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5 Tech Scams That Will Ruin Your Holiday

Posted by South City Computer

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  The holidays are a time for celebration and cheer and unfortunatly some folks in the holiday spirit will let their guard down and become victims to holiday tech scams and hidden holiday virus and malware. Don’t let any of these 5 tech scams ruin your holiday season.

Fake Holiday E-Greeting Cards

Many people like to share holiday wishes and greetings over email. E-Cards are an inexpensive alternative to traditional greeting cards. These emails usually urge a computer user to click a link to receive their electronic greeting card from a friend. However watch-out, this link could be to a malicious website meant to phish your personal information or to get you to download a virus or other malicious software onto your computer. If you think you may have been duped into clicking a fake e-card links it is probably time to get your computer checked for virus and malware at South City Computer or a local computer repair store.

Charity Donation Scams

The season of giving is upon us, and many people will be making generous donations to causes and charities in hopes to make the holiday a little brighter for those who are less fortunate. However, watch out for fake charity emails going around the Internet and Facebook trying to silicate donations to phony veterans’ charities, children’s causes and relief funds. Make sure to look into a charity before making a donation to be sure it is a legitimate 501c3 organization and not just a scam to take your generosity for granted.

Gift Card Scams

Finding the right gift for some people can be a real challenge. Gift cards are the perfect gift option for those on your list who are hard to shop for. However, watch-out for fake gift card offers on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter that are actually scams to phish consumer information and/or credit card details. A recent Facebook scam offered a free $1000 Best Buy gift card to the first 20,000 people who sign up on an identity phishing website.

Holiday Themed Screensavers and Games

Holiday themed computer games and screensavers are a fun way to decorate your computer for the holiday. But many of these screensavers and games are actually computer viruses or malware meant to infect havoc on your computer. Be very cautious when downloading and installing holiday games and screensavers, try to only use software put out by reputable software makers. If you think you may have downloaded and installed a fake screensaver or holiday game program onto your computer, bring it into South City Computer for a virus/malware scan and removal.

Holiday Deals Too Good to be True

Many people will scour the Internet for websites where they can save a few bucks when buying gifts online. However watchout for holiday deals that are probably too good to be true on craigslist and phony e-commerce stores that are only meant to phish personal information and credit card data from unsuspecting consumers that believe they are purchasing gifts. Every holiday season the BBB hears from irritated holiday shoppers who paid for a supposedly great deal online, but received nothing in return. Try not to purchase from websites that do not use trusted 3rd party checkout payment processing such as Paypal, Amazon, Google Checkout, or Stripe.

Nobody wants to be a victim of online scams and using a little caution this holiday season just might keep you from getting scammed and becoming a “Scrooge”. If you think you may have been victim to one of these scams bring your computer into South City Computer or a local computer store for a virus/malware checkup, and please have a happy and safe holiday season this year!

Computerized Drones Give New Meaning to Expedited Shipping

Posted by South City Computer

It sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is true. The giant online retailer Amazon.com has announced their plans for super-fast delivery service using unmanned aerial vehicles.

The process, as described by Amazon is quite simple. A customer will find a product on his or her computer, smartphone or tablet. By simply pressing a button, the customer can have the package delivered by drone in 30 minutes or less.

The drones use sophisticated internet and GPS technology to track where they are going. For example, let’s say you’re sitting in front of our computer repair shop in Lindenwood Park in St. Louis, Missouri. The website would ask you for your location. Then using an online database, the system would determine your approximate coordinates. These are then relayed to the drone, which finds the most direct route to get there. On-board sensors prevent the drone from colliding with trees or other objects that might get in the way. As the drone approaches the customer’s home, it uses digital imaging technologies to find a special pad that the customer must put in their yard. At this point, the customer verifies on Amazon’s website that the package has been received, and the drone lets go and flies away.

While Amazon’s drone delivery service may seem mind-blowing, it’s amazing to consider what else we might be able to do with drones in the future. Possibly services, like car maintenance or computer repair. A technician could remotely control tools on the drone and view the situation through a camera without ever having to leave the office. The possibilities are endless.

