La Piazza Blog - PANDA SECURITY SUPPORT

Posted by Ana

Just for fun!! Tech Support for Dad by Tom Smith

It had been a long ass work week, it had been a long ass day, I was hoping I could just go home and sleep the night away, But the message waiting for me was the worst a man could know: “Hi there, son, could you call me back? My computer’s running slow.” There are bamboo shoots and water torture, German blondes named Gert, Films with Adam Sandler and lots of other things that hurt, But it’s not my job or girlfriend that finally drove me mad, I’ve been on the phone long-distance doing tech support for Dad.

It took seven tries to get him to the Start menu and Run, He had Bonzi Buddy, Comet Cursor, and Quicktime 3.1. I said I’d try to find out if his firewall had been breached, Turned out he’d bought this Compaq before Clinton was impeached.

Service packs and driver updates, he needs every single thing, And he gets online by dial-up, so he might be done by spring, But he trusts that I can fix it, his beloved college grad, Never mind it was in Russian, now I’m tech support for Dad.

After thirty seven reboots and a dozen clean installs My room is trashed, my plants are dead, and there’s green slime on the walls But his ‘puter’s running smoothly, I can finally get away, When he says, “Oh, son, one more thing — how do you sell stuff on eBay?”

Here’s a pox on all programmers puttin’ crapware on your shelves, May you have to teach your programs to your dads by phone yourselves, There’s the Normandy Invasion, and the Siege of Leningrad, And the special hell filling in for Dell as tech support for Dad.

Now I’ve built him a computer, nothing can get in or out, The firewall’s adamantium, and the drives are sealed with grout, And if this one starts to run slow, well, that’s just too damn bad, ‘Cause I’d rather shave my eyeballs than do tech support for Dad. Tech support for Dad. Tech support for Dad. 

Hang on, son — your mom wants to know how to set up a web page.”

Tech Support Managers from Spain, USA, UK, Germany, Sweden, Benelux and France, together with the Support Managers in HQ and myself. They are the ones that make it happen everyday!! I’m so proud! Thank you guys, you are great!!!

Posteb by Ana, 05 August, 2009

Shopping Online provides a convenient way of making purchases at any time of day, 365 days a year, from a wide range of retailers offering more choice than ever before.

Analysts predict that each year more people than ever will use the Internet for shopping. But they also warn that fraud is on the rise and Internet users need to become better educated on how to protect themselves. Credit cards have helped fuel the Internet economy because they provide security, convenience and reliability for online purchases.

I am a great lover of e-shopping myself! I’ve bought almost anything you can imagine, from a Swiss watch to the tickets of the last Bruce Springsteen’s concert in Bilbao which, by the way, was absolutely great!!! But you must be careful and follow some easy rules.

Here you are some useful tips to take into account:

1. Know who you are dealing with. Conduct business with those companies that you know and that are reputable. Get the seller’s landline phone number and postal address. Remember, you will be sharing your credit card number, your name and possibly your address and phone number. 
2. Check security. Look for the picture of the unbroken key or closed lock in your browser window. Either one indicates that the security is operative. A broken key or any open lock indicates it is not. Look to see if the web address on the page that asks for your credit card information begins with “https:” instead of “http.” Some web sites use the words “Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)” or a pop up box that says you are entering a secure area. These security protections do not work in e-mail. So, make sure you send personal and payment information in a secure web transaction.
3. You should never be asked to tell anyone your card’s PIN number - even if they claim to be from your bank or the police and never use your Social Security Number or PIN as a password. Treat online marketers as you would telephone marketers or anyone else you don’t know. If the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so pass it up. 
4. Only provide your payment card number when you are making a purchase and if you have initiated the negotiation and review your statement immediately and thoroughly. Whether you get your statement by postal mail or online, review each transaction carefully to make sure there are none that you did not make and keep records of what you order.

Now, why not sharing with me some of your e-shopping experiences? Go ahead, I’m really willing to listen to them!

Posted by Ana

Please, don’t feel offended! An Irish friend just sent it to me and I thought it was a funny way to say bye bye, I’m going on holiday! See you back in a few days! In the meantime, keep enjoying our forum. 

Posted by Ana Jun 26, 2009

I’ve recently read an excellent post by Pedro Bustamante in the Panda Research blog that I found most useful. Hope you like it!

Here you are a brief summary of the post. For a deeper understanding and to download the vaccine, click here.

The AUTORUN.INF file is a configuration file that is normally located in the root directory of removable media and contains, among other things, a reference to the icon that will be shown associated to the removable drive or volume, a description of its content and also the possibility to define a program which should be executed automatically when the unit is mounted.  The problem is that this AUTORUN.INF file feature, widely critizised by the security community, is used by malware in order to spread by infecting as soon as a new drive is inserted in a computer.

The malware achieves this by copying a malicious executable in the drive and modifying the AUTORUN.INF file so that Windows opens the malicious file silently as soon as the drive is mounted. The most recent examples of this are the W32/Sality, W32/Virutas and also the W32/Conficker worm which, in addition to spreading via a vulnerability and network shares, also spreads via USB drives.

Due to the large amount of malware-related problems associated with Microsoft AutoRun we have created a free utility for our user community called Panda USB Vaccine.

Computer Vaccination

The free Panda USB Vaccine allows users to vaccinate their PCs in order to disable AutoRun completely so that no program from any USB/CD/DVD drive (regardless of whether they have been previously vaccinated or not) can auto-execute. This is a really helpful feature as there is no user friendly and easy way of completely disabling AutoRun on a Windows PC.