topic Re: Make sure you are protected.... in SmorgasBoard

Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:19:39 GMT

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128643/beware-conficker-worm-come-april-1/

In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1.

Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years.

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:40:02 GMT

Thanks for sharing but just to add, this doesn't mean everyone should panic, just be more diligent. Take it from a professional, if you have a good security solution, its updated regularly and automatically and you practice responsible behavior, you are fine and the chances you will get hit is very low. But if you do get hit, then you were warned

Re: Make sure you are protected....

MattH — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:17:05 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for sharing but just to add, this doesn't mean everyone should panic, just be more diligent. Take it from a professional, if you have a good security solution, its updated regularly and automatically and you practice responsible behavior, you are fine and the chances you will get hit is very low. But if you do get hit, then you were warned

Microsoft issued a patch for the hole used by the conficker worm last Fall, so anybody who keeps reasonably current with updates should be OK. Microsoft has offered a reward of $250K for anybody providing information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever created it:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-12ConfickerPR.mspx

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:33:32 GMT

Absolutely, and thank you for that. I was trying to convey that too but there is always chances of someone who hasn't patched and gets hit. Remember the Port 135 (netbios) problem? It was patched before 95b but there are some who didn't have it patched for years and port scanners and port nukes still crashed a some people. It happens. But as both of us have said, as long as you keep it updated and have a decent setup, you are fine.

Now, wanna go hunt for this guy so we can split the payday?

Re: Make sure you are protected....

haulingthescoreup — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:40:36 GMT

Guardian wrote:

Absolutely, and thank you for that. I was trying to convey that too but there is always chances of someone who hasn't patched and gets hit. Remember the Port 135 (netbios) problem? It was patched before 95b but there are some who didn't have it patched for years and port scanners and port nukes still crashed a some people. It happens. But as both of us have said, as long as you keep it updated and have a decent setup, you are fine.

Now, wanna go hunt for this guy so we can split the payday?

*ponders this post, and goes off to find Martian --> English dictionary*

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:50:17 GMT

Funny wisebutt, I know things *cue evil grin*, I have people *cue evil horns*, and I have been on BOTH sides of this, let's leave it at that *cue evil laugh*

So if you find your martian, will you come help us go hunting? I'll bring the matching glow sticks.

Re: Make sure you are protected....

MattH — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:54:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Absolutely, and thank you for that. I was trying to convey that too but there is always chances of someone who hasn't patched and gets hit. Remember the Port 135 (netbios) problem? It was patched before 95b but there are some who didn't have it patched for years and port scanners and port nukes still crashed a some people. It happens. But as both of us have said, as long as you keep it updated and have a decent setup, you are fine.

Now, wanna go hunt for this guy so we can split the payday?

Oh, I remember Code Red and friends all too well, for a couple of weeks back then all our IT people including Directors were running around with floppies running McAfee Avert Stinger cleaning out people's computers because at the time we relied on our firewall to protect us. Of course that was when we all had desktop boxen so they never left our network; I had more than once suggested we put Antivirus and Firewall software on every box just in case something got through. After this incident, IT changed their tune and put security software on every computer in the company, and of course nowadays most of us have laptops so we have all kinds of security stuff including whole-disk-encryption.

PS: I'm old enough that I even remember Fortran, punch cards, and the Morris Worm of 1988.

Message Edited by MattH on 03-26-2009 08:54 PM

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:31:01 GMT

@MattH wrote:

Oh, I remember Code Red and friends all too well, for a couple of weeks back then all our IT people including Directors were running around with floppies running McAfee Avert Stinger cleaning out people's computers because at the time we relied on our firewall to protect us. Of course that was when we all had desktop boxen so they never left our network; I had more than once suggested we put Antivirus and Firewall software on every box just in case something got through. After this incident, IT changed their tune and put security software on every computer in the company, and of course nowadays most of us have laptops so we have all kinds of security stuff including whole-disk-encryption.

PS: I'm old enough that I even remember Fortran, punch cards, and the Morris Worm of 1988.

Yeah I remember those days too, does that mean I am old, or just old enough Remember one of the first viruses that threw people for a loop, Michaelangelo? went off on his birthday and would "melt" your screen, all it did was just oilify your screen image, a reboot would fix it but it would happen every year if you didn't remove it, those were fun days. Pre-IDE, No HD, 5.25 drives, Wordperfect, Wordstar, Firstchoice, dbase, Lotus123, xtree, DOS, oh god, I miss DOS (not really I still use it ) and 2 MB ram using all four memory bays, xoom 2400 modems and 25 Mhz processors running hot at 66, boy those were the days. Oh I forgot the monochrome monitors in amber, green, and white, and comador 64 and PONG.

Message Edited by Guardian on 03-26-2009 06:31 PM

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:14:52 GMT

"Oh I forgot the monochrome monitors in amber, green, and white, and comador 64 and PONG."

....and the dot matrix printers! And, I think I've still got the old Commodore around somewhere, too! Just recently relocated an old Tandy box as well.

(insert theme from "All in the Family here..)

Great stuff, Guardian!

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:10:54 GMT

I practically grew up with the technology changing from its original form until now, so I have seen so much that people don't believe sometimes when I tell them. Now punch cards were just slightly before my time but I played with them a little "learning the basics". My first hand me down was a commodore 64, and the unit we used at school was Atari 800 keyboard with the cartridges connected to a regular tv with dos 3, my first personal computer was top of the line and it had the following: 25 mhz processor/turbo button to 66, xoom 2400 baud modem with fax OOH la la, 25 mb hard drive (pre-ide), 2 mb ram, 5.25 drive, 3.5 drive, ISA slots (no agp, no pci, no usb, no nothing), parallel and serial ports, ps2, 14 inch CRT, 256 color monitor (ooh la la) and this was the top of the line in 1989 or there about, I forget and it was $1500. Anyway, good times. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Fortis dot matrix (high res) which only meant it would be twice as loud, twice as slow and slightly darker wow those reports looked so nice and tidy and let's not forget the Apple IIe at the library, wow that was high tech stuff.

