[MikesWhatsNews] MWN #624

MikesWhatsNews, 6, 01, 2003
in today's issue #624
Trojans and massive infections
 Google Web Search Features 
Zoo Tycoon(TM) Marine Mania(TM) Trial Version
Trend Micro's free online virus scanner
Task List Programs
Copying Text In PDF Documents
CCC    PrcView 
        Turn off custom menus
____________________________________________________________
NOTE: Any time you see the "  ++ ",  it means there is more 
          of the article, or story, on the linked site. Mike
____________________________________________________________

There is a complete archive of past MikesWhatsNews newsletters 
available to members on the Yahoo page, it is searchable by word or
issue #. Here is the address direct to the messages;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MikesWhatsNews/messages
and; http://www.freelists.org/archives/mikeswhatsnews/
____________________________________________________________

            - Trojans and massive infections -
 Oxygen3 24h-365d, by Panda Software (http://www.pandasoftware.com)

"Too much light, like too much darkness, 
                 stops you from seeing."
           Octavio Paz (1914); Mexican writer.

Madrid, December 26, 2002 - The use of Trojans and backdoors is usually
related to individual attacks aimed at a particular target, unlike, for
example, Internet worms which normally infect massively and
indiscriminately. However, over the last few months, there has been a
tendency to use Trojans to cause the large scale infections.

Traditionally, Trojans with backdoor functionalities have been used for
individual attacks. Some of the most widely used, as, for example
Trojan.BackOrifice, required that the attacker sent the Trojan to the victim
and tricked them into running it so that the program was installed on their
system. The Trojan then opened a TCP port which could allow the attacker to
gain control of the computer just by knowing its IP address.

Lately, however, Trojans are being used in massive infections. Malicious
codes are created that share features of worms and Trojans. An example of
this is the worm W32/Bugbear, which can spread massively via e-mail and
contains the Trojan PSW.BugBear, which allows attackers to gain control of
systems.

Another technique for massive infection consists of attacking download
servers so that the original patches and updates are replaced with copies
that contain a Trojan. As a result, the computer of the user that downloads
the false patch will become infected by the Trojan. Unix systems have
suffered the latest, most serious attacks of this kind, which have affected
Sendmail, OpenSSH and tcpdump/libpcap distributions.

In order to avoid infections by Trojans, we recommend that you study
checksums and digital signatures carefully every time you download packets,
a very usual practice with Unix systems. Of course, the usage of a good
antivirus properly updated will protect you from any known Trojan. If the
solution against malicious codes also includes a personal firewall, like the
new Panda Antivirus Platinum 7.0, it will offer you additional proactive
protection to prevent Trojans from opening a backdoor in your system.
From; PM Oxygen3 24h-365d 
____________________________________________________________

 Google Web Search Features 
http://www.google.com/help/features.html#wp
In addition to providing easy access to more than 3 billion web pages,
Google has many special features to help you to find exactly what you're
looking for. Click the title of a specific feature to learn more about it.

  ? Cached Links View a snapshot of each page as it looked when we indexed
it. 
 
  ? Dictionary Definitions View a dictionary definition for any or all
parts of your query.
 
  ? File Types Search for non-HTML file formats including PDF documents
and others.
 
  ? I'm Feeling Lucky Bypass our results and go to the first web page
returned for your query. 
 
  ? News Headlines Enhances your search results with the latest related
news stories.
 
  ? PhoneBook Look up U.S. street address and phone number information.
 
  ? Similar Pages Display pages that are related to a particular result.
 
  ? Site Search Restrict your search to a specific site.
 
  ? Spell Checker Offers alternative spelling for queries.
 
  ? Stock Quotes Use Google to get stock and mutual fund information.
 
  ? Street Maps Use Google to find U.S. street maps.
 
  ? Web Page Translation  Provides English speakers access to a variety of
non-English web pages.
 
  ? Who links to you? Find all the pages that point to a specific URL. 
 