What is ‘The Internet of Things’?

Posted by South City Computer

Did you know the internet contains millions of connections and pieces of data that cannot be viewed on a PC or Mac? A common misconception about the internet is that it consists only of the websites and pages that you view in your browser on your home computer.

In fact, just recently, companies have started to extend the internet to other devices. These devices can be anything, from smartphones to light bulbs. Yes, light bulbs. By connecting the lighting in your home to the internet, you give yourself the capability to control it from anywhere, be it from your laptop, your smartphone, or your tablet.

Appliance manufacturers are getting in on this too. How would you like to have a washing machine that you can manage and control even when you’re away from home? These are the kinds of benefits that manufacturers are looking to give to consumers, which is why they are adding internet connectivity to their products.

Of course, this adds a risk factor to your everyday appliances. The possibility of some malicious person accessing your appliances through a security vulnerability that is not yet known is not out of the question. While someone gaining unauthorized access to your washing machine is not a big deal, what might happen in the future as the internet extends to even more things?

FAKE EMAIL & VIRUS ALERT: Important – New Outlook Settings

Posted by South City Computer

I received a rather official looking company email today informing me of “New Outlook Settings” from the “Administrator”.

Further inspecting this email I open it and found the following message with an attachment (Outlook.zip):

"Please carefully read the attached instructions before updating settings.

This file either contains encrypted master password, used to encrypt other files. Key archival has been implemented, in order to decrypt the file please use the following password: PaSdIaoQ

This e-mail and / or any attachment(s) is intended solely for the above-mentioned recipient(s) and it may contain confidential or privileged information. If you have received it in error, please notify us immediately at helpdesk@******.com and delete the e-mail. You must not copy it, distribute it, disclose it or take any action in reliance on it. "

This sounds very technical right!? It must be a real email right? Unfortunately this is a fake email intended for an unsuspecting computer user to open the Outlook.zip attachment to install a virus or backdoor onto their computer. Many emails circulate the Internet claiming to be something that they are not, and in fact are computer viruses waiting for an unsuspecting victim to open the attachment and install the virus onto the vicitims computers.

I looked at the actual email header file and noticed the first line Return-Path was set to fraud@a**p.com and the email originated from an Indian broadband company that provides “Prepaid Postpaid Mobile Services”. That is definately not the company email server at all.

Here is the email header:

"Return-Path: 
X-Original-To: myuser@*******.com
Delivered-To: myuser@*******.com
Received: from ABTS-North-Dynamic-***.***.***.***.a**********d.in (unknown [*.*.*.*])
	by mail.********.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 93E0CDCB4D4
	for ; Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:20:37 -0600 (CST)
Received: from outlook530.*******.com (*.*.*.*) by *******.com (*.*.*.*) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 9GGUFI93; Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:15:39 +0530
Received: from outlook5199.*******.com (*.*.*.*) by smtp.*******.com (*.*.*.*) with Microsoft SMTP Server id ******; Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:15:39 +0530
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:15:39 +0530
From: "Administrator 
Message-ID: 
To: 
Subject: Important - New Outlook Settings
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
Content-Type: application/zip; name="Outlook.zip"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Outlook.zip""

This email appears to look very important, technical, and official and could be easily mistaken as an important company email or important email service providor email, however is SPAM with a virus attachment and should NOT be opened.

If you receive this email or a similiar email, do not download or open the attachment.

If you opened this email by accident, you should bring your computer into South City Computer, or to a local computer repair store near you today for a full computer virus scan and removal or computer restore services.

ALERT: Craigslist In-Home Computer Repair Scam

Posted by South City Computer

Watch out for a new computer repair scam going around on Craigslist. The scammer posts a basic ad on craigslist; “In-Home PC Repair for ONLY $20.00 cash! Call today XXX-XXX-XXXX”. Most folks would jump at a deal so good! The number is usually a Google number. When the PC tech shows up to the victims house, after spending a few minutes on the computer, recommends that the computer goes in for service, and that the victim’s computer will need to come with them. The customer will pay the initial fee, and the computer is taken out of the victims home. It is hard to say what happens after that to the victims computer, but basically the victim never sees their computer, or the PC repair tech ever again.

