Your Daily Computer Security Tips

The other day, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League web sites were targets of an attack. Hackers tried to convince visitors that they had to scan their computers for viruses, and needed to download malware to do it.

Users were presented with a box prompting them to scan their computers. If the user clicked “Cancel”, it would take him to another site that would try to scan his computer anyway, as well as install malicious programs.

Cleverly, the attack occurred only periodically, making it hard for security researchers to get a grip on it. They finally succeeded, though.

The safest way to close these types of dialog or popup boxes is to right-click the ad tab in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen, and click “Close” from the little menu.

Firefox has announced that it will soon patch a nine-month-old protocol handler bug, just as Microsoft did last week (see my Nov. 16 post below).

Protocol handlers let you launch applications in your browser by clicking a link; mailto:… is perhaps the most common.

Last summer Mozilla, maker of Firefox, said it fixes flaws within 10 days. I will keep you posted.

Syd Tash is a noted computer security consultant and author of How to Protect Your Computer Online. He has been keeping Internet surfers safe and secure since the last century. Find out how he does it; protect your own computer with five layers of protection right here: => http://MyPCSecuritySite.com

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