This rogue spyware masquerades as an anti-spyware program, ostensibly alerting you to an infection on your machine. Their goal is to capture your credit card information in exchange for removing the infection. This infection is distributed in one of two ways. Often it will disguise itself as an online virus scanner that detects a virus and then prompts you to download a program to remove it. The other way it is transmitted is via hacked websites.

Please note that legitimate websites can be hacked to distribute malicious software. Your infection may have come from a site you wouldn’t normally suspect. In addition, this infection is not distributed passively. Hackers are not targeting your computer and directly infecting it without any action from you. Therefore once the infection is cleared off, maintaining the same browsing behavior will likely reinfect you.

While we can clear off this infection, reducing the chance of future infections is always our end goal. To that end we suggest using an alternative browser like Firefox or Chrome. We also recommend the use of a free antivirus program such as Avast or Microsoft Security Essentials. All updates should be run, including browser and operating system updates. And finally, be careful about the sites that you choose to trust before you click on them. Once you’ve loaded a site, it may be too late.

Our technicians never get infections on their computers. They use only the methods outlined above, so we know they are effective. If you see the symptoms of infection, including pop-ups and virus warnings that look suspicious, please shut off your computer right away to prevent further infection. Usually when you see the symptoms of this infection, there are several other infections that are not showing pop-ups that must be removed as well.  Call us and we can come out to your location, or you can drop your computer off at our office where we offer same day turnaround.

Google has announced that they’ve added weather to their Maps, allowing you to see at a glance the weather conditions in your area, or around the world. Clicking will bring up more detailed information, like humidity, wind conditions, and a 4-day forecast. Check out their video below for more info.

Witnesses called 911 and the vehicle was found later that night abandoned on San Remo.  The owner of the vehicle called police later and claimed that he had lent the vehicle to somebody else, who has since disappeared.  The cars that were hit were fleet vehicles belonging to TechEase Computer Solutions, a local computer support company.

20’ skid marks in the parking lot indicate the driver was completing a U-Turn from one aisle to another, skidded out of control, hopped an island and rammed into the Scion xB parked there, which was then plowed into the vehicle next to it.  It is suspected that the driver was intoxicated.

The co-owner of TechEase, Evan Asher, hopes that anybody who might have witnessed the accident and could identify the driver will contact him at (805) 564-3273.  “What’s infuriating is not the damage to the vehicles; that’s what insurance is for.  What upsets me is that somebody so reckless, who obviously needs help, is still out there driving around.  This is an area busy with pedestrian traffic and somebody could’ve been seriously hurt or killed.  We need to get drivers like that off the roads.”

For more local coverage see the Noozhawk and edhat.

SpaceSniffer scans your drive for files and folders, then displays a comprehensive map.  You can easily double-click on things to drill down for more details.  Once you find the largest items you can determine whether it’s something you want to spend your valuable hard drive real estate on.  One of the things we like best about SpaceSniffer is that it doesn’t actually install anything in order to work.  You just run the file and it scans, without interfering with your registry.  So what are you waiting for, get to pruning!

• No display whatsoever: May mean the screen has died or the video card is having a problem
• Very dim screen: Sometimes a screen will appear to be dead or black, but when you look very closely you will see that you can still make out some images on the screen. This means your backlight has died.  In this case, the repair can sometimes be less expensive than having to replace the entire screen
• Video artifacts: If you get strange lines, shapes or static on your screen, you may be having a video card problem.  The cost for a video card repair can vary widely based on what type of motherboard and card you have
• To determine if you’re having a screen problem or a video card problem on your notebook computer, plug in a monitor to the laptop and see if the problems above are duplicated on the screen.  If so, you’re having a video card problem.  If not the problem lies with the display!

Laptops take a lot of abuse so it’s not uncommon for the screen to be the first thing to go.  Don’t worry, though, we can still recover your information from your computer whether you opt to fix the problem or not.  If you need more help diagnosing, don’t hesitate to give us a call at (805) 564-3273.

There’s no way to put the Genie back into the bottle once your e-mail address is compromised, but there are steps you can take to minimize the fallout.  Be aware that spammers will send e-mails posing as these companies, hoping you’ll open attachments or click on links that will infect you or steal your login information.  To safeguard against this, do not open unsolicited attachments, and go directly to your bank’s website by manually entering their address in your browser instead of clicking on links in e-mails.

As a last line of defense, use an antivirus like AVG which includes Linkscanner technology.  This works by checking the websites that you’re accessing and warning you when they match a database of known bad sites.  This database is continuously updated, and due to the scope of this Epsilon incident, will likely be updated quickly when a phishing attempt is sent to e-mail addresses from that database.

We hope there are consequences for Epsilon and other third party email services for not safeguarding our information carefully enough.  On the bright side, it’s a good reminder to practice safe e-mail habits.

