Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

All posts by jrivett


Internet, Malware, Privacy, Security

NSA-Themed Ransomware

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Any time something catches the attention of huge numbers of Internet users, there’s a possibility that nefarious persons will try to make money from it. A famous actor has their phone hacked, a celebrity dies, or a whistleblower exposes the extent of NSA snooping, and the spam in your inbox suddenly has a new flavour… or worse.

Zscaler and other security researchers are reporting an increase in ransomware threats that are built on recent revelations of the NSA’s activities.

Ransomware works like this: you visit a web site that has been compromised and is serving malicious code. The code infects your computer, after which it becomes impossible to use your computer. Instead you see a full page threat from what appears to be the NSA, claiming that you have participated in unlawful activities (usually downloading copyrighted materials). You are told that you can pay up or face legal action.

If this happens to you, do not follow any of the instructions shown by the ransomware. Hire a professional to remove the malware or reinstall your operating system.

How to determine whether a warning is fake and ransomware:

  • No legitimate agency would use this tactic (at least not yet).
  • Awkward language and spelling mistakes in the warning.
  • Payment methods use third-party services.

Techdirt has additional details.

Adobe, Flash, Internet Explorer, Patches and updates

Another bug fix for ActiveX version of Flash

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Adobe released new versions of Flash for all platforms on September 10. A few days later, they released a new ActiveX version (11.8.800.174) to fix some bugs that were discovered in the previous release.

Today, Adobe released yet another ActiveX version of Flash to fix one more bug. The new version (11.8.800.175) is now available, but only via the Flash auto-updater.

For some unknown reason, Adobe has not posted the new version to the main download page, so anyone trying to update Flash in Internet Explorer by visiting this page will have no luck. According to Adobe, they hope to have version 11.8.800.175 available on the main download page on September 24.

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Windows 8.1 same price as Windows 8

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Microsoft has announced pricing and package information for Windows 8.1. The update was previously confirmed as being free for anyone already running Windows 8, but when purchased new, 8.1 will cost the same as Windows 8: $119.99 for the basic package, and $199.99 for the Pro version.

Unfortunately, while 8.1 will be available as a full package (unlike Windows 8, which was only sold as an upgrade), it will not be available in a form that will allow upgrades from Windows 7. So if you are considering upgrading from Windows 7 to 8.1, it will be a two step process: 7 to 8, then 8 to 8.1.

Ars Technica has more.

Microsoft, Patches and updates

Microsoft updates declining in quality?

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Given that the vast majority of Windows systems are configured to download and install updates automatically, it’s critical for Microsoft to ensure the quality of those updates. One seriously bad update could cripple millions of Windows computers.

Issues with several of the September 2013 updates, along with similar problems in recent months, are causing concern in the industry. ComputerWorld has an informative look at the recent problems.

Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security, Windows

Internet Explorer flaw being actively exploited

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they are looking into reports of a security vulnerability potentially affecting all versions of Internet Explorer. Apparently an exploit for this flaw exists and has been observed in the wild, targeting IE 8 and 9.

If you are using one of the affected browsers (likely all versions of Internet Explorer) and you visit a web site that has been compromised with malicious code that targets this vulnerability, an attacker might be able to execute arbitrary code on your computer remotely.

Microsoft issued security advisory 2887505 to warn and provide guidance to users. Workarounds include installing EMET and raising the security settings related to running ActiveX within the browser.

No patch for this vulnerability has yet been published by Microsoft, although there is a temporary ‘Fix-It’ solution available from Microsoft.

Update 2013Sep21: The SANS Internet Storm Center has been monitoring this issue. They have confirmed seeing related exploits in the wild. They also confirmed that Microsoft’s ‘Fix-It’ solution prevents these exploits, but only in 32-bit versions of Internet Explorer.

Update 2013Oct03: The developers of the controversial hacking toolkit Metasploit have released a module that exploits this IE vulnerability. This is likely to spur an increase in the number of attacks based on this vulnerability. Microsoft has yet to release a proper fix. If you use Internet Explorer for anything other than Windows Update, you should consider applying the temporary Fix-It solution or installing EMET (see above).

Firefox, Patches and updates

Firefox 24 released

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Most of the world considers a version increase from 23.x to 24 to represent a major release, with many new and changed features. Not so with Firefox. In the interest of marketing, Mozilla has tossed out anything resembling industry standards for naming Firefox’s version numbers.

Version 24 of Firefox fixes a few minor bugs and adds some very minor enhancements: nothing worthy of a major version increase. Version 24 does include several security fixes, which can be seen on the Security Advisories page.

I suppose it almost goes without saying by now, but the release notes and related announcements for Firefox still leave a lot to be desired (see my post about Firefox 23 for details).