How to Remove "Security Protection"

 

How to Remove "Security Protection" (Uninstall Guide)

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Security Protection is a fake antivirus program that pretends to scan your computer for security problems. This malware, often called scareware, fabricates a list of security threats it has found on your machine. It also generates false or misleading security alerts to make you think that your computer is infected with malicious software. To remove the non-existent infections and protect your self from malware, you will be prompted to buy the "full-version" of Security Protection designed to protect. That's one of the most common ways for cybercriminals to steal money from people. It's very important to remember that by purchasing such rogue security software you are submitting your credit card details and personal information to cyber-crooks. As a result, you may become a victim of credit card scam or even identity theft. So, if you thought that Security Protection was a legitimate software and have already purchased it, please contact your credit card company and dispute the charges. To remove Security Protection from your computer, please follow the removal instructions below.

Security Protection is distributed though the use of fake online scanners; that's probably the most popular malware distribution mechanism. For example, if you search for something on Google and then click on a search result or image you are taken to a webpage which serves up a fake online scanner. It claims to detect a large number of nonexistent threats and urges you to install malware removal tool or anti-virus software. Once downloaded to your computer, Security Protection runs a fake system scan. It displays fake security alerts, pop-up windows and notifications like very one or two minutes saying that your computer is infected.
Fake Security Protection alerts:

For detailed instructions on how to remove this malware, go to: http://deletemalware.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-remove-security-protection.html

How to Remove "Security Protection" (Uninstall Guide)

Password Protect Your Wireless Router!

Easy instructions for password protecting your wireless router: http://www.ehow.com/how_5043404_password-protect-wireless-router.html

Wireless router hijacked for child pornography

Sarasota attorney Malcolm Riddell details the dangers of not having a password for your router. The use of the router in his condo was stolen by a boat captain in Sarasota Bay to download 10 million files of child pornography.

By Todd Ruger

SARASOTA - Malcolm Riddell awoke at 6 a.m. one day last year to some of the most heart-sinking words a homeowner can hear: "FBI, open up."

WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR ROUTER

There are simple steps to take to help protect your home wireless network:
Change default pass- words and usernames
Wireless routers come with default passwords and usernames that are well-known to hackers, who can get access if you do not change them upon installation.
Change the default SSID
Routers have a network name, called the SSID, which is usually a default from the manufacturers. A default SSID can be a sign of a poorly configured network and invite hackers to attack it.
Position the router or access point safely
Try to position wireless routers near the center of the home rather than near windows to minimize leakage outside and to other homes.
SOURCE: About.com

When he did, a dozen armed FBI agents swarmed through the lawyer's lofty Palm Avenue condo in downtown Sarasota. They held him against the wall, separated him from his wife and then questioned him on the porch looking down 12 stories onto Sarasota Bay.

Riddell says he was not nervous or scared, just clueless. The FBI agents searched through his computer equipment for a while, then made it all clear: child pornography images were flowing through Riddell's wireless Internet connection.

Riddell's wireless router put him in the middle of a child pornography investigation that would eventually lead to a man who admitted possessing and sending 10 million illegal files from a boat in the Sarasota marina below Riddell's windows.

"How in the world could that be?" Riddell said. "We started discussing the possibilities."

The agents cleared Riddell that June morning of any suspicion. But for a short time, Riddell faced accusations of a felony crime that can lead to decades behind bars and a lifetime designation as a sex offender.

As the FBI searched his home, Riddell learned first-hand the dangers of leaving a home wireless router unprotected without a password, and open for others to jump on and use his Internet service.

Riddell, 58, considers himself tech-savvy, and he knew better than to leave the router unprotected, since all the online activity of strangers appears to be coming from his account.

A router is a device that allows for a wireless connection to the Internet. If not secured with a password, that connection can be used by anyone with a computer within range of the router's signal.

But on the 12th floor, in a building where the average resident is of retirement age, Riddell said he ignored the risks when he set it up.

"You're thinking, what's the point? I thought it was only 400 feet was the range," said Riddell, a Harvard University business school graduate whose fluency in Mandarin helped him forge business relationships in Asia.

But the dangers became clear when the FBI convinced Riddell to let them put a tracer on his router to see if they could catch the person using the screen names "Hardalone243," "Hardpedo" and "Hard_foryou68."

"At that point there were six people on my router," Riddell said. "We didn't know which one was the guy."

The FBI had been tracking "Hardalone243" since September 2009, but needed help identifying him, according to a special agent's affidavit filed in federal court.

Agents say they eventually tracked the images back to Mark Brown, 52, who was arrested Sept. 30 on a boat, "Aloan at Last."

Brown worked as the captain of the yacht, moored in the Sarasota Marina within view of Riddell's building. FBI agents say Brown used several unsecured, non-password protected wireless networks near the boat.

In interviews after his arrest, Brown told investigators he had more than 10 million files of child pornography photos and videos on his computer. Brown remains in custody while awaiting trial on a federal child pornography charge that could result in decades in prison if convicted.

Justin McClellan, a technician for We Fix Computers in Sarasota, said awareness of the need for security on wireless routers is growing. The technicians there see fewer unsecured routers during their calls for service.

Many Internet service providers will set up protections on the routers when they install them, and the routers from the store have better security built in, McClellan said.

And securing a wireless router with a password is also as simple as following step-by-step programs that come with those routers.

"The biggest security risk on routers if someone were to buy their own is they all come with a default username and password, and those are really well known," McClellan said.

Riddell came to a conclusion after the early-morning raid on his condo. "I'm going to encrypt this thing immediately," he said.

