image courtesy: Electron Plumber

Once clicked, it prompts you to download and install a video player that contains the malware.

The fear also resides in the fact it does a few steps anyone should immediately take note of:

• It prompts for your Facebook login information
• It installs an application not only in Facebook but on your local machine
• It asks for your home address in the guise of a contest

Anything asking for your home address should be treated as suspect.  This is something to be passed on to kids and co-workers.

If you have already mistakenly clicked on this and installed the application, update your anti-virus software and run both that and anti-malware software to help get rid of it.  Also, try and uninstall the program if it allows you.

The school provided the students these laptops with the understanding they

courtesy of Geekologie

were to be used for school activity.  Whether or not an appropriate Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) was created, is not clear.  It should have defined what was expected in usage, the monitoring ability and a clear line forcing the parents to sign and understand what AUP the school had created.  A mandatory meeting should have been help with the parents and kids outlining the entire process.

We deal with multiple school districts in the local area that all have controlled computers that sit inside the school and are taken home by teachers and students.  These computers all connect back through the school filters, firewalls and proxies to provide the safest environment possible.  Yet, it could not be perfect.  Any computer provided in this format, should reasonably expect some form of controls that will be installed.

The next step was the means of access and recovery the school distrcit utilized.  They school reguarly connected to laptops and took control or watched desktops for helpdesk operations and to assist in recovering in lost or stolen laptops.  However, the officials also activated the built in camera in the laptops, without warning.  This is where we offer our opinion to meet in the middle.

The schools should take one of two paths when issuing equipment like this to students.  One path says buy laptops with no camera installed, removing this possibility.  The other path is more complicated.  The AUP for the district should outline the possibility and also set some established hours that the camera may be activated, and only in recovery mode that is well documented when performed with some audit trail.

As we debated this, one point was raised that beared a bit of explanation in this thought path.  Most of these laptops would be forced to connect to district servers to get security and policy updates once they access the Internet.  If the laptop was stolen or lost, this might not happen till after normal business and school hours.   So if the AUP said they would only activate during normal hours, how would they act if the computer came online only at night and they wished to track it?

I don’t think there is reasonable expectation of privacy on the content you access with a school issued laptop, however there is one with the placement and timing of the camera itself.  Mainly when the AUP does not address or reflect the ability the district has to activate such features that interfere with expected visual privacy.  Internet access is just data flow and can be routed through anywhere and monitored.  But the physical setting anyone is in normally would have expectations of privacy involved.

The district was right in coming clean in what access and steps they take and also in immediately suspending this practice until the investigations and complaints are over.  However, every district and company needs a better defined AUP to address this immediately.

This type of P2P (peer to peer) sharing is very useful and in many circumstances legal.  However, it seems it is possible unexpected files are being hidden in what people are sharing and inadvertently downloading.  Let us take the recent story of Matthew White in Sacramento.  He said he was using Limewire, and yes, attempting to download a copywrited movie.  This would be illegal.  But what he did find is that he downloaded numerous child pornography pictures with it.  He claims to have promptly deleted them and never thought about it again.

However, simply deleting a file from your computer does not really remove it totally and he learned this a year later.  You can read the rest in the article linked above.  He also did not overwrite his open areas of his computer with software that would erase any traces.

The point of this article, is to explain quickly about the dangers of letting your kids use these P2P network, either with approval or unknowing.  Many of you have not only allowed your virus subscriptions to expire, but have no way of inspecting the total content found on your computers.  With the recent movements of the recording industry and other organizations looking for illegal copywrite content, they are already watching to see who downloads movies and music.  Add in the FBI and other government offices, and they are watching for illegal content to be downloaded.  Sometimes both these types are creating what is called “honeypots“.  Or computers sharing illegal files to see who goes after them to download them.

Once you have attached to and taken the file, they log your address of your computer and proceed to contact the Internet providers to find you and your computer.  Basically reverse tracking.  It is the hidden danger of what you have saved locally to your computer, or that your kids have saved.  They will hold the adult responsible for the content when a minor is involved.

So it is in your best interest to remove these sharing services, like Limewire, from your computers and remove all traces of the illegal files.  You never really know what is contained in them or where they were downloaded from with these services.

The goal of these scams is pretty harmless in the big picture, but could be used maliciously if desired.  Most of them prompt you via a friend’s infected computer with a chat or email notice asking if this was you in some video or picture.  The link is via an URL shortening system (hides the real URL, see Bit.ly as a great shortening service) and takes you to a website than then infects your computer.  From there is spreads and does the same to your friends.  Thanks to ChrisKing for the picture

So what do you do for prevention?  A couple simple steps would stop the majority of the spreading:

1. Update your virus signatures daily and never let your service/subscription expire.  Putting it off even for a week can open you to an attack.  I see far too many families trusting that the virus software that expired 4 months ago is still ok.  Spend the few dollars to protect your identity and computer
2. Silly I know, but stop clicking these unknown links.  How many of us actually might be in an embarrassing video or picture we don’t know about?  Think about it.  Most of the time you were there right, meaning mentally?

One trick I have not seen yet, but would be the next logical step.  The same chat or email trick with a comment about is this your spouse/wife/husband/child in some video or picture with a comment about them doing something inappropriate.  How many of you would fight that temptation to click the link?