Your Daily Computer Security Tips

Be careful if you are searching online for that nude video of beautiful ESPN reporter Erin Andrews. Hackers have put up a fake CNN site that claims to offer a video of the sports reporter. If you click on it, you are urged to download a video player which, you guessed it, will infect your computer.

A nude video of Andrews, shot through a hotel room peephole, does in fact exist. And the hacker video does actually show a woman undressing. Whether or not it is Erin Andrews is unknown.

The malware associated with this video will detect whether you are a PC or a Mac, and send you the appropriate Trojan horse. The Mac version is said to be even nastier than the PC one.

If you browse the Net for, shall we say, Adult Content, be careful. Many of the sites you visit will try to attack or infect your computer.

Adobe, publisher of the popular Reader software that opens PDF documents, has admitted that some users are getting outdated versions of Reader from its Web site. It is reconsidering how it delivers the software, along with patches and updates.

Danish security company Secunia claims that the version currently available contains many bugs. Users can therefore remain vulnerable for days or weeks. The built-in updater function may not kick in for a week or two after installation or release of a patch, leaving you exposed to attack.

What to do? Because Reader is so popular, it is a favorite target for attack, with many bad PDF files floating around the Internet. So instead of depending solely on Adobe for your updates, go to the Secunia Software Inspector here: http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/

Click Start Scanner, select Enable thorough system inspection, and click Start.

Over the last week or so, U.S. government Web sites, and sites in South Korea, have been attacked. These denial-of-service attacks use large networks of zombie computers that have been turned into a botnet. They all try to contact a Web site at the same time, causing it to crash. These latest attacks, however, have had limited success.

North Korea is suspected of being the origin of these attacks, but they could easily come from anywhere. South Korea is now warning that personal computers could be targeted next. Your computer could get infected with a virus, and roped into a botnet.
Make sure you have a good antivirus program, spyware removers and blockers and a firewall, at least. Keep everything up to date, especially including your Windows.

Very professional-looking emails are circulating on the Internet, claiming to be updates for Outlook and Outlook Express. It really looks like a tech bulletin from Microsoft. The URL that you are supposed to click on to get the updates, is only slightly different from the real URL, which is update.microsoft.com.

Of course this is a phishing scam, so do not fall for it, even if it is a little more polished and sophisticated than usual. Microsoft does not send out emails advising you of updates. You have to go get them at the update site.

Mozilla has released version 3.5 of its Firefox browser. Firefox is now supposed to be more stable, and much faster than earlier versions. As usual, I suggest you wait a while before updating, to see if any bugs or incompatibilities turn up.

Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will be released to the public on Oct. 22. What to do if you need a new computer now? No problem. Go to your favorite computer store, and find a special offer for a free upgrade to Windows 7 if you buy certain Vista PCs now.

Security company Sophos is warning that less than 24 hours after the death of Michael Jackson, spam emails are circulating that claim to contain “vital information” about his death. The emails do not contain malicious attachments, or even links to compromised or infected Web sites.

Rather, the object of the exercise seems to be to get you to reply, so that the spammer can grab your email address. Then you will receive much more spam. It could even lead to identity theft.

Other more dangerous emails and Web sites can be expected, of course, so be on guard. If you want information on the late singer, search for it yourself in a search engine or go to a news site.

Initially, so many people were searching on Michael Jackson that Google crashed. However, everything should be OK now.