The “patch” is a virus, and a nasty one.

It posts itself as being a virus fix – that’s the “social engineering” that is getting people to open it. So don’t!

We have lots of customers that are receiving these messages (1000s of them), but many spam filters are catching them (as is the Terrapin Spam Protection Service). The problem is that the spam filters get overloaded and something gets through.

Here is how it works: it comes in as an email. It says you have a virus, and here is the fix. So you run the fix…and get the virus. It says it is from the “Customer Support Center”, and looks real official, and all that. It “recommends you install this patch…”. Of course, the “patch” is the virus.

The ingenious thing is that it sends along this ZIP file, which is password protected. Anti-virus apps can’t scan the ZIP because it is password protected. The email – “please install this patch…” – contains the password.

Actually — warning: tecnobabble coming — the ZIP file isn’t the virus, but a downloader, which downloads a variety of virus payloads that cause various bits of damage. that is the hard part to detect and clean up once the virus has been loosed.

Here is a ink from the Kaspersky virus people that gives a very general explanation. General, because the “fix” they propose is different from variant to variant of the virus. But it does give a general idea of the infection.

Kaspersky IDs this virus

Here is a list – also from Kaspersky – detailing some of the recent variants:

Kaspersky lists the variants

Our advice: don’t open anything with any attachments until this gets cleaned up. If at all in doubt: delete. Right-click and delete — don’t even open.

As we see more info on this virus we’ll post it here. Stay tuned!

This has come up this week, and turns out it is part of the Windows ANI security flaw. Microsoft has sent out fixes for this flaw, but be advised some of the fixes caused their own problems, too.
The latest fixes seem to be working OK. Best bet: run “Windows Update” and run what is there.

(Start Internet Explorer > Tools > Windows Update)

Read some about this mess here (from eWeek)

Yesterday I was on the Ron Jolly show on WTCM Talk Radio 580 (Traverse City, Michigan). We were discussing PC housekeeping, and I brought up “CCleaner” (actually, it’s from “crap cleaner”, but they go by the more genteel name of “CCleaner” these days).

CCleaner is an excellent little application for keeping your PC cleaned up — it cleans out temporary internet files (the “cache”), for either MS Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers. In addition, it cleans out temp files, cookies, history, all sorts of stuff.

It also can do a very nice job doing a check and clean of the Windows Registry, making a backup of the reg file in the process. (Choose the “Issues” button.)

Highly recommended. Download it , install it, and run it. Life will be better, the sun will come out, all that good stuff. Well, maybe not all that stuff, but it does do an excellent job keeping things clean and running well.

Find it here

Here are two free, online spyware scanner/cleaners. Both of these are recommended by Steve Bass at PC World. I like ‘em both, too.

Trend Micro House Call

Spyware Guide X-Cleaner Micro Edition

This is pretty neat — PC World puts out “The 50 Best Tech Products of All Time”.

Any list that includes Netscape Navigator, Tetris, the Motorola StarTac cell phone, and the DOS version of Lotus 1-2-3 can’t be all bad. Nifty reading for the techie type.

Note that by “All Time”, they mean since the introduction of the personal computer. Which, to a PC World editor, probably is the beginning of time!

Read it here

…otherwise titled “did I really want to jump over to Vista so quickly?”

Seriously, this is an excellent article on the choice all of us have with tech stuff: jump on it quickly (otherwise known as being an “early adopter”), or waiting until a particular technology is more mature.

So if you’re still waiting for cell phones to “catch on”, this article may not be for you. For the rest of us, read the always reliable John Dvorak as he relates “cutting-edge” versus “consensus” as it relates to Windows Vista.

Read it here.