++
____________________________________________________________

Zoo Tycoon(TM) Marine Mania(TM) Trial Version
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=53546
You'll make a huge splash by adding killer whales, manta rays, 
and other exciting marine animals to your existing zoo. 
Have a whale of a time as you combine land, marine, and prehistoric
animals to build the wildest, most exciting zoo ever! 
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone.
____________________________________________________________

Trend Micro's free online virus scanner
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
In order to better serve our customers, we ask HouseCall users to 
register before scanning their computer. By registering, you will 
receive virus alerts from our team of Virus Doctors. You will be 
able to unsubscribe when you receive your first email. You can also 
scan without registering. 
Thanks to; Thanks to; Ross<BR>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Computer_Help_and_Discussion
____________________________________________________________

TASK LIST PROGRAMS  
 http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
Through our support service we often come across problems caused primarily
by programs running in the 
background, programs which in most cases start at the same time as Windows.
Sometimes these 
programs are useful and need to be there;  quite often, however, they are
not needed, and in too many 
cases they cause severe problems.

The pages below are from our in-house database and provide guidance on the
usefulness or not of these 
programs, and removal procedures when recommended.

In Windows 95/98/ME you can bring up the Task List by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del.
 In Windows 
NT4/2000/XP you bring up the Task List by right-clicking on the Task Bar and
choosing "Task Manager"
 ++
____________________________________________________________

Copying Text In PDF Documents

When you open the newsletter in Acrobat's reader, there's a button 
on the Reader's toolbar that looks like a T (or you can just hit the 
letter V on your keyboard)....then you will have the I beam and you 
can just drag across the text you want to select, then right click 
and copy it (unless the pdf has disabled copying)

Thanks to; Linda ~ Publisher ~ ABC ~ All 'Bout Computers
Owner ~ Linda's Computer Stop http://personal-computer-tutor.com
FREE MS Office eBook Tutorial
http://personal-computer-tutor.com/library.htm
____________________________________________________________

Christies Computer Corner thanks to Christy;
<1stPicksoftware-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe>

PrcView
http://www.teamcti.com/pview/prcview.htm
Freeware

PrcView is a process viewer utility that displays detailed
information about processes running under Windows. For each
process it displays memory, threads and module usage. For each
DLL  it shows full path and version information. PrcView comes
with a command line version that allows you to write scripts to
check if a process is running, kill it, etc. 
~~~~~~~

Turn off custom menus 

Starting with Office 2000, Microsoft decided that users only
wanted to see the menu items they use most frequently. While this
sounds reasonable, it makes finding items more difficult when you
do need them.
To turn off custom menus in Word, and the other Office products,
right click on the toolbar and choose customize. Choose Options
in the dialog box and make sure that the box "Menus show recently
used commands first" is not checked. 

Was this forwarded to you ?
Get your own subscription here:
<1stpickPCtips-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe>
____________________________________________________________



Antivirus software is a good choice to scan your system for possible viruses, 
however no virus scanner is 100% effective as manufactures cannot keep up with 
the rapid change of viruses that happens daily.
Be sure to update yours regularly.
http://www.hackfix.org/software/antivirus.html
______________________________________________________________________
Please feel free, to offer constructive criticism, as that will help me keep it 
interesting.
I also welcome any submissions about new products, web pages, or articles of 
interest.

All submissions posted in MWN will be given proper credit.
"MikesWhatsNews" believes in giving credit where credit is due but at times 
deadlines and information that is very important to readers we accidentally 
misspost an item.

If you believe something to be miscredited, or you know the author of one of 
the articles which we have posted as 'unknown', please do let us know so we can 
correct the information where applicable.

Many times in a article you may see a click here for more information, or to go 
to a link, these often will not work, as the original information, was taken 
from a page with HTML links. This is when you will want to go to the webpage 
indicated in the article, ++ ,for 'the rest of the story'
***MfM*** indicates that I am adding my own information to a particular    
article.
                         `~*~*~*~*~*~`
Mike ~It's a good day if I learned something new.
You can read a sample of my newsletter on my web page http://www.mwn.ca
My virus pages ~ http://virusinfo.hackfix.org 
mytech@xxxxxxxxxxx
~*~*~*~*~
Was this forwarded to you? Want to subscribe? Send an email
to mikeswhatsnews-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe.

For a complete list of email commands for our list send an email 
to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with a subject line of "info mikeswhatsnews" without 
the quotes.

If you wish to unsubscribe from our list send an email to 
mikeswhatsnews-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=unsubscribe

To contact the list moderators send an email to 
mikeswhatsnews-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
                              ~*~*~*~*~

Other related posts: