Adobe issues emergency Flash update for attacks on Windows, Mac users

Company also issues patches for users of Linux and Android.

Adobe Systems has released a patch for two Flash player vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited online to surreptitiously install malware, one in attacks that target users of Apple's Macintosh platform.
While Flash versions for OS X and Windows are the only ones reported to be under attack, Thursday's unscheduled release is available for Linux and Android devices as well. Users of all affected operating systems should install the update as soon as possible.
The Mac exploits target users of the Safari browser included in Apple's OS X, as well as those using Mozilla's Firefox. That vulnerability, cataloged as CVE-2013-0634, is also being used in exploits that trick Windows users into opening booby-trapped Microsoft Word documents that contain malicious Flash content, Adobe said in an advisory. Adobe credited members of the Shadowserver Foundation, Lockheed Martin's Computer Incident Response Team, and MITRE with discovery of the critical bug.
The other bug under attack, CVE-2013-0633, also works by tricking Windows users into opening a Word document containing malicious Flash content. It was discovered by researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab.
Adobe's advisory came the same day the company announced plans to provide new protections designed to make it harder to target Flash contained in Microsoft Office files. Effective in a Flash version to be released soon, users of Office 2008 and earlier will receive a prompt before documents will execute Flash content. The content will only run once users click an OK button. The "click-to-play" prompt won't apply to Office 2010, which already contains a "Protected Mode" sandbox that limits the privileges of content within a document.
Thursday's fix brings the latest version of Flash for Windows and OS X to v. 11.5.502.149. The latest Linux version is v. 11.2.202.262, and the most current Android versions are 11.1.115.36 for Android 4 and above and 11.1.115.37 for Android 3 and earlier. Updates are available here. Flash in Google Chrome and in Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 is automatically updated. To see what version of Flash your computer is running click here.
Story updated to change line below the headline. Adobe recommends administrators install Android and Linux updates at their discretion.

LibreOffice 4.0 arrives

The Document Foundation released LibreOffice 4.0 FINAL. The open-source, cross-platform productitivty suite, which is based on OpenOffice, has evolved to the point where the developers are happy to assign a major new version number.
Version 4.0 includes a number of relatively minor new features, but the big changes will come under the hood, marking the first radical development in the program’s API since the app it was built on -- OpenOffice -- was first released. Other changes include support for Firefox Personas, integration with CMS and online storage providers, plus support for importing both Microsoft Publisher and the latest VISIO documents.
While the new API won’t in itself manifest itself visibly to end users, the hope is that it will facilitate more radical changes to LibreOffice going forward. It also marks the beginning of LibreOffice’s evolution into a separate animal.
Besides a new API, LibreOffice 4.0 debuts a new graphics stack based on XML UI definitions, which, according to The Document Foundation, will lead to “new UI widgets, cleaner looks and new opportunities to handle new tools and improve our interface”.
The new build also promises to integrate with a wide range of Content Management Systems and online document storage providers via the CIMS standard.
Another major behind-the-scenes change is LibreOffice’s licensing, which now adopts a dual licensed approach, ostensibly to make future versions of LibreOffice’s tablet build -- due later this year or early next on iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 -- more compatible with mobile store restrictions.
Visible Changes
Despite the lack of major changes, there are a large number of minor additions and improvements to LibreOffice 4.0. Users of Writer, the suite’s word processor, will find the tool now supports first page header and footers as well as left and right ones -- users can now untick a box marked “Same content on first page” in the Page Style dialog to set this up. Note, only OpenOffice’s native ODF format currently supports this.
Writer also introduces a new LibreLogo toolbar, which will allow programmers to produce a Logo-like, Python based programming environment for creating vector graphics using LibreOffice.
Other tweaks in Writer include support for attaching comments to document text ranges as well as allowing extra word boundary characters for the purposes of generating word counts. Writer can also now import ink annotations from DOCX and RTF documents generated on Tablet PCs running Microsoft Word. Users will also find clicking on fields selects them rather than placing the cursor before them.
Calc users should see improved performance – particularly when opening larger files. This is due in part to an option that allows files to show the values of formulae in ODS and XLSX files as they were when the file was saved, rather than being recalculated in OpenOffice.

Other improvements include the automatic rotation of chart axis labels if they overlap each other,  doubling of the supported size limit of uncompressed ODF files to 4GB and improvements to the XML Source dialog when importing arbitrary XML content.
Also promised is better quality rendering and print/PDF export of charts, support for new conditional formats (including date formats) and better conditional format dialogs, new icon sets and the ability to export a single chart as a JPG or PNG image. Finally, the Pivot table now supports multiple selections in the page field.
Notable tweaks to Impress, the suite’s presentation tool, include a new Impress remote control app for Android phones (currently restricted to Linux builds of LibreOffice), much accelerated multimedia previews and Presenter Console RTL support.
The Draw vector graphics tool now uses supersampling to improve the quality of page previews, and adds several Linecap improvements, shear transforms for GraphicObjects and the addition of the Circles and Ovals toolbar already found in Impress.
Linux Base users can now access their Thunderbird address book from within the database app thanks to a new mork driver implementation on non-Windows platforms, while the AutoFilter portion of Forms no longer treats values as patterns.
New import files include support for Microsoft Publisher publications, plus extended support for Visio files up to Visio 2013. GUI enhancements include a new templates manager and support for using Firefox Personas (access this feature via the Tools > Options… > Personalization > Select Persona dialog).
Despite, or perhaps because of, all these major changes, LibreOffice has been reduced by around 20MB in size. LibreOffice 4.0 FINAL is available now as a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Troubleshooting Network Share Problems

Are you having a problem connecting to a Windows network share (e.g. \\computer_name\share_name) or the default administrator shares (e.g. \\computer_name\c$)?  This happens to computers on networks that are connected to a domain controller or local workgroup.

In my own personal experience has been that local workgroups are more unreliable then domain controller connected shares.  Below are tips to help troubleshoot this problem:

• Has there recently been any new updates or changes in the hardware, operating systems, software or configuration made on the client or remote computer?
• For example, were system or application updates installed
• Is the problem happening from one machine on your network or all the machines on your network?
• If its just one computer is having the a problem connecting to it, see if it having problems connecting to other computers.  If its just the one computer, reboot and try again.
• If multiple computers are having problems connecting to the share, then there could be an issue with the share's configuration or the file and print service on the remote computer.
• Are you having a problem with one or all the file shares on the computer?
• If you're having a problem with one share delete and recreate.
• If multiple shares are failing, it could be a problem with the network configuration or file and print service.
• Can you ping the computer? Its possible that the client is having problems communicating with the DNS servers or the network configuration or the local machine is not setup correctly
• Trying pinging the computer:
• Local Machine: ping localhost or ping 127.0.0.1
• If this doesn't work there is something wrong with the local machines network configuration  drivers, hardware or connection.
• DNS Name: ping machine_name
• FQDN: ping machine_name.example.com
• IP Address: ping 10.1.1.10
• Note: If you can't ping the machine with the DNS Name, try the FQDN, if that fails try the IP address.  If you are able to ping the machine with any of these, then try to use that method to connect to it: net use * \\machine_name.example.com
• Does the account have the right file and share permissions?
• If the account you're trying to use to connect doesn't have proper permission to file and share, then you're not going to be able to access the file.  Make sure to check them both.
• Make sure that no existing connections are preventing you from making a new connection.
• Open up the Windows explorer and clear all remote connections by right clicking them and selecting disconnect, also open up the command prompt and type "net use * /delete"
• Do you know that the account doesn't have a password or is the account locked?
• If you're using a workgroup account:
• Try resetting the account password to the account you're using to connect to the share.
• Try creating a different account, and setup the permissions, and try to access the share.
• On the remote computer make sure the share is setup correctly in the Computer Management console (COMPMGMT.MSC).
• Tip: In the Computer Management console kill off all Sessions connected to the share.
• Make sure the firewall ports are not blocked?
• If you can't connect to the network share, make sure the ports are open in the firewall and accessible by the remote computer.

Other considerations: 

• Windows 7 and higher 
• Try disabling or leaving the HomeGroup (in the Control Panel \ Network and Sharing Center \ HomeGroup)
• Check your "Advanced Sharing Settings" (in the Control Panel\Network and Sharing Center) in the Home and Work profile, make sure the "File and Printer sharing" is enabled.
• Make sure you're not using the Public profile  (in Control Panel\Network and Sharing Center), this setting blocks all ports.
• Workgroup vs. Domain
• Are both machines (local and remote) in the same workgroup or domain?
• Network configuration
• Was the network configuration changed (see IPCONFIG /ALL)
• Adapter configuration
• Are all the appropriate protocols enabled?
• Where there any changes to the HOST file
• Service configuration
• Did someone change the default ports?
• Network considerations:
• Other thing that can effect communication are: IPSEC, VLANs, IPv6, NAP (Network Access Protection), etc. talk to your network engineer about these issues.

Removing Viruses (and other types of malware)

To put it simply getting hit by malware (e.g. viruses, Trojan horses, worms, etc.) sucks.  Sometimes it can be caused by doing something simple or not very obvious or other times it can be caused by doing something dumb.  As the old cliche goes, "There is no use crying over spilt milk because it only makes it sour for the cat".

All you can do is try to clean up what you can.  Modern malware can be virulent depending on the strain that attacked your machine.  Try to figure out how you were hit, did you open an email attachment, click a link on a website, download a file from the Internet and run it, etc.?  Try to learn from the mistake if you can.

Warning: Follow the advice in this article at your own risk, the author is not responsible for any type of damage (or other type of consequences) that can be caused by following the advice in this document.  Make sure you have a good backup of your data before proceeding with any of the information below.

Cleaning Up From a Malware Attack
The problem with modern malware, is its designed to be difficult to remove.  In most cases you have two choices.  One, if you're extremely paranoid and have lots of time you can format your hard drive and re-install your operating system (warning: before doing this make sure that you have a good backup of your data, and have product keys, OS media disk, any special drivers you need, and copies of your applications).  Two, if you're not extremely paranoid or don't have you lots of time, you can try some of the following things:

• Make sure your reputable real-time anti-malware application (beware of rouge and fake versions of these products, if you have never heard of the company before then you might not want to trust it) is working, and up-to-date, then run a scan of your computer and see if its detect anything. 
• If you don't have a real-time anti-malware application download and install Microsoft Security Essentials
• You can also download and run a stand-alone anti-malware scanner to get a second opinion such as: Microsoft Safety Scanner, or Malwarebytes (note: its sometime better to use scanner from a different vendor to get an accurate second opinion.).
• When utilizing these tools, its advisable to reboot your computer into Safe Mode (press F8 several times during start-up, and select "Safe Mode") and run them.
• Change web site passwords that have been effected or are critical accounts (e.g. work, financial related, etc.).
• Run Windows Update and make sure your operating system software and applications are up-to-date.
• You can install the Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) to help make sure you keep your non-Microsoft applications up-to-date.
• I would also recommend uninstalling All versions of Java and Adobe Acrobat reader
• Malware often utilizes vulnerabilities in these applications.  
• There are some applications you may need that utilize Java.  If you must keep it, uninstall all the old versions, and make sure you're using the most up-to-date version 
• Make sure your Flash plug-in is up-to-date.
• If your Flash plug-in is not up-to-date, download and install the latest version
• Its also a good idea to make sure that you have a good backup of all your data.
• For more advanced user, you might want to check your HOST file and DNS settings (see below) to make sure that they were not modified.
• Checking your DNS configuration settings
• In the Start menu search field, type Network Connections and select View network connections.
• In the Network Connections window, right-click a connection that needs an alternate IP address configuration (e.g., Local Area Connection) and select Properties.
• In the Properties dialog box, on the Networking tab, scroll down and click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP v4) and press the Properties button.
• In the General tab, enter the information for the main network you use (such as a static IP, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS server information).
• I would also recommend setting up an alternate trusted DNS provider, such as OpenDNS and Google Public DNS.
• Sometimes malware can also install applications that auto-start when your system boots, use System Internals Autoruns to view all programs that are executed at start-up.  Review all the applications for suspicious entries.
• Sometimes malware will also install applications to get executed under certain conditions by the Task Scheduler.  From the Start menu search field type: Task Scheduler, and review all the task for suspicious entries.
• Malware is getting smart enough to leverage web site settings in Twitter (e.g. Twitter Oauth) and Facebook (e.g. Facebook Login) because of their support for authentication and setting up application trust for third party web sites. To prevent this from happening to you, review the settings in your profile and unauthorized any site or application that you don't trust.
• Utilizing this technology malware can log into other sites, and even post entries in other people's news streams.  Recently some malware was posting malicious links on a friend's Facebook profile from Twitter.  If someone clicked the link and their system was vulnerable their Facebook account would have been taken over too.
• There are going to be times where conventional malware removal techniques will not work, and will require the computer to be booted into safe mode or utilize a special boot media (e.g. flash drive or optical media) that can remove the virus from the operating system while its not active. One example of this type of tool is Windows Defender Offline.

