 +0000

I've got my eye on you!

Give your Laptop an Original Look that is all YOU! Stop by and check out the available designs. Only $10.00. Makes a great gift idea!

Trojan steals money from Bank Accounts

yourcomputerfriends — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:14:11 +0000

Your Computer Friends found this interesting article we wanted to share:

Bank Botnet Serves Fake Info to Thwart Researchers

By Kim Zetter
October 6, 2009 |
12:49 am |
Categories: Hacks and Cracks

Researchers tracking a gang of online bank thieves found that the criminals have deployed a devious means to thwart law enforcement and anyone else trying to monitor their activities.

The gang behind the URLZone trojan, which siphons money from online bank accounts and then alters a victim’s online bank statement to hide the fraud, have also devised a method to hide the accounts of mules they use to launder the siphoned funds.

Researchers at RSA’s FraudAction Research Labs say the gang was aware that their malware was being tracked by investigators, so they programmed their command and control server to generate non-mule accounts to make it more difficult for law enforcement and fraud investigators to halt laundering through the real accounts.

The URLZone is a Trojan that has been targeting customers of several top German banks. The victims’ computers are infected with the Trojan after visiting compromised legitimate web sites or rogue sites set up by the hackers.

Once a victim is infected, the malware detects when a user is logged into a bank account, then contacts a control center hosted on a machine in Ukraine to initiate a money transfer from the victim’s account, without the victim’s knowledge. The control center tells the Trojan how much money to wire transfer from the victim’s online bank account and which mule account should receive the transfer.

The money gets transferred to the legitimate bank accounts of unsuspecting money mules who’ve been recruited online for work-at-home gigs, never suspecting that the money they’re allowing to flow through their account is being laundered. The mules then transfer the money to the thieves’ chosen account.

Researchers, hoping to extract a list of mule accounts from the command and control center, infected honeypot computers with the URLZone Trojan. But when the computers contacted the command and control center to collect a mule account, the command center fed them “fake” accounts.

The fraudsters developed a series of tests to check infected computers to determine if they’re “legitimate” URLZone-infected machines. For example, every infected computer is assigned a unique identification code by the Trojan. If the ID is not a valid Trojan ID known by the server, the fake computer gets fed one of 400 non-mule accounts. The non-mule accounts are legitimate bank accounts, just not ones the criminals are using to launder money.

“Interestingly, when generating a non-mule account in order to dupe anti-fraud security researchers,” RSA researchers write on their blog, “the Trojan does not display random names and account numbers. Instead, it displays real bank account details that were previously entered by URLZone victims as the payees of legitimate transactions.”

The RSA researchers call this the “most unique attribute” of the botnet, which “speaks to its operators’ caution against having their criminal pipelines compromised.”

Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/urlzone-trojan/

Registry Cleaners – save your money

yourcomputerfriends — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:21:19 +0000

At first I thought it will speed up my computer after reading their website. Then I paid and registered. Instead it slowered my computer and I can’t connect to the internet either.

Their customer support is the worest I had even seen. They said it is not their fault, and asked me to download and install again and again. But nothing changed.

source: http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/it-is-unsafe-to-use-regtool-that-slowers-my-computer-and-stops-internet-c200529.html

For about the same amount of money, we can repair your registry in a way that really makes it better.

How to pick a good computer repair company.

yourcomputerfriends — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:44:53 +0000

Your Computer Friends saw this article and agree with many of the things in it. We have been in business almost 4 years and have an excellent reputation – and, we take credit cards. Check out the article and our online testimonials.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/55039702.html?elr=KArks:DCiUo3PD:3D_V_qD3L:c7cQKUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

Changing the Tax Amount in QuickBooks

yourcomputerfriends — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:23:05 +0000

To change the tax amount in QuickBooks click list, then item list then double click sales tax line & change as needed.

Storms & Computers

yourcomputerfriends — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:09:29 +0000

When strong storms hit it is always best to unplug your computer. Power surges from the electric source, cable and phone lines can all travel to your computer causing damage from fried Ethernet cards (how you get on the internet) to Power Supplies (the part that regulates power to your PC) and worst of all to the Motherboard, the main circuit board of your computer.

The first two items are easily repaired and in most cases you can relax in our waiting room while we repair your PC. With a motherboard it is a bit more expensive and depending on the age and quality of your computer; may not be worth fixing.

In most cases there is no data loss from power surges; but it is possible to lose data or have data corruption when your computer processing is suddenly stopped.

The best prevention is shutting down your PC during these storms and also removing the cable or phone line from the PC. You can also invest in a quality Lightning Rated Surge Protector that includes surge suppression for cable and phone lines. We use this level of Surge Protection on all of our equipment and all our customer’s equipment that is on-site. In total I probably have more then ten surge suppressers in my home and office.

If you home is frequently hit by power surges, consider a whole house surge suppressor available from an electrician or your power company.