Malware Monday, November 24th – save your computer!

It is 3 am and I am wide awake.  This does not happen to me often, I sleep well and usually hard.  I can’t sleep, I have to get this message out.  There appears to be a very disturbing event planned for Monday and I can help you prevent a disaster, so here I am typing away at 3 am.

I was listening to Ken and Andy from www.kenradio.comtonight and heard Ken say that this coming Monday, November 24th is BLACK MONDAY.  There is supposed to be a peak in malware.  The definition according to Wikipedia:

“Malware, a portmanteau word from the words malicious and software, is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.^[1]

Many computer users are unfamiliar with the term, and often use “computer virus” for all types of malware, including true viruses.”

What this means is that the hackers and virus writers have chosen this Monday as a target day to increase the output of malware.  Kind of like what they did a several years ago with the Michelangelo virus they chose Michelangelo’s birthday to launch the virus.  Here are some tips to help you stay safe from these evil programs:

1. Make sure you have the three most important things to keep your computer free of viruses up to date:
   1. Microsoft Updates
   2. Firewall turned on
   3. Anti virus up to date
2. Do not click on links in email, unless you are absolutely sure that the link is safe (i.e. you know the person that sent it to you). You can always type in the address manually if you want to make sure that the link is not being redirected.
3. Do not go to websites that you are not sure about, better to be safe than sorry – especially Monday.  You can type the address in www.google.comsearch and see if it comes up with a warning.  Google has been very helpful lately in identifying unsafe websites.
4. Be very careful in all social media websites; myspace, facebook, twitter, etc. - these sites will be a huge target Monday, as people tend to get comfortable and feel secure with their ”friends.” If you do not really know the person sending you a link, don’t click on it.
5. Stay away from random searching on the Internet.
6. Don’t download games, screensavers or free music; there is a reason they are free!
7. Here’s a big one: tell your kids to be careful or stay off the Internet on Monday!  They will survive for one day.
8. Clean up after you are done surfing the web.  There are several good anti-spy-ware programs that are free to home users:
   1. Adaware
   2. Spybot
   3. Malwarebytes.org
9. Sunday night, set a system restore point (just in case you need to restore your computer).
10. When using hotspots (Starbucks, free internet cafe’s, etc.) make sure you do not end up surfing on an “evil twin” website. For more information on this, check out Wikipedia’s explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_twin_(wireless_networks)

I hope this helps you stay safe for Monday.  The important thing to understand is why this Monday has been choosen; we are getting into the holiday season and many will use credit cards online to purchase gifts, these preditors are looking for ways to steal from you by gaining your information.

Stay safe and Happy Computing,

Kim Burney

PS I will be launching my detailed DIY Computer Maintenance Guide soon.