This infection can happen if you visit a malicious website, whether malicious because the creator intended it to be that way, or a legit website that has been compromised. In any case, you’ll see a big warning across your browser window that reads:

Warning! Critical Update!

And then underneath a button that reads “Install Update”.

Two things to be aware of. First, even if you don’t click on the “Install Update” button, you might see a download happening. Needless to say, don’t open that download. Second, if you try to just close the browser window, a pop-up will warn you that you cannot navigate away from the page until you install the update. This is done in such a way that it’s hard to actually close the window. If you are somewhat savvy, use the Windows Task Manager to kill the process that runs the browser window. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, either log off or restart your computer. That will force the window to close.

Hopefully you did not make the gargantuan mistake of opening the downloaded file to “update” your browser, because if you did, and you’re not properly protected, a program will be running in the background that is silently waiting to steal your passwords and send them over to the bad guys.

If you have proper protection in place, such as the model I laid out 4 years ago, you will be safe against this attack. I specifically tested this on a computer that had Kaspersky antivirus, Malwarebytes Anti-malware Pro, and AppGuard installed in it, and each one independently blocked or quarantined or deleted the malicious downloaded file.

And of course if all fails you can always contact me.

Kaspersky Internet Security, the antivirus security suite, includes as part of its features the possibility to create a “rescue disk”, which you can use to boot your computer with. in order to handle highly infected computer systems. In trying to use it, I ran into a snag in a computer. The rescue disk did not load successfully.

I searched for an answer to the problem and found this article: http://support.kaspersky.com/4124. It lays out what to do to gather information about the computer one is having trouble with, so the Tech Support staff can help resolve the situation. At the end of the article it says “Create a request to Kaspersky Lab Technical Support via the My Kaspersky Account service. Attach the created file to the request.” And so I did.

The response I got?

 1. An automated response.

2. An automated response based on the type of problem I chose during the creation of the request.

3. The following email: 

“Hello ,

Thanks for communicate with us and I apologize for the inconvenience. In your case read the instruction to check the options for this process and if you went thru and still having the issue I will recommend you to look for a tech service.

Thank you.”

4. When I replied stating I was still having the issue, and after A WEEK, I got this reply:

“Hello ,

Thanks for the response. I’m sorry but will be better for yu to take the computer to a computer technician.

Thank you.”

 I’m letting Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of the company, know my thoughts about his company’s Tech Support division.

Unless you live under a rock, you no doubt have heard or read about the recent scandal involving the US Government in connection with a questionable surveillance program that has been going on for quite some time now. This scandal has prompted some people to ask me if there is a way to circumvent the current measures in place that allow for government agencies to tap into the content of your emails, etc.

The answer is NO.

Disheartening as this might sound, it’s the bitter truth. The purpose of this article, however, is to adjust the viewpoint of the public at large. You have to be aware that a plain email sent over the internet is potentially readable by a) The provider (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc., and they at least normally search the contents of your emails for marketing purposes) and b) Uncle Sam (at least). So I would never write something in an email I wouldn’t mind other people than the recipient knowing about. 

Some savvy users might say, but what about encryption? If I send encrypted emails, only the recipient should be able to decipher them. While this is true to some degree, it would not stop Uncle Sammy from decrypting it, if he REALLY wants to know the contents of them.

At this point the battle could only be won at the legislative level. That’s the only way the game would change.

Back in 2009, when I wrote my pivotal article on which antivirus program is best (which still holds very true by the way), I mentioned the then current figures on new malware samples per month found by AV-test.org. Back then  it was a little over 1 million unique samples per month. The current figures? a bar graph is worth a thousand words (click on it for a bigger version): 

That’s about 5 million new samples per month!!

For data on what to do to stay safe and malware-free despite this rampant escalating numbers, see the article I refer to at the beginning of this one.

This is an old trick, but recently a new wave of attempts have surfaced on this. You’re visiting a website, and either a browser window pop-up message or a window embedded in the page you’re visiting tells you to update to the latest version of Flash Player. The fake windows are also getting better in quality and harder to tell from the legit ones.

If you don’t have Flash set up to update automatically, I encourage you to go straight to the source for updates: http://get2.adobe.com/flashplayer/. Do not act on any pop-up windows luring you to update your Flash Player.

Stay safe.