Love your Laptop (Or Else)

Laptops are one of the most popular computers being sold now days. Although they are small, laptops are a lot more delicate than their desktop counterpart.

We often get laptops in for repair where I work, so you may find the following laptop tips useful.

Do not use your laptop in bed: A lot of people will hate this but the majority of laptops I get in for repair are ones that people use in bed. It’s always one of these problems:

1: The laptop is sitting on the bedspread or on the users lap and it has no airflow so it over heats.

2. The user falls asleep and the laptop falls off the bed.

Number two is the most common problem I see. Laptops don’t like hard drops which will either damage your hard drive or DVD Drive.

Speaking of hard drive, BACK UP YOUR LAPTOP FILES REGUALLY. I cannot emphasize this enough. Laptop hard drives are notoriously unreliable. They can die on you just like that and it can be difficult to rescue data off a faulty laptop hard drive. I recommend using Norton Save and Restore to do your backups.

My next big tip is don’t drink around a laptop. If you spill something on it, you are damaging the entire laptop, not just the keyboard. Should you spill something on your laptop, DO NOT TURN IT BACK ON. You could fry your machine. Bring it in to a computer repair shop. They will clean it up, see if it can be fixed and save any important documents.

Laptop DVD drives are problematic as well. If you have a CD/DVD that other computers read perfectly but your laptop struggles with, replace the laptop DVD Drive. The same applies if your laptop reads CD’s perfectly but has trouble reading DVD’s. There’s no quick fix to this. You will have to replace it.

After reading all this, a thought may have occurred to you. Extended Warranty. Get it. Laptops usually start developing natural faults after a year so an extended warranty could save you money in the long run.

Treat your laptops with care and it will serve you well. Abuse it and they will hit you right back.

Popularity: 3% [?]

CiD Popup

Do you have the word CiD on your internet browser title at the top left of the screen?

Is closing multiple popups part of a normal day for you?

If you have answered yes to these questions, you have CiD popup on your computer. Be sure to thank Adware.Lop for putting CiD on your computer.

Seriously, who names these things? A five year old?

Be sure to follow 411-Spyware’s instructions to remove CiD Popup.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Extra Antivir

Please welcome Extra Antivir 2.8 (AKA Extra Antivirus) to the Damn Trojan fake antivirus family. Before you run out and buy Extra Antivir 208 in a Black Friday sale, you may want to look at it’s features. Fake Security Popups every 30 seconds. Um, that’s about it for Extra Antivir 2.8 features.

Extra Antivir is know to generate the following popups:

Tip of the Day. This is very important advise. Please do not hesitate to use it. Use passwords and encrypt sensitive files. Passwords and other security features add layers of protection if used appropriately. By encrypting files, you ensure that unauthorized people can’t view data even if they can physically access it.

System alert. malicious applications, which can contain trojans, were found on your PC and need to be immediately removed. Click here to remove these potentially harmful items using Extra Antivirus.

Your computer is infected. Warning!Trojan Found! Threat detected: Trojan. File name: svhost.sys. Threat name: Trojan-PSW.BAT.Cunter. File at risk of infecdtion: C:\Documents and Settings\… Total vulnerabilities: 21. Description: This trojan is trying to steal all your passwords for network. Recommended: Please click ‘Remove All’ to eliminate all possible threats and protect your PC.

If this doesn’t impress you, follow these instructions to manually remove Extra Antivir 2.8.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Top Infection Spots

As it’s Thanksgiving in the US, it’s going to be a slow news day so I thought I’d give “thanks” to the most common places that clients of mine get infected with malware.

Facebook: Our big clients are guilty of this. I guess they must get bored at work and log into Facebook as they have nothing else to do. The problem is some of the Facebook plugins are malicious so they end up infecting their computers. This got so bad, we blocked all social networking sites for one of our big clients.

Fake Video Codecs: People just keep falling for this one. The main culprit is porn sites but our clients swear that they never visit them. Their internet history says different.