Password Managers

These programs securely store your login information for every site you use.  You simply have to remember one password to unlock the password manager, then it does the rest.  It will recognize when you are creating a new account and offer to randomly generate secure passwords.  Even more convenient, it will automatically fill in your mailing and billing information, your credit card information, and almost anything else you can think of to make checking out a breeze.

Until recently, we’ve recommended Roboform as our favorite password manager.  However they recently switched their pricing to a subscription model.  In the past once you purchased the software, you owned it and got free upgrades.  Now they are charging $20/year.  In response we have surveyed the current password manager market and have a different recommendation.

LastPass

LastPass offers all of the features above, integrates seamlessly with our favorite browsers like Chrome and Firefox.  It also offers the ability to sync with your mobile device so you can login to your favorite webpage from you iPhone, Android, or even Palm device!  All password information is securely encrypted, then synced across the network.  So if you update your Facebook password from your work computer, LastPass detects this, saves the changes, and when you get home your computer will login with the new password automatically.

Convenience is one great reason to use a password manager, but we are fans of them for two other very important reasons.  First, we encourage users to take advantage of the password generation feature, to ensure you are using strong passwords.  If LastPass is remembering your password for you, and does so in a synchronized, mobile way, we never need to choose easy to remember passwords.  Secondly, LastPass can help prevent phishing scams.

Phishing

Phishing scams occur when somebody tries to fool you into giving away your password.  This is often done by sending you an email that claims to be from a place like Facebook.  It alerts you to a new waiting message, and when you click on the link in the email, it takes you to a site that looks like Facebook, but really isn’t.  When you enter your login information on this site, you’ve given away your information to the phishers, who then login to your account, free to do as they please.  LastPass scans the website address and will not enter your login info if it doesn’t match the official address correctly, foiling any phishing scams.

Best of all, LastPass is free, and their Premium version is only $1/month.  The premium version gives you mobile access and some extra security features, but their free version is plenty for most people.  Download it now and start freeing up your brain for more important things than all those passwords!

Every single week we see clients with dead hard drives.  They frequently do not have any backups, or they have an external hard drive backup that stopped working and they weren’t notified or they forgot to plug it in, etc.  Everybody understands the importance of backups, but for some reason people put it off until it’s too late.  Today could be the day you take our recommendation and check that crucial thing off your list!

Recently Mozy announced a pricing change. Instead of $5/month for unlimited storage, they are now $6/month for 50GB or $10/month for 125GB. In response, we have researched the current backup offerings and are recommending an alternative. We wanted a solution that offered the following:

• Unlimited storage
• No throttling of upload/download
• Multiple copies of backups
• Easy to configure
• Reasonable pricing
• The option to receive your data in the mail instead of via download

Here is a quick comparison with our thoughts. Skip to the bottom for our recommendation if you prefer.

Carbonite- One of the leaders in the online backup marketplace, chances are you have heard of them.  What we dislike most about Carbonite is that they throttle your uploads.  After  35GB you can only upload at 512kbps, and past 200GB it drops to 100kbps, or roughly twice dial-up speeds.  Also, there’s no option to get a hard copy of your data.

Backblaze – Unlimited storage for $5/month except files larger than 9GB. This won’t matter for most people, but we’d prefer something without any limits. Also, the program defaults to a 4gb limit, so you’ll have to know how to change that.  They keep 30 days of previous versions and offer USB hard drive restore for $189.

LiveDrive – Unlimited storage for $50/year.  They offer some great features like the ability to access files anywhere, including music, photos and movies on your phone.  However, they only keep 30 versions of your files, which could be only a couple days depending on the file.

Crashplan (Our recommendation) – 10GB for $25/year, Unlimited storage for $50/yr.  PC, Mac, even Linux! Crashplan has no file size limits or throttling and the option to have unlimited previous versions of files.  For those who can’t stand long upload times on your first backup, they offer the option to seed backups (they send you a 1TB USB hard drive, you fill it up and mail it back for $125).  They also offer USB hard drive restores for $125 ground shipping. They support 448-bit Blowfish encryption to keep your data safe.

They even offer a free version which lets you use a friend’s computer in another location as the backup destination.  The friend cannot see your files, and the theory is you each offer to be a backup destination for the other person, making sure your files get off-site, and eliminating the need to pay for storage.  While this is a unique and cost-effective offering, we prefer the paid online backup since you know it will always be turned on.  If your friend goes on a trip for a week and turns off their computer, no backups will be taken!  $4.16/month is a small price to pay for your data.

One downside to Crashplan is that there is no search option in the restore interface, so you have to find any files you need manually.  In addition, they are smaller, and have not been around as long as Mozy.  However, in comparison to other options, this is our personal favorite.  Right now they are offering 15% off when you follow this link, so install Crashplan+ Unlimited now and make sure your data is protected!