They disabused the listeners of the stereotype most folks had about hackers. Some think that a typical hacker is male, aged 16-20, very hyper (drinks high energy, hi-caffeinated drinks like Red Bull) but they said the truth of the matter was that they come in both male and female persuasions, might be as young as pre-teen up to 50’s in age, they usually are very hyper with lots of caffeine, and are usually just looking for knowledge and recognition by their peers (other hackers). One of the latest hacker groups to “go public” was apparently called the “fluffy bunny group” and their symbol to prove they had hacked a site was to install a little pink bunny icon on the Web page.

A lot of computers which get hacked are simply used to redirect an attack against another computer. This is so that when the computer attack gets traced back from the victim, it points to another victim who was usually unaware of this taking place.  This happens more to computers who are on the Internet full time with Cable, DSL or other business connections, rather than dial-up computers, but it can happen to a dial-up computer.

I talked last month about “Spam Zombies” where a computer is subverted by a Trojan virus and turned unknowingly into a secret mail server. Another recent virus comes in the form of a pretty wallpaper utility that shows a rose on the screen with shimmering water behind it. While you are admiring the pretty animated picture and sending copies to all your friends, it is snagging your address book and sending it to the author of the virus.

One of the things that I really like about Zone Alarm (Free) is that when you run a program trying to access the Web, it asks you for permission to let the program go outbound. And if you say “Yes, remember this”, it takes some sort of hash total or picture of the file and if it gets modified because of any reason, including an authorized update, it stops the program from going outbound until you have answered the question again. Most folks click “Yes, Remember” so that they don’t have to click that darn button every time they run a program to access the Web. But one of the dangers is that once you activate a program like MSN Messenger, it can take on a life of its own and if hacked (MSN Messenger is a common target), unless it modified the signature / hash of that main file, it could easily start running on its own in a way you didn’t authorize. Or so said one of the experts.

There is a new virus that came out the end of May, called Magold, which apparently pops up a message about a DirectX error. (see Fig. 1) Users are tricked into clicking the OK button and then the virus is installed. This is a trick that many viruses use to catch unsuspecting users. Some Websites which have been compromised use the same trick.  Yes, there are legitimate reasons for some Web sites needing to install some plug-in such as for Flash or Adobe PDF, but be very careful to read the fine print to see exactly what they claim you need to be installing on your computer, and what Website it is coming from. If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of this request to install software on your computer, don’t do it. Often some Websites will have plain text messages on them explaining that “you must have Macromedia Flash 5 (or whatever ) to view this page”.

Last month I found some new customers whose computers started acting “strangely”, but in truth had been infected with some of the newer viruses out. In all cases, their anti-virus program had obsolete anti-virus definition files and was thus worthless as far as protecting their computer from outside threats. When your computer tells you that your subscription to whatever brand anti-virus software you are running has expired, believe it and take action. Often times you can order subscriptions from the software vendor over their Website for pennies on the dollar compared to buying a new version on the shelf retail.

I was asked to repeat one URL that I have given out in the past, that of GRISOFT who provides free anti-virus software for personal use. You can download this software from www.grisoft.com. They will e-mail you the access number, so you do have to give them a valid e-mail while registering, but it is free. I tried it once to see how their system worked, and have not seen any increase in SPAM mail as a result of the subscription. .

At the risk of repeating myself, remember that if you haven’t updated your anti-virus program since last month’s article, you are at risk of catching some of the newer viruses that have been released this month.