I received an email that appeared to be from Nick Badame asking me to look at a particular document. It told me to sign in using my email account name and password to see it. I was about to do it, but got suspicious of it being a phishing scam. It emailed Nick asking about it but have not yet heard back. Did anyone else get this or know anything about it?
Check the email address it came from. Look for a "country" code at the end of the address sent from or you were to contact. Most likely someone has stolen Nick's email directory.
Art
The reply email address was the one listed on this site by Nick. Upon investigating the link, however, it seemed to be to a dental clinic in Brazil.
I am very sorry about this as is Nick. He confirmed this morning that his email was hacked and our Webmaster Mike Sullivan solved this problem pronto.
If anyone else gets an email from Nick with the Subject line being "Review My Attached Document" please delete it. It should not harm your computer it only takes you to an advertisers website.
Nick is a very conscientious Forum Moderator and would never do anything like this on purpose.
Thanks for staying on top of this and taking care of the problem. I didn't receive anything, but will look out for it.
I received one and deleted it without opening. I have asked Nick questions before by getting his email off his business site. He always responds with a excellent answer on my CruiseAirs. He's one of the good ones.
What are you talking about?!! I clicked on the link and I now have lifetime free dental care any time I want. All they wanted was my VISA card & SS# to validate my identity.
;D ;D ;D
Kidding - please DON'T click.
Quote from: plyons on March 09, 2016, 12:30:27 PM
What are you talking about?!! I clicked on the link and I now have lifetime free dental care any time I want. All they wanted was my VISA card & SS# to validate my identity.
;D ;D ;D
Kidding - please DON'T click.
you got rooked... i got a lifetime subscription to fruit of the month club
I got it, so I emailed Nick about it...at the same email address. "Nick" replied "NO, have not been hacked,, i sent the email to you, it is a secured document which i want you to read.. kindly review it". So someone was live in his email acct.
I have 10 yrs as a internet security consultant, so it was pretty obvious from the beginning what it was.
I will followup with Nick in the morning to verify where he is at on the disinfection process. His computer was infected with a fairly advanced bug. It had even uninstalled his Norton Security antivirus software and disabled SpyBot Search and Destroy. I advised him on a course of action and he was going to proceed with it. As per Gary's post, the general feeling was that the problem was resolved. But the post from Opus has me wondering.
Opus, when did you send that email reply to Nick?
Everyone - It is generally dangerous to click links in emails unless you already know what they are. In this case, looking at the link reveals that the link is on a server in Brazil (the .br web address tells you that). Google sites in the U.S. are always .com addresses.
Mon, 7 Mar 2016 10:29:10 -0700
Download Malwarebytes and run it. That will get what you're looking for. Spybot and Norton are pretty marginal.
Opus, that date and time was before Nick performed the remedial actions. I will check with him in the morning, but I suspect the problem has been fully resolved.
Every year the top ten players in the security/antivirus/anti-malware products play musical chairs in the rankings. Also, different reviewers rank them differently, so the reports vary somewhat. In 2015 Malwarebytes was one of the top contenders. In the reports I've seen for 2016, two products are ranking within the top three or four in most of the non-sponsored reviews - BitDefender and Kaspersky.
Always stuck me funny that some of security folks are home based in foreign countries.
Kaspersky----Moscow
Bitdefender---Romania
AVG------------Czechoslovakia
Avast-----------Czech Republic also
Kind of makes you wonder.
I use WebRoot, based out of Boulder Colorado.
I also use Webroot because I use Geek Squad remote support and they installed Webroot on all of our computers. I figure if they are using it, it must be good as they would not want to use a product that would cause more problems than it solves.
Or ... would running Lennix (sp?) Mint 17 save you from most, but all, of the hassles? :)
Only way to be sure you are free of that crap is to reinstall the operating system. I realize most can't do that. You all should check into a Chromebook for typical web surfing. No worries about viruses, they are inexpensive and if you ever want to take it back to brand new, you can do that in 5 min. Log back in with your gmail account and all of your stuff is back.
Microsoft Windoze is a virus inof itself ;D
No amount of antivirus will prevent it from getting infected. And most AV products end up being utterly silent at best or complicit at worst at spreading a virus. But having it installed sure feels good, lol.
Seriously though, a decent AV product will usually "catch" the virus after it's already all over the machine.
The best course of action is prevention.
1) DO NOT use Internet Exploder for any web browsing (except for the idiotic sites that require it). IE is a virus waiting to happen. It has so many hooks into the core OS, and with MicroShaft's track record on security, it's chock full of holes. I recommend using Google Chrome (or even better a Chrome derivative called Comodo). While Chrome is not imprevious to attack, compromising it does not necessarily mean the whole OS is smoked (in most cases). Chrome may be fried, but the OS is generally spared. Comodo takes that one step further and actively interrogates the URL against a safe list, in addition to not allowing unsigned code to just run willy nilly.
2) DO NOT click on any link in any email, period. Ok, maybe not any any link, but 99% of them; and you better be certain who it's from and why you're clicking. That's the easiest way for a virus to spread is to convince you to click that link. Trust me, your boss doesn't suddenly love you, your long lost enemy hasn't suddenly decided to kiss and make up with a funny joke, and your... (ahem) IQ won't suddenly be enlarged by any quick-fix means.
3) Be careful of random Google search clicks. Some of the most harmless searches, can return some pretty... Interesting stuff. This is where Comodo shines. It checks the URL with each click and warns you of suspicious websites. As previously mentioned, try to stay with .com domains (you can see the url at the very bottom of each search result). Look for search results that look like they weren't written by a 12 year old with English as a 3rd language. So read each of the preview synopsis of each result before just clickin.
But an alternate Operating System is perhaps the best defense.
While a Mac is far from imprevious to attack, virus writers don't seem as obsessed with it. And frankly they (Apple) have a MUCH higher standard of code devleopment with security being fairly central.
If you just want a web browsing screen consider a tablet. Either an iPad or an android will suffice there. While limited in heavy lifting type work, they're great for just poking around the Internet and checking email.
A chrome book is also a good option here, with the same caveats.
Linux is a non-starter unless you want to take up a career of hacking operating systems together. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, but in over a decade of "refining", Linux remains a hacker's OS and I think they generally like it that way. Builds are getting better and more refined all the time, but IMO it's far from click and pray.
Good luck,
George
We have both Apple and Windows and really don't have problems with either, now my brother in law that visits porn sites has constant problems with viruses.
Actually you can hack into a Apple os faster than you can a windows system according to an article in Forbes , just saying
Hi Guy's,
So very sorry about the emails... As I returned from vacation last week, I turned my office computer on and
I noticed that things were acting weird. By late in the day, I was receiving phone calls and txt msg's from
everybody.. My email was hit by an intruder!! Mike Sullivan was a big help in resolving the mess.. I spent
quite a few days changing passwords and running spyware on all my devices.. I think I'm good now!
Again, I'm sorry if anyone was affected by this!
Regards
Nick-