WP Remix
9
May

We’ve written a couple of posts already about Online PC Care – Click here and here. However a regular customer of ours contacted us today to say that she was being plagued by “Your Online PC Doctor”. Note the different name, you’ll find more aliases in the comments to the previous articles. They’ve been calling her several times per week for the past few weeks and won’t stop. Today she got contact details from them and the number she was given began with country code 020. This appears to me to be an Inmarsat satellite phone number which, at least here in Ireland, would be charged at 5 euros per minute – that’s 300 euros per hour folks. So be warned folks, it looks like these guys really do not want to be called back or they’re getting a cut of your call costs.

I’d also like to appeal to people who have been victims of these types of scammers to comment on what has been done to their machines. I’ve personally seen a number of machines where, after showing the customer the Event Log containing errors as a method of scaring them into using their services, they then disable that Event Logging service, presumably to stop the customer from being able to check it afterwards. Has anyone seen any other examples of sharp practice? The question I’m asked most is whether they are putting Spyware on the computers that the connect to – has anyone seen any evidence of that?

Thanks for all the feedback to past posts. Awareness is the only thing that will prevent these people from scamming thousands more…

 

If you are suffering from this or any other  problem please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers  and technicians and we will be delighted to help.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Category : Articles
4
May

Internet Security – Improve yours at a stroke

Posted by Comments Off on Internet Security – Improve yours at a stroke

Qualys BrowserCheck ScanMicrosoft have steadily improved the security of Windows over the past few years, making it much harder for Virus and other Malware producers to exploit weaknesses in it. As a result, many of the bad guys have been focussing their attacks on the addon programs that most of us have installed on our computers. For example, if you want to watch Youtube, you need Flash installed. Many online banking services require Java and if you want to read many documents on the web, you’ll need Adobe Reader. As a result these free applications (Java, Flash, Reader and many others) have become very common and have been softer targets in recent years for Malware.
I was over at the Information Security Conference in London a couple of weeks ago and was interested to see a presentation by Qualys who were presenting a new, free service that allows you to check all the addons in your internet browser for security status. I’d encourage all of you to take a look at it. It’s located at https://browsercheck.qualys.com/ and is well worth a look. In a single stroke it will allow you to assess which addons you need to update and provides a link to the update. The results page looks like the picture below. Just click on anything that isn’t showing “Green” status to get the updated version. Very neat.

Qualys BrowserCheck Results Page

Category : Articles
6
Apr

Amazon Cloud Drive – Your music, anytime, anywhere

Posted by Comments Off on Amazon Cloud Drive – Your music, anytime, anywhere

Last week, Amazon released what is looking like one of the most useful pieces of software to date in the world of cloud computing. Amazon Cloud Drive (and Cloud Player) is a free online file storage service (up to 5GB, then you pay $1 a gigabyte per year) that doubles as a music streaming service, allowing you to listen to the songs you have uploaded to the Cloud Player from anywhere in the countries supported. If you are lucky enough to own an Android smartphone (like myself 😛 ), it is possible to download an app to stream music to your phone, to listen to while online, or to download songs from your cloud drive and listen to them later.

As well as uploading from many systems to the Cloud Drive, Amazon automatically uploads any files you purchase from them directly to the Cloud Drive, saving you the hassle of having to upload them and it helps keep track of your purchases. It only supports two file formats so far, .mp3 and .m4u, but these are the types used by most people so it shouldnt be too much of a problem.

The only downside for Amazon seems to be music licensing and the record companies getting the hump (yet again!) over the fact that music might be pirated. Amazon spokesperson Cat Griffin has in return have responded by saying that “Cloud Player is an application that lets customers manage and play their own music. It’s like any number of existing media management applications. We do not need a license to make Cloud Player available.” Link

Unfortunately though, while Cloud Drive is available on the US Amazon website for everyone, the Cloud Player is not available to anyone outside the US. To say i’m dissapointed is an understatement! As for the Cloud Drive itself, its a handy tool. Similar to Dropbox, but once the Cloud Player is enabled in more countries, it will probably be one of the world leaders of cloud storage.

If you are interested in having Cloud Drive on your system or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Category : Articles
31
Mar

Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4

Posted by Comments Off on Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4

As some of you may have heard, Microsoft have finally released Internet Explorer 9. There are many improvements over IE 8, such as:

  • Minimal interface, much better looking (shinier!) that previous versions
  • Uses the GPU (graphics card processor) a lot more than the CPU, making  the whole browsing experience faster
  • Increased privacy and security (which has been a major hole in past IE browser editions)

So far, it seems popular, with 3,649,465 downloads so far according to Softonic.com. This success has been short-lived though, enter Firefox 4. Again, much better than its predecessor which has been a staple on millions of computers for the last 2 years over IE 8, they have adjusted a few things:

  • Improved interface, much like IE9, everyone is jumping on the Google Chrome bandwagon
  • Rare compatibility probems (nearly all websites work properly)
  • Sync function added, great tool for mobile internet users (syncs all browsed content from desktop and mobile devices, passwords and forms included)

Personally, i’ve always been a Firefox fanboy, although here at Home Helptech, our main browser of choice is IE 8. I thought it would be a nice idea to try the new version of Firefox while Simon tries the new IE 9 just to see what they are like and what they are capable of.

