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Posts tagged virus
New IT Term of the week
Apr 6th
Easter egg
Software easter eggs are secret screens, videos, graphics, or other type of message that has been buried in an application. Typically, easter eggs are used to display the credits for the development team or to display a humorous message. Easter eggs are intended to be fun and can be found in any type of software ? including games, word processing applications, and even operating systems. To see an easter egg, you often will need know a special procedure or sequence of keystrokes.
For example, follow these instructions to see a list of people who worked on the User Assistance feature of Microsoft Word 2000:
1. Open Microsoft Word2000
2. Press F1 or click the “Office Assistant” button
3. Under the “What would you like to do?”, type “Cast” (No quotes)
4. Click SEARCH
5. Click the MICROSOFT OFFICE 2000 USER ASSISTANCE STAFF topic
6. Click the graphic in the Microsoft Word Help screen
Easter eggs in computer games are quite common and may be funny scenes, hidden levels, or other extras gamers can discover while playing. One of the most popular easter eggs to unlock in video games is the “Dopefish”. This fun, fictional fish first appeared in Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle (1991). Since that time it has made an appearance as an easter egg in numerous games. In many games you need to unlock a special level or perform a sequence of actions to find the hidden easter egg.
Easter eggs may also be found in movies, music albums, videos and other types of media.
More >VIRUS : Magazine ships Induc Delphi virus on cover CD ROM
Sep 1st
According to German media reports, a popular computer magazine is on sale in the country containing a copy of the W32/Induc-A Delphi virus on its free cover CD ROM.
The 18/2009 edition of ComputerBild, one of Germany’s biggest computer magazines with an estimated readership of over 4 million people, carries an infected copy of TidyFavorites 4.1, a tool used to help you organise your browser’s list of favourite websites, on its cover CD.
Springer-Verlag, the publishers of ComputerBild, have reportedly contacted independent experts at AV-Test.org who have confirmed the infection.
ComputerBild has published a statement to its readers (in German), warning of the infection and providing a link to a clean, uninfected version of the program.
The good news is that W32/Induc-A appears to be a proof-of-concept virus and has no malicious payload other than spreading – nevertheless, no-one wants unauthorised hacker’s code running on their computer.
According to German media reports, a popular computer magazine is on sale in the country containing a copy of the W32/Induc-A Delphi virus on its free cover CD ROM.
The 18/2009 edition of ComputerBild, one of Germany’s biggest computer magazines with an estimated readership of over 4 million people, carries an infected copy of TidyFavorites 4.1, a tool used to help you organise your browser’s list of favourite websites, on its cover CD.
Springer-Verlag, the publishers of ComputerBild, have reportedly contacted independent experts at AV-Test.org who have confirmed the infection.
ComputerBild has published a statement to its readers (in German), warning of the infection and providing a link to a clean, uninfected version of the program.
The good news is that W32/Induc-A appears to be a proof-of-concept virus and has no malicious payload other than spreading – nevertheless, no-one wants unauthorised hacker’s code running on their computer.
OH NO! MY SYSTEM’S INFECTED
Jun 3rd
Hope-fully this is not the case for the majority of you, but I know there will be a few people who are going to be infected. The only way you are really going to know if you are infected is diagnosing your computer properly. I recommend getting Lockdown 2000 for this. Install it on your system and run a full system scan on your machine.
After running Lockdown 2000, run your anti virus scanner just in case Lockdown missed anything. You may ask yourself why I suggest such redundancy? Computers are built on the principle of redundancy. One program will always compensate for the short-comings of the other. This should reveal most if not all Trojans currently residing on your machine. Until you are absolutely sure about not possessing any Trojans on your machine I suggest being alert of the happenings on your computer.
Run the firewall programs to block out intruders.
Monitor your system for unusual happenings (CD Rom opening for no reason)
Use the Netstat command to see what ports are being used if you get suspicious
The ultimate goal is not to be paranoid about the use of your computer. It’s about being smart about how you use your computer.
