I have posted here several times in the last few weeks about the malware attack on Apple PCs (here, here, and here).  Well, the attacks haven't stopped, and the situation gets thornier every few days, it seems.  Sophos has posted several web articles on the issue, the most recent should be read by everyone who uses a Mac.

They also posted a history of malware for Macs.  The most interesting part of it is that the very first virus in the wild was aimed at Apple II computers, several years before DOS/Windows viruses hit the Internet (or floppy disks, before the advent of the Etherweb).

Please, be careful out there!

Talk about technology and its amazing leaps!  Cosmic Log (authored by Alan Boyle) has posted a video and written of the feathered flight of SpaceShipTwo (SS2), a major step in the push for commercial space flight!

It'll cost you $200,000 to fly when the VSS Enterprise (SS2) finally flies as a commercial ship, but hey, if you have the excess cash laying around, go for it!

I always wished, growing up, that I could go to space and visit other planets.  It likely won't physically happen for me, but THANK YOU Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, David Brin and the other two of The Three B's (Greg Bear and Gregory Benford are the other two), as well as hundreds of other SF authors as well as comic book writers and artists for the rides you gave me in my mind!

Here's the video:



I love the transport plane with its twin fuselages.  Watch for the short flash of the spacecraft's engines after it is dropped.  Cool!

I'm such a geek.

The bad guys (TBGs) have shifted their attacks from individuals through spam and phishing to highly targeted attacks on major corporations.  Bob Sullivan, through his Red Tape Chronicles, reports that 88% of all Fortune 500 companies and 1 in 200 companies worldwide have a virus called Zeus on at least one workstation.  Zeus provides TBGs a gateway to tapping the financial accounts of corporations and routing monies through legitimate banks and trading companies via a sophisticated web of software into their own pockets.

I don't think they (TBGs) will stop targeting us, the general public.  This post isn't a release of responsibility.  It's about how smart these people are and what they will do to steal.  Read the article.

In 1966, Star Trek brought us, among many other things, the tricorder, a medical device used by Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy to diagnose patients in a perfect, non-intrusive fashion.  Bones would pass the device (which made appropriate noises) over the patient's body and come up with "what ails you" (he was a Southerner - big time).

So, as Alan Boyle says in his newest Cosmic Log post, "life imitates Trek".  There is a contest on (with a $10 million prize) to see who can develop a real tricorder.  It looks like Qualcomm is leading the way.  It looks like this might be possible (in a limited fashion, as opposed to the vast abilities of Bones' device) in the near future.

In other news, it appears that scientists have discovered the enabler gene that triggers obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes.  Having this information will lead to reducing the amount of obesity in the world.  I agree that there are other ways to go about solving this problem, but the world, apparently, isn't interested.  I know I really enjoy fried shrimp, pork ribs, real butter, and onion rings (not necessarily all in one meal, but....)

My point is, as time and technology move forward, we get closer and closer to discovering what ails us, what causes those problems, and how we can fix them, often without medication.  While some people see that as heresy and hubris (going where only God should go), I see these innovations as ways to reduce human suffering where we can.

While there are individual and societal drawbacks to technology development, there are many huge benefits, too.

Wow!

Huh.

I've been a user of Macintosh PCs since 1986.  Nonstop.  I knew early on that they had something special going on and that they would one day go head-to-head with Windows PCs for control of the world (or something like that).

I was wrong, though.  It is highly unlikely Apple will ever unseat Microsoft as the OS manufacturer for business.  They shouldn't.  They don't make products designed for most corporations.

I can live with that.

However, Apple just unseated Google as the most valuable brand on the face of the planet!  What I was unaware of is that they bypassed Microsoft LAST YEAR!

Unless you think about iPhones, iPods, iTunes, and iPads, it doesn't seem that this could be so, but when you factor in those four product lines, and when you look around you anywhere you happen to be around other people and see that those people have at least one of those products, AT LEAST ONE, you get it!

I don't have an iPhone.  I don't plan to leave Sprint anytime soon unless they do something really dumb to me directly or go out of business (heaven forbid)!  So I use an Evo from htc - a 'droid - and I love it.  Here's the upshot, though:

I have two Macs and two iPods (one for the car and one for my clock/mp3 player).  My wife has a Mac and two iPods.  My daughter has a Mac, an iPod, and will be buying a Verizon iPhone this week or next.  Her husband has a Mac and an iPod.  The four of us make up for eight other people in the US who don't have ANY Apple products.

Let's face it, Apple has had more of an impact on how we as individuals do business, spend entertainment time, and are productive in other ways than maybe any other corporation ever.  Whoduthunkit?

Now, in the last month or two, Apple has upgraded the technology in its laptops and iMacs so that they, once again, surpass any other comparable products on the market for capability and speed.

Sure, we are now seeing the nasties out there really begin to attack the Mac OS and iPhones, but that's because Apple has penetrated Apple's markets so well that the bad guys can now get their 15 minutes of fame going after Apple.  We will see how well Apple does in staying ahead of the security issues, but for now, that's up to us.  Read the other posts in my blog on security (here, here, here, here, here , and here) to bone up on how to be careful if you are a Mac owner. Some of those posts appear to be directed at Windows users, but you are now looking at the same issues, so you need to know how to act and what to look for.

