Posts in category News

Spam On the Rise

Several recent industry articles report that we will continue to see a rise in the percentage of spam in overall email volumes:

All Spammed Up reported "that spam has increased over 141% since March and also found that spam volumes grow by over 117 billion e-mails a day"
McAfee has reported that in a little less than five months there has been a 140% increase in total spam volume. Reported causes are the 16% rise in botnet infections from Q1 2009 to Q2 2009. Many are also pointing a finger at the exploitation of social-networking sites for sending spam.
MX Logic recently released their July 2009 Threat Forecast report claiming that "Spam as a percentage of overall mail has reached its highest point ever, currently accounting for 94.6 percent of all e-mail"

To protect yourself, we recommend just two things (besides a good antivirus program): Gmail or Google Apps for its spam-filtering (among many other reasons) and OpenDNS to protect your PC from bad stuff just in case you click on a bad link.

Posted in Tips & Tricks

Video ActiveX Control Vulnerability Could Give Hackers Control

This is a critical issue. If you use Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, do this today.

Microsoft has released a Microsoft security advisory about this issue for IT professionals. The security advisory contains additional security-related information. To view the security advisory, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Microsoft Security Advisory: Vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX control could allow remote code execution

Tagged activex control, remote code execution, video activex control, windows server 2003, windows xp

T-Mobile Admits Systems’ Security Breach

According to T-Mobile, the document that was taken does not contain subscriber data:

T-Mobile admitted today that hackers had breached it’s security into its internal information. Weekend reports had stated that “operations, finance and subscriber data” had been stolen from T-Mobile, but it doesn’t appear that severe.

T-Mobile admits systems’ security breach | BlackBerryNews.com

Tagged hacker, t-mobile

Small Business Networks Targeted by Spammers, Hackers

You may not realize how much you could lose as a result of a hacker attack or takeover by a botnet (a large network of remotely-controlled PCs). The cost in terms of virus removal and hardware downtime could range into the hundreds; the cost in terms of lost or stolen data could be immeasurable.

Shoestring Solutions can optimize your workstations for top performance; protect them from hacker attacks—and keep them running right– for as low as $20 a month per PC. Contact us today for more information!

A small or midsize business (SMB) is ultimately a more attractive target for spammers, botnet operators, and other attackers than a home user mainly because it has a treasure trove of valuable data without the sufficient IT and security resources to protect it.

Security experts say that while large enterprises are getting hit hard by bot infections and related attacks, it’s the SMBs that are getting hurt the worst. Home machines are obviously the easiest targets, but SMBs are relatively defenseless, as well, given their lack of IT resources and budgets to build out layered security like the big boys do.

SMBs Often Hit Hardest By Botnets – DarkReading

Posted in Tips & Tricks - Tagged botnets, network security, virus, virus removal

Is Your PC Secure?

Malware is so prevalent, say most experts, that a new computer will be probed for weaknesses within seconds of first connecting to the Internet. If your computer is infected, you are contributing to the spread of spam, viruses and worms… and usually without your knowledge!

Contact us today for a complete PC assessment, cleanup and optimization. And then we’ll tell you how to protect yourself so that you never have to call us again!

The security firm identified 1,656,227 new malicious-code threats, up 265% from the year before, and financially motivated criminal activity was a recurring theme. In addition, Symantec observed 75,158 active bot-infected computers per day last year, an increase of 31% from 2007.

Malware Had a Great Year in 2008 – Business Center – PC World

Posted in Tips & Tricks - Tagged antivirus, antivirusxp2009, botnets, malware infection

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