The computer is most likely pawned off, and the scammer has made off with the profits from the stolen computer and also $20.00 in cash. Now the scammer may be able to aquire passwords to bank accounts, email accounts, and has an idea of the layout of the victims house and possibly knowledge of other expensive electronics the victim owns, and could possibly come back when the victim is not around to do even more damage.

Don’t be foolish when it comes to your computer repair needs. Don’t fall for the “In-Home Computer Repair Guy” scam. Beware of “Computer Repair Businesses” that can only offer in-home services, that cannot offer a real commercial location in which to take the computer in for repair. Next time bring your computer into South City Computer or a local computer repair store in your area.

What you should do if liquid spills into your laptop computer

Posted by South City Computer

There’s nothing better than coffee and computing in the morning (if you ask me). However I recently learned, “the hard way”, that coffee and computers do NOT directly mix well. I accidentally spilled my cup of coffee into the keyboard of my laptop computer. Water, coffee, tea, soda, and other liquids can be VERY DAMAGING to laptop computers.

Often people will have a drink next to their computer for ease of staying hydrated during a long computer session. While this is a convenient indulgence, it also is risky behavior. If you are like me, you are bound to bump the desk/table or drink container to the point of it spilling all over the place, and most likely into your laptop computer. Unless you have a tough-book or a waterproof computer this will cause serious damage.

What you should do if you spill liquid into your laptop computer:

  1. LEAVE THE COMPUTER OPEN, DO NOT CLOSE THE SCREEN. In order to avoid damaging any other hardware on the computer (such as the screen). Leave the computer in the open position.
  2. UNPLUG IT RIGHT NOW!!!!! First things first, just stop the electricity from traveling to the computer. But be careful not to get electrocuted. Your life is worth more than your iTunes collection, or your work documents.
  3. POP OUT THE BATTERY!!!! Hurry!!! cut off all electricity from the computer. Most likely you will have to tip the computer over to accomplish this, be careful to not damage the screen since you should leave the computer in the open position. It is a fact of nature that electricity and water do not mix at all. The computer is bound to malfunction due to the liquid touching the motherboard.
  4. TIP THE OPEN COMPUTER OVER SO THE SCREEN AND KEYBOARD FACE DOWN, if you haven’t already while removing the battery. Be sure the computer is in the open position so that the excess liquid can drain out the way it came in. The most important thing to do to try to salvage the computer is to get the computer completely dry again.
  5. Take out the hard drive. Most likely the hard drive is still dry, but to avoid any moisture damage take it out while you have the computer turned over. Even if the computer is shot, the data may still be intact on the hard drive. After you get the hard drive popped out, go ahead and put the hard drive into a dry paper bag or container and completely cover the hard drive with dry rice. DO NOT PLUG YOUR HARDRIVE INTO ANY OTHER COMPUTER FOR AT LEAST 72 HOURS OR LONGER IF YOU CAN WAIT.
  6. Let the laptop dry out completely. Leave the computer unplugged from the wall and the battery out in the open position for at least 72 hours. I would even recommend longer just to be sure. If you are savvy with your computer hardware, you may even want to take the keyboard off the computer in order to open up the computer so it may dry out faster. However this is probably a job better left to the professionals at South City Computer since we have the tools and expertise to take apart most laptop computers including Apple Mac computers.

At this point it is probably best to have a computer technician at South City Computer diagnose the computer to determine if it the laptop can be salvage, and also determine if the data on the hardrive can be salvaged.

Most importantly don’t beat yourself up! Accidents happen it is a fact of life. Just stay calm and cool since the ultimate outcome of the computer is unknown until the South City Computer technician can diagnose the state of the laptop computer.