Internet Explorer is much cleaner than any other version of IE to date. It has moved a lot of stuff around compared to earlier browser editions, such as moving the Favourites to the right hand side of the screen rather than the left and the address bar to the left of all tabs rather than on top. It is also much quicker, and much more in-tune with Windows 7 with features such as Pinned Sites and JumpList. This is basically where site related tasks are pinned to the taskbar, thus making life easier and more efficient.


As for the other kid on the block, I find so far that Firefox is a lot cleaner in its browsing experience, it moves a lot more smoothly and quickly through different pages compared to IE 8 and Firefox 3.6. Even saving this blogpost is quicker than previous versions. I have yet to test the Sync function (as i want to wait until I get my new Android phone!) but I have played around with some of the HTML5 websites, which with Firefox 4 is a pleasure. If any plugins fail or crash, it won’t do anything to the browser except for the page using the plugin. Users can reload the page to restart the plugin, which is incredibly handy for those with sick machines!

Here at Home Helptech, we highly recommend that you upgrade your browser to one of these, as they will secure your system even more and make your browsing experience more enjoyable.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Category : Articles
26
Mar

Security Tool Virus – Rogue Anti-virus warning

Posted by Comments Off on Security Tool Virus – Rogue Anti-virus warning

Security Tool is a common virus which we would experience on a regular basis here at Home Helptech. It was first developed by Russian malware developers over 2 years ago which makes it one of the longest running Rogue Antivirus “brands”. Two years on, it’s still successfully infecting computers.

Security Tool poses as a normal anti-virus program telling you that you have an infected machine, through the above picture and through various fake system and firewall warnings like the following:

 

The way the virus works is by displaying all these pop-up warnings which tell the user their machine is infected with many viruses and malware (this is completely fake) and that the only way to remove them is by purchasing (they also say ACTIVATING sometimes) this anti-virus to protect the system and remove all viruses.

DO NOT PURCHASE THIS SOFTWARE!!

It’s basically a scam, the reason why it might work is that the pop-up’s make it impossible to do anything on the system, including browsing. Security tool itself is a trojan virus, and when it makes the system behave in this fashion, it does so by infecting system files. Any security notice it does show up is fake, we advise that if you are infected, do not click on anything, you will be brought to a payment screen where you can buy this software, which will appear to remove the software, but will also enable whoever infected your machine to take money from your account. Often after a few weeks have passed, the system will be infected again.

The good news is, Security Tool can be removed. Malwarebytes is one product that is capable of removing Security Tool. However while Security Tool makes itself very obvious when it infects your machine, we often find that that it is a symptom of the machine with other infections. So you should not assume that if System Tool has been removed that your system is “clean”. If you are not confident with doing the removal by yourself or feel you need professional assistance, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

And if you have been unfortunate enough to have been taken in my this scam, we would encourage you to contact your credit card company. We have had at least one customer who has had multiple payments taken from his credit card by a Rogue Antivirus company over a number of weeks.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Category : Articles
16
Mar

Oddjob: A new type of Trojan that can access your Online Banking

Posted by Comments Off on Oddjob: A new type of Trojan that can access your Online Banking

 

Oddjob TrojanOver the last few weeks, online security providers such as Trusteer and Sophos have given warnings about a new breed of malware that hijack the connection to your online banking and other secure sites and can stay connected, even after you log out. Nicknamed “Oddjob”, the malware once installed on your machine hijacks the secure browser session that you are using to view your bank account, nests itself in the browser and waits until you have made a secure connection with the banks website to attack. By hijacking this session, the malware keeps the session open and can edit the pages so it can display fake versions of what looks like your account while accessing your information and even using you bank account without your knowledge in the background.

 

There are steps you can take though to prevent this new strain of viral software from infecting your machine :

  • Update your anti-virus or renew old versions (Norton, AVG, McAfee, Sophos)
  • Install all the latest Windows Updates and Service Packs for your version of Windows
  • Update Java, Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player (these can sometimes be used as a backdoor for viruses and malware on older versions)

 

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Category : Articles
1
Mar

Backing up your e-mail: preventing loss of vital information

Posted by Comments Off on Backing up your e-mail: preventing loss of vital information

So last night, 0.08% of Google customer’s e-mail accounts got wiped. Not a large figure, although considering that Google hosts over 90 million e-mail addresses (source:https://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm) for personal and business use, this is something that has affected thousands of people:

https://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/365563/thousands-see-gmail-accounts-wiped

For this reason, we’ve decided to do this weeks blog on backing up your e-mail account. A lot of people might be daunted by this task but its actually easy enough.

Firstly, log in to your Gmail account as normal. Once logged in, continue to Settings as illustrated below:

Once in Settings, follow the steps on the picture below (click to enlarge):

1: Click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP

2: Click Enable IMAP

3:Click Configuration Instructions (under configure your e-mail client). This will bring you to a website that will give you instructions to configure the mail client you are using.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Category : Articles