Kaspersky Lab warns of fake trial resetter app

Kaspersky Lab, a developer of secure content and threat management solutions, is warning users of key generators and software cracks that can steal information from computers.

The malware, identified as Trojan-PSW.MIL.Agent.wx, disguises itself as a Kaspersky Trial Resetter, which is used to reset a software evaluation period that has expired.

Instead of extending the evaluation period of a legitimate software, it steals information from the infected computer -- from passwords saved in a web browser to other installed applications.

Kaspersky Lab said Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the browser most targeted by the virus, followed by Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.

The Trojan has so far stolen information from MSN accounts (400), Ebay accounts (175), Facebook accounts (169) and ICQ accounts (116), the company said.

"I hope these statistics will convince you that downloading pirated software is not a good idea," said Kaspersky Lab security expert Nicolas Brulez.

He added, "Users who thought they were downloading a crack for a security solution ended up being infected. It's also clear that saving your passwords within your browser isn't the best idea."

According to Brunez, a total of 1,109 computers -- or an average of 48 a day -- have been infected in 23 days. The malware was reportedly created on January 31 this year and was detected on February 6.

Germany is said to have the most number of infections at 29%, followed by Holland (11%), France (3%), Poland and United Kingdom (1% each). The remaining 55% are spread out across the globe, Kaspersky Lab said.

Nasty Fake Antivirus

According to multiple security researchers, fake antivirus software was the biggest cyber crimes in 2010 and continues to be a major on-line scam. When fake antivirus first appeared, it could really be categorized as "scareware" and was fairly innocuous. Fake AV popped up unexpectedly, told you that your system may be infected, and then launched a fake scanning engine. While some people were clearly duped, you could easily work your way out if you recognized the scam. No harm, no foul.

I recently saw a demonstration of a more modern version of fake antivirus. The bad guys have made this scam more effective and sinister. When the fake AV appears on your system now you notice a steady progression with no way out. First, it shuts down your real antivirus and removes the icon from your system tray. It then shuts down any applications you have open, claiming that they may be infected. Finally, it blocks any file with a .exe extention so you can't open any processes. This blocks all of the things you would normally try to alleviate the problem. I tried launching pre-installed antivirus software to perform a system scan, opening Windows Task Manager to kill a process, and going into Windows tools to restore the system configuration to an earlier recovery point. All of these actions were blocked. Oh and don't bother re-booting the system. This won't help either.

Basically, fake AV launches a denial-of-service attack, making your PC absolutely useless. It reminded me of the insidious pop-up spyware and adware from the early 2000s. With this type of attack, even users who know better are tempted to buy the fake AV in order to get their PC, and their precious data, back. If you can open a browser and are willing to fight on, there are numerous downloadable tools that claim to overcome fake AV. Guess what? Many of them are just another kind of malware. Cybercriminals know how to kick you when you are down.

If you do get infected, there is actually a relatively easy way out. You have to reboot your system in safe mode (press the F8 key as you do), go into system tools, and then restore your system to an earlier recovery point. When this action is completed, I recommend updating Windows and doing a full system scan with your real AV immediately.

I've read a lot of research indicating that many users either don't use AV at all or don't really maintain it. You could say that these folks deserve to be scammed but when their PCs become part of a global botnet it impacts us all. The bad guys are very good at what they do. The only chance we have is to stay smart, share information, keep our systems up to date, maintain strong defenses, and remain vigilant.

10 steps to avoid malware while browsing the Web

1. Don’t use a single password and PIN everywhere. No one uses same key for house, car, office, briefcase and deposit box. Generally, most of the people use different keys. Suppose one uses the same PIN everywhere, then an opportunity is being created for a thief to unlock every door.
2. Do not login (into) third party applications that ask for email logins. Third party applications are programs written to work within operating systems, but are written by individuals or companies other than the providers of the operating system.
3. Do not click on pop-ups that appear while browsing the web. Those pop-ups may contain malware which can be automatically downloaded to the PC. Pop-up ads are a form of advertising intended to attract web traffic or capture email addresses.
4. Do not be lazy to update your antivirus software. If antivirus software is not updated, then you are leaving your computer open for all kinds of malicious attacks from the minute of expiration of the software.
5. Do not click on the phishing mails, which shows that you have won something or saying that your account is at risk, which generally creates a sense of urgency. A Phishing mail usually asks for information’s such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity. No banks or trusted organizations will ask their users to do that.
6. Do not forget to delete system’s cache, passwords or history. Easiest place for a malware like software to hide in the system generally tends to be in the temporary folders where browser cache, passwords or history is stored. If one fails to check this, then the possibility of identity theft and stealing of bank and email information’s are inevitable. If possible try to reset your browser frequently.
7. Do not open a fraudulent email or spam mails. Clicking on a fraudulent email will allow the cyber criminals to easily access your computer. Also never access any account information like bank info through email links which can allow access to your account information. Also ensure to have a back up for emails like how you keep record of important hard copy documents. Make sure that all the attachments are scanned before opening them.
8. Do not forget to log out of any account that you have logged in, especially when you are at a cybercafé.
9. Do not download free stuff like screen saver, videos and pictures from other websites. Downloading free stuffs from unknown website can dangerously harm your computer. Suddenly the computer begins to slow down as malicious software’s come along with those downloads. And always access safe websites to download useful information or data.
10. Do not allow an unknown person in your social networking accounts like Twitter and Facebook. Social networking websites have become a craze in the modern generation. Hence, protecting one's identity and account is really important with increasing threats on the Internet.