BitTorrent: It is mostly kids and teens that do this. While fake MP3’s are a big cause of infections, the biggest source is fake computer game cracks.

Fake Updates: A client visits a web site and is told that they need to download the latest version of Flash to view the site. They accept and you can guess what happens next.

Browser Hijackers. Yes, there are people who believe the fake security pop ups that appear onscreen when their browser has been hijacked. The client downloads the fake program and even worse, pay’s for it.

Those are the main ways people get infected with malicious software, at least where I live. Please learn from their mistakes.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Adobe Software Scam

Theregistar.co.uk is warning about Adobe software scams that are appearing in Google ads.

Now click on them. You’ll see that each ad points to nearly identical pages. And if you hit that big red button to get your free Acrobat 9 suite, you’ll see that each site shuttles you to the same sign-up page at the same domain. And if you key your name, email address, and location into the form, you’ll see that your free Adobe 9 suite isn’t free. You’re asked to key in your credit card number for “access and support.” The ostensible fee is at least $2.47 a month.
AdWords Acrobat Ads

Quality ads?

It’s not just that these ads violate the Federal Trade Commission’s advertising guidelines, misleading the gullible with bogus claims. It’s not just that they’re breaking copyright law, selling pirated software. They also violate Google’s very own AdWords policies, which prohibit double ad serving.

Remember that Adobe programs are quite expensive. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Read Google – your source for FREE Adobe gear for more information.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Plenty of XP Protection Center Websites

Twas the night before Christmas all through the net, not a website was stirring, except:

Xp-protectioncenter.com, wanting you to waste your money on XP Protection Center.
Xp-prot-center.com: Just Xp-protectioncenter.com with a different name.
xpprotcenter.com: Just Xp-prot-center.com & Xp-prot-center.com with a different name.
Xp-p-center.com: Just xpprotcenter.com, Xp-prot-center.com & Xp-prot-center.com with a different name.
xppcenter.com: Just Xp-p-center.com, xpprotcenter.com, Xp-prot-center.com & Xp-prot-center.com with a different name.

Looks like Antivirus 2009 has some completion for it’s website domain take over quest.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Hackers that Stole Christmas

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

3 Fake Security Software
2 Zlob Trojans
And a exploitation kit!!!

Cyber criminals are getting into the true spirit of Christmas, by showing selling people the way to steal your money.

Oh the Joy of the holidays and what better way for hackers to cheat the system by using the Christmas season to commit cybercrimes and scam millions of online shoppers. Online shopping is nothing new as we should all know by now. More and more people, including hackers, flock to consumer sites looking for the best deal on anything from iPods and computers to house slippers to “Exploitation Kits”. Cyber criminals have a gift of their own to distribute online but they do not have to look too hard to find it. Hackers have released a web malware exploitation kit which is designed for commercial gains through a Christmas marketing pitch.

Expect the cheesy Christmas movie about a cyber crim discovering Christmas to follow soon.

Read New Exploitation Kit Released By Cybercriminals For The Holidays for the full story as well has tips to avoid falling victim.

Popularity: 3% [?]

AntiSpywareGuard

Damn Trojan readers usually spend around 10 – 30 seconds reading posts so I will keep this short as possible.

AntiSpywareGuard

Fake

Generates annoying popups

Manually remove AntiSpywareGuard

Fin

Popularity: 3% [?]

Winweb Security 2008

Winweb Security 2008 is a new fake antispyware program.

Isn’t it a little late in the year to be releasing a 2008 version of a fake program?

Winweb Security 2008 only wants you to pay $49.95 for the privilege of seeing it’s fake security popups, but you’ll probably want to manually remove Winweb Security 2008 instead.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Antivirus Trigger

Ever heard of VirusTrigger?

Meet it’s evil twin, Antivirus Trigger.

They are both exactly the same program, from generating fake security alerts to using a giant dildo as a logo.

removeonline.com has the instructions to manually remove Antivirus Trigger, should you want to get rid of it for some reason.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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