FBI Virus now infects MAC OS

Posted by South City Computer

Mac FBI VirusMost Mac users will gloat to their Windows using friends that they use MAC because there are no viruses, malware, or in this case ransomware for MAC. Well those days are long gone! The FBI virus has found its way onto the MAC platform. Now NO Operating System is safe (::cough:: except Linux ::cough::), not even the blessed Mac OS.

The ransomware gets pushed onto unsuspecting users by browsing high-trafficed sites. The FBI virus locks down the Safari browser accusing the user of illegally viewing disturbing pornography, and that the user must pay a fine of $300 to regain use of their computer. The message will not go away by leaving the page or closing the browser. The user is unable to even “force quit” the browser. The ransomware uses the browsers “restore from crash” feature to reload the ransomware page each time the browser is restored.

You should NEVER pay the ransom, and should to bring your Mac to South City Computer today to get this virus correctly removed.

US agency discovers new way to get rid of viruses

Posted by South City Computer

In December of 2011 the Department of Homeland Security alerted the Economic Development Agency (EDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that their networks may be infected with malware.

The NOAA had isolated the infection and cleaned itself up in a few weeks. The EDA on the other hand decided to pioneer the malware destruction field and gave us a few new ways to rid ourselves of viruses.

To start off with, the EDA shut off their e-mailing system which devastatingly crippled its regional offices since they could not access centrally located databases.

It the enlisted the help of an outside security contractor to scan their network for malware and give them assurances that their network was impregnable to further malware infections. The contractor initially found a few small problems but concluded that the system was largely uncompromised.

However, that was not enough for the CIO of the EDA.

The CIO insisted that the EDA was under attack from a foreign entity and, having a PHD in great ways to remove viruses, ordered all mice, keyboards, printers, and cameras destroyed, leaving that malware no place to hide.

The total cost of this incident in taxpayer money was $2,700,000: $823,000 went to the security contractor for its investigation and advice, $1,061,000 for the acquisition of temporary infrastructure (requisitioned from the Census Bureau), $4,300 to destroy $170,500 in IT equipment, and $688,000 paid to contractors to assist in development a long-term response. This entire process took a little more than one year.

The malware that was found was common stuff. There were no signs of persistent, novel infections, nor any indications that the perpetrators were nation-state attackers. The audit does, however, note that the EDA’s IT infrastructure was so badly managed and insecure that no attacker would need sophisticated attacks to compromise the agency’s systems.

Is Your Phone Safe From Malware?

Posted by South City Computer

Everyone has an anti-virus on their computer. Afterall, you can get a virus from opening emails, visiting websites, downloading programs, and even just viewing pictures.

So why don’t you have an antivirus on your phone? You open emails on your phone, you browse the web, and you download apps. All of these are ways that malware can infect your phone and send costly $10 premium text messages or erase all of your contacts. Remember that along with all of your contacts, you also have logon information to websites and you may even have your credit card information saved on your phone.

When downloading an app you should always look at what permission it is requesting to use. An app for playing games shouldn’t be asking for permission to send text messages or make calls. Never download from third-party marketplaces. For the most part GooglePlay is safe, but everyone once in a while they do allow an app to be uploaded with malware.

As always, if you suspect your phone could be compromised, you should bring it in to South City Computer and we can scan it and remove any malware that is on it.

New Wonder Pill that remembers your passwords for you

Posted by South City Computer

Password PillThere are pills for losing weight, there are pills for gaining weight. There are pills that reduce pain and pills that give you vitamins. Well now there is also a pill that can remember all of your usernames and passwords so you never have to type them in again.

Thanks to technology based on Proteus Digital Health there is a pill you can take that will send signals to your smartphone or tablet that will authenticate or type in your username and password for you. This isn’t just a pill for the forgetful though. This could also boost security if a website only allowed you to logon with your unique pill. Even if a hacker in the next state over managed to get your username and password, they couldn’t do anything with the information.

The pill has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It only contains a small microchip and a switch. Once ingested the pill activates when it comes in contact with the acid in your stomach. It does pass through your body within a day and is safe to take for up to 30 days.

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