How to Remove Disk Doctor (Virus Removal Guide)?

In order to uninstall Disk Doctor you’ll need Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware tool

1. First and foremost you should print out the following instructions as you may be asked to close all open windows later on in the cleaning process.

2. You might encounter downloading issues if your computer is infected with Disk Doctor, so it’s possible you won’t be able to download anything on your own computer. If this is the case, you’ll need to download the specific files for the removal procedure on another computer and then transfer them using a CD/DVD, a flash drive or an external drive.

3. In order to proceed with the cleaning, you must first close any active processes that belong to Disk Doctor so they won’t interfere. You can do that by downloading RKill from this link. Remember to use the iExplore.exe download link, and save the program on your desktop.

4. Next, open the iExplore.exe file, and the program will begin to automatically close all processes associated with Disk Doctor and other Rogue programs as well. It’s important that you let RKill finish running, even if at some point it will display a message that RKill itself is an infection. Again, this is another fake message from Disk Doctor that might even stop the process and close RKill. In case this happens, the first method of tricking Disk Doctor is by not closing the warning window, instead leaving it on the screen and running RKill once more. If RKill still hasn’t managed to run all the way to the finish point, try running it a couple more times, until the malware is no longer running on your computer. If after all this, you still encounter problems in running RKill all the way, try downloading a renamed version of RKill here, which is in fact simply a renamed copy of RKill. After RKill will eventually finish its job, do not reboot you computer as the malware programs will pop out again.

5. After you get rid of all Disk Doctor associated processes, download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM) from the link provided above and, once again, save it on your Desktop.

6. After the download has finished, close all programs and windows on your computer (including this one).

7. Open the file mbam-setup.exe from your desktop to start installing MBAM on your computer.

8. In order to complete the installations you just need to follow the prompts and you must remember not to make any settings changes along the way. When the installation process finishes, keep in mind to leave both the Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware checked. After you hit the Finish button be very careful not to reboot your computer even if Malwarebytes’ asks you to.

9. After you finish the installation, MBAM will automatically start with a message that advises you to update the program before performing any scan. Once you hit the OK button a new window with the main program will appear as shown below:

10. On the Scanner tab choose Perform full scan and click the Scan button.

11. The scanning process can take quite a while, so be patient while you’re staring at a window like the one below:

12. When MBAM has finished scanning your computer, hit the OK button from the message window that will appear.

13. You’ll now be sent back to the main Scanner screen where you should select Show Results.

14. A window with all the malware that MBAM discovered will be seen, like the one provided below. You must now press the Remove Selected button and MBAM will start deleting all files and registry keys and will add them to the programs quarantine. MBAM might require you to reboot the computer at some point in order to remove some files and you must allow the program to do that.

15. When MBAM has finished removing the malware, a Notepad scan log will be displayed. After you close the Notepad Window, you can exit the MBAM program.

16. Disk Doctor should now be completely removed from your computer, but we strongly recommend that you also scan the computer for vulnerable programs (you can use Secunia PSI to that end), as many rogues and malware are installed through out-dated and vulnerable programs. Hope this guide turns out helpful. Please let us know if you successfully removed Disk Doctor.

Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 review

Panda Cloud Antivirus is a unique entry in the free antivirus race. Most free antivirus products still rely on signature updates to detect new malware, but Panda's program instead uses fresh data about malware direct from Panda's servers.
Panda Cloud Antivirus put up some excellent results in some malware detection tests, but its scan speeds were slower than we would have liked to see.
Installation and setup for Cloud Antivirus is simple and straightforward: You have to click through only one screen before it starts installing, though I found that it asked to install a browser toolbar.
Upon installation, it'll ask you whether you want to use the free or "pro" (paid) edition of Cloud Antivirus.
Panda Cloud Antivirus's main interface is really simple: The main window has only four tabs that run across the top, one for the status screen, plus tabs for the scanner, the scan report and the recycle bin (where neutralised files live, Cloud Antivirus lets you recover files in case it neutralises something you wanted to keep).
When you first open Cloud Antivirus, you are presented with a status indicator (a green checkmark if all is well, or a red X if something needs your attention) and a short description of your PC's protection status. The settings pane is equally simple, press the settings icon in the lower right corner to open it, but some of its wording could be more helpful.
Malware tests
While Panda Cloud Antivirus doesn't use signatures in the classic sense, it still aced our tests for traditional signature-based scanning and detection methods. It detected 99.8 percent of samples in this test, the highest score among the free antivirus products we looked at.
Cloud Antivirus 1.0 struggled some at blocking actual, live malware attacks from malicious websites or emails: It completely blocked 68 percent of attacks, one of the lower scores in this test, and partially blocked an additional 20 percent.
Note: Panda recently released Cloud Antivirus 1.3, which the company says should improve its blocking of such attacks. We don't yet have test results for the new version of Cloud Antivirus, but when we do we'll update this review.
When it came time to clean up infections, Panda Cloud Antivirus did a good, but not outstanding, job. It detected all test infections and was able to disinfect all active components of an infection 60 percent of the time. The free antivirus software we looked at removed 68 percent of active components, on average, and no product managed a cleanup rate of over 80 percent.
In addition, Cloud Antivirus removed all components of an infection, including Registry keys and other bits and pieces, 50 percent of the time, which was the best showing among the free products we looked at.
Scan speeds, though, lagged well behind the pack. Cloud Antivirus completed a manual (on-demand) scan of 4.5GB of files in 5 minutes and 10 seconds, the slowest time recorded in this test. It also fared poorly in on-access scan tests, which shows how well it can scan files as they're opened or saved to disk: It scanned 4.5GB of files in 5 minutes and 38 seconds, a mere three seconds ahead of the the last place finisher.
And although its impact on overall PC performance was fairly limited relative to other free antivirus products, Cloud Antivirus significantly slowed startup and shutdown times in our tests. It added over 11 seconds to startup time compared to a PC without antivirus software installed (the average free antivirus product added around 6 seconds to startup time), and over 17 seconds to shutdown time (the average antivirus product added around 13 seconds to shutdown time).

Panda Cloud Antivirus wins 2010 Best Security Software Award from PCWorld Latin America

Panda Security’s cloud-managed security solution takes top honors in the security software category, among 220 nominees and 105 finalists from 33 companies competing in 28 categories

Panda Cloud Antivirus, the first free, cloud-based antivirus has won the 2010 Best Security Software Award from the prestigious PCWorld Latin America magazine. The award jury was made up of members of the magazine staff. The award was received by Juan Santana, Panda Security CEO, in a gala held on November 12 in Miami.

This edition of the awards saw the magazine receive 220 nominations from 33 companies, and the Best Security Software category was one of the most popular. Panda Cloud Antivirus, won in its category over Kaspersky Internet Security 2011, TrustPort Antivirus USB 2010, SymantecProtection Suite Advanced Business Edition and Websense Web, Data and Messaging Security.

According to Santana, “Panda Cloud Antivirus is one of Panda’s strategic solutions. It represents a huge step forward technology-wise to keep our users protected almost in real time against the 63,000 new malware strains that appear every day, with no impact on computer performance. This is a very important award for us, as it shows we are on the right track and our solution is the best on the market”.

Ever since the launch of its beta version in April 2009 and the subsequent launch of the full release version in November 2009, Panda Cloud Antivirus, currently available in 20 languages, has won the most prestigious awards in the industry for its real-time protection with minimum impact. Besides this award, the product has recently been chosen as “Runner-up” in the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, as well as PCMag.com Editor’s Choice in the free antivirus software category, among many other distinctions.

At the heart of the Cloud Antivirus products is the powerful Collective Intelligence, Panda Security’s proprietary technology that automatically detects, analyzes, classifies and disinfects 99.4 percent of all the malware that appears every day.
http://companies.mybroadband.co.za/pandasecurity/2010/11/19/panda-cloud-antivirus-wins-2010-best-security-software-award-from-pcworld-latin-america/

McAfee 2011 Releases Total Protection with $20 Discount

McAfee, Inc. announces the new McAfee® Total Protection 2011 at a discount of $20.
With thousands of new virus threats created every day, depends on traditional security updates isn't good anymore. McAfee Active Protection™ technology instantly analyzes and blocks new virus threats in no time so there's virtually no gap in your protection.
McAfee® Total Protection 2011work with minimal interruptions with fast and effective virus, malware, and spyware scanning. Provides schedule security scans when you're not using your PC, automatic scans and updates occur when your system is idle. McAfee® Total Protection won't slow you system performance.
The Home Screen gives you all the information you need at a instant. And you're never more than one click away from it, which removes popup windows and makes for easy navigation. Simplified alerts and scan results make it easier than ever to protect your PC.