This might not help the situation, but hopefully it will purge any copies of the malware that might be in temporary areas.

• Delete your browser cache (Internet Explore and Firefox, press Ctrl-Shift-Del)
• You might considering dumping your Restore Points, sometimes infected files can get backed up by this system process.
• Open the System control panel, click the System protection link. Select a drive, press the Configure button, then press the Delete button.
• Run the Disk Cleanup (Start menu > All programs > Accessories > System Tools), this will purge temporary file locations on the system.

Notes:

• Even after cleaning your computer with these methods there are no guarantees that its malware free.
• The links to the products in this document are for reference only, and they're not recommended or endorsed by the author.

Multi Level Marketing practices

Multi Level Marketing also known as MLM is a trap a lot of people call into when looking for work from home. They hear about only needing to pay a membership fee which is maybe $30-$50 a month so its not that bad. The owners of the company are trying to lure you in by telling you that you can make up to $5,000 dollars a week and its very easy to do. A lot of them will even tell you that there is no selling involved. Now it is the law that these companies put on their website that you are not gaurenteed to make money (in fine print of course). A lot of MLM companies have gotten sued over false claims that they have made so now they need to put a disclaimer somewhere on the website. The problem is with that is it is in fine print usually someone else on the page where there are some people who just did not see it. Usually though in the fine print the company will say something like, 80% of the Independent Business Owners (IBO's)  signed up with the company will not make anything or up to $20.00 in their first year. Now I am not quoting that it was just a guess from sites I have seen. It is somewhere around those numbers though. Now there are those MLM IBO's that do well and make a decent amount of cash. The problem is that is probably 1 in 1000 people (I may be low balling it) that have signed up with the company. Also these are the ones that are making a lot of their money from selling books, cd's, conferences, etc. A lot of the time the people who do these conferences and sell these items are the ones that are upper management with the company. It is an extremely rare thing to be successful at this and there have been a lot of people who have lost a lot of money not just with the monthly fee but with the items that these "Successful" people sell. They have been accused on news programs such as Dateline NBC about how they make most of their money by selling these success kits to IBO's that have just signed up. This company of course denied it but we know that its a lie. Now let me explain a little bit how MLM works. There is a company with products/services that they are offering. They ask people to sign up for a business opportunity selling these products/services. Then they also mention if you can sign people up to work for their company you will get money off of their transactions as well. Then the people they will sign up you will get a percentage of their sales as well. So its just a giant pyramid scheme. Of course the more people you sign up the more money you will make. In fact that is where a large amount of the money you can earn will come from, making money off of other people's sales. Of course you can make some money selling these products/services but if you want to see the real money you need to sign people up. This is a lot harder then it looks because most people out there know not to sign up for any "Pyramid Scheme". If you look hard enough you may be able to find someone interested but its just not worth it with the little pay off you will get. As I have stated before there is only a very small chance you will make it in this type of business. What it really comes down to is are you good at scamming people as well? That's what you need to do in order to be successful in this field. You will also lose a lot of friends so you must be prepared to handle that. Most people couldn't bring themselves to scam others. Now I know that I may get criticized for this post because some people claim to have made a lot of money and the company they are with is not a scam. You know you may be selling a good product or service, but when you are making claims that people will make all this money and then putting a disclaimer in fine print and hidden pretty well you ARE scamming other people!

Example of a 419 scam

Hello everyone,
I had said I was going to give you an example of a 419 scam that I received in an e-mail. This scammer decided to use a company e-mail address that does not seem to be valid however the .com site it is on was some biological research company out of Equador. They also had another reply to email address which was out of yahoo in China. This scammers e-mail address is phil_essex@yahoo.com.hk. I did a search on part of the e-mail he had sent me and it was posted all over the net as a scam and they had been using different e-mail addresses. Now this scammer claimed to have an e-mail address from this site in Equador was because it had the same initials as this bank he claimed to be a part of in China. This person obviously assumed that I wasn't too intelligent and that I was not going to check out the .com e-mail they had sent. This scammer obviously hacked into this company's server in Equador and sent the initial e-mail from there. When I received a reply from this scammer since he sent it from his China e-mail address it was a China ip address.  Anyways, here is the copy from this conversation:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Phillip Essex, Principal Assurance manager for the China Trust Commercial Bank in China. I have an obscured business suggestion for you. I here-by seeking your service in helping me recieve a large amount of money and in giving a clear research and feasibility studies on areas I could invest on. you will be a partner, if your recommendation is accepted.