There are a number of Mac security products on the market.  Some are free, some are not.  Free is good, I guess, if money is the issue.

However, MONEY SHOULD NEVER BE THE ISSUE.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should have said, "if money is the issue, use a product you pay for".  The reasons are simple.

1.  You typically get what you pay for (one of my mantras - I use it when I do yoga).  If a product is free, there's some catch.  The one I most often find is that there is no technical or customer support for free products.  Not a problem, right?

WRONG!  If you run into any trouble at all, the company who manufactured the product will not support you.  Since you are a homeowner, a kid, or a small business owner, you are going to want help if you run into a problem.  Therefore, you will have to either get a neighborhood kid, your best friend, or a professional to help.  Eventually, it will be a professional because the other two are likely to cause more trouble (remember <say it with me>, you get what you pay for).  So, you will have a bigger cash outlay than if you had paid for the software in the first place.

2.   Because I have a responsibility for your online safety (whether or not you asked me to take on that task), I have sorted through the list of security software vendors and determined a winner (as far as I'm concerned).


I have prescribed ESET SmartSecurity 4.0 for Windows users for three years or so.  ESET has remained vigorous in their determination to be one of the best products on the market.

I did not take the easy way out and pick them because I am familiar with them, either.  I researched which companies offer Mac-based security products, which products are free, what services and functions they offer, how well the labs say their products perform, and who the magazines and ezines say are the best.

In my process, I immediately, and without review, eliminate Norton/Symantec and McAfee from the competition.   There are several reasons for this, but suffice it to say that these two manufacturers, as the nine-hundred pound gorillas of the industry, sit on your computer just like 900-pound gorillas will.  They take up too much of your computer's ability to function well and slow the machine down until you beg for mercy.  It never ceases to amaze me that some labs, magazines, and computer manufacturers try to tell you to use those products.  I guess for some of them, it just comes down to money.  As for the magazines and labs, I don't believe they look at computer resources when they test these products.  If they do, then they are insane for recommending them.

So, go to ESET's website and select CyberSecurity for Mac.  Get a two-year subscription, it's cheaper.  If you have multiple Macs, multiple licenses purchased at the same time provide for a great discount.


Better yet, email me and I'll do it for you, provided you live in the North Atlanta area, of course. 

sid"at"plaitsolutions"dot"com.

Be careful out there!

In a recent post, I discussed the Mac Defender "bug" going around.  As of this past week, another version of it has come out with the name "Apple Security Center", and it looks like this:




=====================================================================================


If you see this screen, don't panic and don't click on anything!  Simply close your browser and reopen it.  If you have security software on your Mac (and by now you should), scan the Mac for bugs.  It will remove whatever it finds (if anything).

Over time, the name will change again, so if you see anything at all like the screenshot above, follow the instructions I've listed above.

The time is now; the bugs are coming out.  Their target is us!

The MacDefender bug is an Internet browsing drive-by download*.  This article says that the current version affects Safari users who surf Google Images.  That will change as the malware evolves over time.  We can assume that any Mac browser will be affected soon.

This bug looks much like the Internet Security bug that has plagued Windows users since 2008.  It brings up a window on the Mac that shows the Mac is infected with malware (showing a list of bugs) and that MacDefender is the only way to remove them and restore your Mac.  As I have noted several times in this blog, the only infection on the computer is MacDefender itself.

When you click on a button in the window, you are asked for credit card information and are told what it will cost to remove the malware.  THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO GET YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION!!

I have said this before to Windows owners, so maybe you Mac folk haven't heard it from me yet:


That is critical, and you must be aware all the time that there are people out there just foaming at the mouth to get at your identity so they can sell it.

If, perchance my message here gets to you too late and you have already paid the ransom, call your credit card company immediately and cancel that card.  They will issue you a new one quickly.  By doing this, you aren't liable for any charges to the card made by someone else after you have given notice.  You also foil the bad guys, because the information they have on you is now no longer valid, at least for that card.

As an aside, click this link to go through my blog and see the posts that are about identity theft and read them all.  You need to know what's out there and how to identify and handle the threats.

So, back to MacDefender.  The first article I linked to (back in the second paragraph) tells you how to remove the problem, as well as how to prevent getting it in the first place.  Read it carefully and implement the solutions.  If it's too much for you and you live within 15 miles of Roswell, GA, email me at sid"at"plaitsolutions"dot"com, where you replace the "at" with "@" and the "dot" with a period.  I can come to you and take care of it.

If you don't live nearby, email me and we can work out a remote access connection so I can fix it for you long distance.  There is a charge for this service, depending on how long it takes to clean up your machine. 

However, do not wait too long to get the problem resolved.  On Windows PCs it eventually corrupts Windows and becomes much more costly and difficult to fix.  While I hear that MacDefender doesn't do that right this minute (3 May 2011, 1:58PM), it may very well evolve to that level of intrusion shortly.