Message Edited by Guardian on 03-28-2009 04:10 PM

Re: Make sure you are protected....

MattH — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:17:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I practically grew up with the technology changing from its original form until now, so I have seen so much that people don't believe sometimes when I tell them. Now punch cards were just slightly before my time but I played with them a little "learning the basics". My first hand me down was a commodore 64, and the unit we used at school was Atari 800 keyboard with the cartridges connected to a regular tv with dos 3, my first personal computer was top of the line and it had the following: 25 mhz processor/turbo button to 66, xoom 2400 baud modem with fax OOH la la, 25 mb hard drive (pre-ide), 2 mb ram, 5.25 drive, 3.5 drive, ISA slots (no agp, no pci, no usb, no nothing), parallel and serial ports, ps2, 14 inch CRT, 256 color monitor (ooh la la) and this was the top of the line in 1989 or there about, I forget and it was $1500. Anyway, good times. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Fortis dot matrix (high res) which only meant it would be twice as loud, twice as slow and slightly darker wow those reports looked so nice and tidy and let's not forget the Apple IIe at the library, wow that was high tech stuff.
Message Edited by Guardian on 03-28-2009 04:10 PM

Yep, it was stone knives and bearskins (to quote Spock when he and Kirk visited the 20th Century) back then!

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:27:12 GMT

@MattH wrote:
Yep, it was stone knives and bearskins (to quote Spock when he and Kirk visited the 20th Century) back then!

That's right, absolutely. Remember what bones said when he was asked to operate without a laser scalpel, "I am a doctor, not a butcher". On another memorable instance he said "**bleep** it Jim, I am a doctor, not a mechanic".

Re: Make sure you are protected....

MattH — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:51:24 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@MattH wrote:
Yep, it was stone knives and bearskins (to quote Spock when he and Kirk visited the 20th Century) back then!
That's right, absolutely. Remember what Bones said when he was asked to operate without a laser scalpel, "I am a doctor, not a butcher". On another memorable instance he said "**bleep** it Jim, I am a doctor, not a mechanic".

In one of the movies -- the one where they visit 20th Century San Francisco to save the whales by taking a couple to their time -- Bones says "do want to leave him in the hands of 20th Century medicine?" in about the tone of voice I would use to say "13th Century medicine."

I was very amused during the otherwise not amusing election fiasco of 2000 to hear everybody talking knowingly of chads, because I remember emptying the chad bin from an IBM card punch machine. Running a program consisted of taking my deck to the Computer Center, feeding it into a reader, waiting half an hour for the printout to appear, reading the error messages, fixing my mistakes, feeding the modified deck into a reader, etc.

Oddly enough, even now I frequently have to wait a while before learning whether my program has errors, because with the very large data sets I analyze in my work a run can take some hours even on a big honking CPU farm. The computers get faster, but the data sets seem to grow even faster than CPU and I/O speed increase!

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:09:23 GMT

@MattH wrote:
In one of the movies -- the one where they visit 20th Century San Francisco to save the whales by taking a couple to their time -- Bones says "do want to leave him in the hands of 20th Century medicine?" in about the tone of voice I would use to say "13th Century medicine."
I was very amused during the otherwise not amusing election fiasco of 2000 to hear everybody talking knowingly of chads, because I remember emptying the chad bin from an IBM card punch machine. Running a program consisted of taking my deck to the Computer Center, feeding it into a reader, waiting half an hour for the printout to appear, reading the error messages, fixing my mistakes, feeding the modified deck into a reader, etc.
Oddly enough, even now I frequently have to wait a while before learning whether my program has errors, because with the very large data sets I analyze in my work a run can take some hours even on a big honking CPU farm. The computers get faster, but the data sets seem to grow even faster than CPU and I/O speed increase!

Yes I remember that, it was funny the way he said it. Yeah imagine a box of punch cards to play tic tac toe I remember back at UCLA, we had the server room and it had IBM "super comptuers" with the giant magnetic tapes and so on taking up like an entire floor. Then a couple years later we updated them to more advanced versions to create 10x more powerful farm and it only too up 1/8 of the space, we didn't know what to do with all the newly available space. Finally we were able to give everyone their own little make shift office back there

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:21:45 GMT

In a few years, kids will be awestruck when you remark that you once-upon-a-time had a typewriter (as if they'll even know what that is)...

Re: Make sure you are protected....

marty56 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:05:52 GMT

Agreat tool to help would be McAfee Site Advisor. This would keep you from going to sites that have a potential for malware.

I use ESET Smart Security. Best AV/Firewall software I have ever used and I have tried most of them.

Re: Make sure you are protected....

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:01:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
In a few years, kids will be awestruck when you remark that you once-upon-a-time had a typewriter (as if they'll even know what that is)...

Typewriter? what's a typewriter? Yeah I get that when I tell them that I learned how to type on an old timey type writer with teh formal rules and the liquid paper for corrections and the first electronic IBM typewrite that had a two line memory and the "ball" as best as I can describe it, I used it to do my reports and they look at me and say, what about spell check? I always say, we used a dictionary and actually proof read our papers