Security

CAPS Lock – don’t forget about it!

I just thought I would highlight this old chestnut. As long as I’ve been in this industry, the caps lock has been a problem. We have to access resources on a network outside of our own. In order to do that, our users have a VPN client, which uses it’s own user name and password.

One of our users claimed he was locked out of the VPN. Following the normal procedure, he called that network’s help desk to have his password reset. After much back and forth, he called me over and had me talk to their help desk. I entered his password a couple of times, and sure enough, it wouldn’t allow the log in. We verified that the password was correct.

As I was entering the password a third time, I noticed that our user had his caps lock key on. After turning that off, he was able to log in. Simple for sure, but it’s those simple things we sometimes forget to check!

Trojan Dropper in Usenet Binary File

Interesting. I’ve been downloading binary files from the Usenet for about fifteen years. The other day, I was downloading what represented itself to be a computer manual. It was a file in .zip format, not that unusual. After downloading it I unzipped the file and found a file in the windows .chm format which was supposed to be the manual. Again, not unusual.

When I clicked the .chm file to open it, much to my surprise, my anti-virus program fired off and alerted me to the fact that the file was infected with the Trojan horse PSW.Banker3.XBI – This particular Trojan dropper is used to capture passwords.

Needless to say, it shows how important it is to practice safe computing, and it’s only getting worse. That’s the first infected .chm file I’ve run across in downloading files during the last fifteen years.

Security

CAPS Lock – don’t forget about it!

Trojan Dropper in Usenet Binary File

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