My next post will tell you who has security software for Macs that I recommend.  Some of it is free!

Added 9 May 2011

I just found out that MacDefender also comes as "MacProtector" and "Apple Security"!  There may be other names, so BE CAREFUL!

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* - a "drive-by download" is done by the bad guys putting software on the site you are at that reroutes your browser to a secondary, secret site.  You never see it, because it all happens too fast.  While at that site, MacDefender is downloaded to your computer.  You then go to the site you requested without knowing you went somewhere else first.  You "drove-by" that secret site and got infected.

Just Sunday night I was thinking, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if I could generate traffic to my website by using Osama bin Laden's (ObL's) name?"  I try hard not to use tricks to get people to come here and read my stuff, so I immediately dismissed the idea.

Then, this happens, and it is no longer a stretch to use his name.

Great. (<- caution, extreme sarcasm here)

Basically, what that article says is that the bad guys out there are using our desire for information about the death of that "human malware" against us to infect our computers.  Amazing!  These guys (the bad guys) are smart and continue to find ways of using our nature against us.  (They really aren't a whole lot different than ObL was.)

According to Sophos, a malware tracking and Internet security firm (and reported in the linked article above by Suzanne Choney), the best ways to avoid falling into their traps are to:

• Watch out for the links you're likely to come across in email or on social networking sites offering you additional coverage of this newsworthy event.

• Many of the links you see will be perfectly legitimate links. But at least some are almost certain to be dodgy links, deliberately distributed to trick you into hostile internet territory.

• If in doubt, leave it out!  (Just don't click the link!)

• Sometimes, poisoned content is rather obvious. The links in this spam captured by SophosLabs, for example, give the impression of going to a news site:

Headlines on MSNBC.com today:

Bizarre pornography raid underscores Wi-Fi privacy risks

The article describes how law-enforcement agents burst into the home of a man who had not encrypted his wireless router's signal. They accused him of being a pedophile. As it turns out, someone else was using his network to download child pornography. That person was eventually found and charged.

That's all well and good. I'm glad they found the real culprit. However, the man who didn't ... << MORE >>

As a follow up to the posts from last week, the cybercriminals who stole data from the Epsilon database have now erected a fake Epsilon website in order to get your personal information and steal your money/identity.

The fake site looks real. "With the façade of legitimacy, the website claims to have an “update” from Epsilon — in the form of a downloadable file called “Epsilon Secure Connect Tool” — that will tell you if your ... << MORE >>

This isn't a bully pulpit, but it's as close as I'm likely to get, so I will use it as one today. << MORE >>

I posted yesterday about the huge security breach that Epsilon experienced. At least four more companies are now on the list.

I received emails from 1-800-Flowers, Best Buy, and HiltonHonors. Target has been added. There will be more.

DO NOT reply to ANY emails asking you for personal information!  DO NOT click links in emails from any major corporations. The odds are too good that the emails are fakes ... << MORE >>

A security breach of a database hosting company may cause you to get emails from what appear to be companies you know and trust in an effort to get to your private information.

Companies such as TiVo, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Capital One, Marriott Rewards, Walgreens and others announced this weekend that their databases have been compromised.

PLEASE!  If you get an email from ANY company, even if it is one you do business with, DO NOT send them any personal financial information. Those companies DO NOT and WILL NEVER ask ... << MORE >>

I used to call myself a Computer Consultant. I've changed that to Technology Consultant, because it just isn't about computers anymore. It's about communications, its protocols, and its infrastructure. It's about ever-changing terminal technology (phones, tablet PCs. streaming video to your car). It's about GPS and what it does for us - so much more than just telling us how to get from point A to point B. It's about connection reliability and stability.

It's about data - how they're created, stored, backed up, maintained, communicated, and presented.

... << MORE >>

My job, as I define it, is to do just that - make the work environment for my business clients be an efficient, pain-free, and (virtually) effortless extension of their own minds, eyes, and hands. Grease the wheels. Ease the skids. Be two Aleve tablets for their aches.

So today I start a new line of posts that describe what I do for them. These will be stories that describe their pain, the plan we (they and I) derive, the implementation of the plan, and the results.

... << MORE >>

Wow!  MLB has a staff of millions (Well, not a staff. More like his looker outers!  And not millions, but at least ten) who are constantly bringing very cool stuff to his attention. Lately, he has linked to a number of time-lapse astronomy "paintings", if you will. The one today, however, is the best so far, and I want to pass it on to you.

Sub Zero - winter night timelapse from Randy Halverson on Vimeo. ...

<< MORE >>

What MLB does on a regular basis is important - he fights the critical thinking fight.  He tries really hard to bring us all back to reality daily in an attempt to get us all to think - ALL OF THE TIME. ... << MORE >>

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Those of you that follow MLB's blog have probably already seen this.  Those of you who haven't seen it are in for a real, 3-minute, 44-second treat! << MORE >>