The funds will be available as well for you to claim directly by travelling down to sign some papers.

I await your response.

Phillip Essex
Kindly Simply Reply.


My response was..........

Hello Phil,
I received your e-mail about your business opportunity and am very interested in joining you. I have sold some stock recently so I have come up with a very large amount of money which I would like to invest in this venture with you. Please send me more information on this opportunity and we will take it from there.

Thanks,
George Wammer


A couple days later "Phil" sent me this


Dear ,

I am getting in touch with you regarding some funds of a client with an investment placed under our banks management 7 years ago.

I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contact you independently and no one is informed of this communication.

In 2003, the subject matter; first name (BERNARD, last name MADOFF) came to our bank to engage in a business discussions with our private banking division. He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of 15.1 million United States dollars, which he wished to have us invest on his behalf.

Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued profit and interest stood at this point at over 20 million United States Dollars. In mid 2005, he instructed that the principal sum (15.1M) be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments in Hong Kong. We got in touch with a specialist bank in Hong Kong the Dah Sing Bank (DSB) who agreed to receive this money for a fee and make cash available to (Mr. MADOFF). However Dah Sing Bank got in touch with us last year that this money has not been claimed. On further enquiries we found out that (Mr. MADOFF) was involved in a huge ponzi scam that rocked the United States, which caused him his career and is now in jail. It is for this reason I write you.

What I propose is that since I have exclusive access to this file, you will be made the beneficiary of these funds, I can make the funds available as well for you to claim directly by travelling down to sign some papers, then you can move the money to an offshore account. For all your troubles I propose that we split the money 60% for me and 40% for you. In the banking circle this happens every time.

Nobody is getting hurt; this is a lifetime opportunity for us. I hold the key to these funds, and as a Banker in China, I see so much cash and funds being re-assigned daily. I would want us to keep communication for now strictly by email.

Please, again, note I am a family man; I have a wife and children. I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learned from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord, we should act swiftly on this. Please pardon my writing mistakes.

I await your response.

Phillip Essex
 




So I guess good ol Bernie Madoff has some money available for me huh?

UPDATE 11/2/10: I sent "Phillip Essex" a new email yesterday just to see where he/she is at. This is the email I sent.

Mr Essex,
My name is George Wammer I am a very wealthy ambassador for the USA. I would like to invest a total of 22.5 Million USD to your company. Please reply soon as my time is valuable and I would like to make money soon.

Sincerely,
George Wammer

After sending this e-mail I learned that my friend "Phillip" no longer has this e-mail....

Jobs that don't pay their employee's

I have experienced a few places that have you work and then if it doesn't work out they don't pay you anything. One particular place I have heard the same thing about another employee who use to work there. When they got rid of him because he wouldn't break the law (this was a collection agency that has been sued multiple times) they never gave him his last check. He had to force them to give it to him by reporting them to the labor board. Problem is, there is not a lot of evidence you can give them. I was still in training when I decided to leave so I didn't have a punch in code or anything. I decided to leave because of what I was hearing these collectors saying over the phone. I had worked in debt collection for a while and I am well aware of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This trainer was telling us how we can get around the law, even though the stuff he told us was complete bullshit. I have had to come down hard on a couple of places to get them to pay me. One place I believe was going to try and get out of paying me. They had me give my 2 forms of ID to copy but for some reason didn't have me fill out a tax form. The worked sucked cause it was telemarketing and they told me the job was something else then it really was. When I decided to leave that place I faxed them a filled out tax form and then I received a check. I believe the only reason why I received a check is because they knew I wasn't going to back down. I should have known these places were sketchy cause I found them on craigslist. If you worked at a place for even a few hours if they told you there was an hourly rate they are responsible for paying you. If they do not pay you make sure you document that and when you worked there (date, time). Take that information and bring it to the labor board. If you didn't punch in or anything it will be a bit more difficult to prove BUT you can do it. If there are enough complaints against this company they can be shut down.