Password Protect Your Wireless Router or Risk Child Porn Charges - Miami News - Riptide 2.0

Protect Yourself from Your Smartphone

The article below from CNN explains the risk to your personal and financial information if your cellphone is lost or stolen.  Depending on your phone, it is not too difficult to protect yourself.  First, install remote wipe software (it allows you to wipe all data from your phone even if you’re not in possession of it).  Second, keep your data backed up, otherwise you will be hesitant to wipe your phone’s data until you’re 100% sure you’re not getting it back.  Backing up to your microSD or SIM card is not enough, a thief can restore your data from the memory card; to be effective, the remote data wipe has to wipe your data card also.

Here is some information of the software you need depending on your phone:

Android:  In the event of a phone wipe, the apps should reinstall from the market.  I suggest using appbrain.com to have a handy list of your apps.  All email and contact information will sync back on your phone OTA (Over the Air) when you sign back into your phone.  However, unless you do a real backup, your settings will be lost.  To do a thorough backup, you have to root the phone.  Then get Titanium backup, which backs your phone up to your microSD card.  If you buy Titanium, it allows you to back your phone up to your Dropbox (see Wednesday’s ToTD) account.  In addition, once your phone is rooted, you can install ROM Manager and do complete backup images of your phone that you can/should save to your PC, and restore your entire phone in minutes looking exactly as it did when you backed it up.  There are many apps in the Market that will do a remote lock and wipe, for example: Lookout, Norton and Webroot.

iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPodTouch):  Backup with iTunes software.  The MobileMe service will allow you to find your device (using the built-in GPS) and to remote wipe the data if you wish.  It costs $99/year to use its other features, but Find My Phone is free for iOS 4.2+. See Inside iPhone's Remote Wipe feature

Blackberry:  How To: Backup And Restore Your BlackBerry.  Blackberry Protect will both backup your data wirelessly and wipe it if needed.  Read about Blackberry Protect here.

Windows Mobile:  The upcoming update to Windows Mobile will allow Zune to backup and restore the phone.  See article here.  Read this guide for remote wipe: How to remote wipe Windows Phone 7. 

 

Your most dangerous possession? Your smartphone

By Blake Ellis, staff reporterJanuary 11, 2011: 10:44 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Forget what's in your wallet -- beware your smartphone. It's becoming one of your most dangerous possessions.

If your phone was stolen a few years ago, the thief could make prank calls and read your text messages. Today, that person can destroy your social life -- you said what on Facebook?! -- and wreak havoc on your finances.

Now that smartphones double as wallets and bank accounts -- allowing users to manage their finances, transfer money, make payments, deposit checks and swipe their phones as credit cards -- they are very lucrative scores for thieves. And with 30% of phone subscribers owning iPhones, BlackBerrys and Droids, there are a lot of people at risk.

"It's crazy the amount of information on that phone -- it's like carrying a mini-computer around with you, except that more people know the settings on their computer than they do on their phones at this point," said Nikki Junker, social media coordinator and victim advisor at Identity Theft Resource Center. "People are incredibly at risk as technology improves."

And mobile banking use is expected to soar by nearly 55% next year, according to recent data compiled by TowerGroup, a research firm for the financial services industry.

They found that while 17.8 million consumers used mobile banking last year, 27.4 million are expected to use it this year, and 53.1 million consumers are forecast to adopt it by 2013.

"We're now past the early adopters and starting to hit the early maturity phase," said George Peabody, director of emerging technologies at Mercator Advisory Group. "So much of our screen time is shifting from PCs to smartphones, and the banks want to be there and know they have to be there."

Google to power your mobile wallet?

In addition, the volume of mobile payments -- buying boots via Zappos iPhone app, for example, or paying bills -- is expected to climb to $214 billion by 2015, up from $16 billion in 2010, according to Aite Group, another financial services research firm.

And pay-by-phone is only going to get easier as our devices come embedded with Near Field Communication (NFC) devices that allow you to pay for your morning latte by waving your phone at the cash register.

Companies like Blaze Mobile and Bling Nation already let you pay major retailers by swiping your smartphone thanks to a sticker adhered to the outside of your phone. Meanwhile, an app created by mFoundry brings up an image of your Starbuck prepaid card barcode and lets you scan it in lieu of a credit card.

"A lot of players are now pushing to drive the contactless technology," said Gwenn Bezard, research director at Aite Group specializing in banking and payments. "While you're not going to wake up tomorrow and everyone is going to be using mobile payments, it's going to grow over the next years -- and from a very low base."

0:00 /1:13Microsoft's latest smartphone move

Watch your phone! Security attacks on smartphones climbed to an all-time high in 2010, according to AdaptiveMobile, an international mobile security firm. Specifically, attacks on Google's Android smartphones quadrupled, and smartphones running Java-based applications jumped 45%.

"Bad guys are following where the people are going -- and people are going to smartphones," said Peabody. "As smartphone prices continue to decline and even more people get them, that's definitely the new place for bad guys to go."

While storing a password and keeping your phone locked is a good start, it's not going to protect you from professional fraudsters.

"Don't think that having an initial password set on your phone can stop people from getting in there," said Junker. "It's a very low level of protection -- you can even find 30-second videos on how to crack smartphone passwords on YouTube."

Web: More dangerous than ever

If you use mobile banking or make online payments frequently, you should invest in anti-virus protection and check with your bank about any security or identity theft protection features that you can enable.

Most smartphones also offer remote wipe-out services -- like MobileMe for the iPhone -- that automatically erase the information on your phone if you claim it as lost or stolen.

If you bank with your phone by accessing its website rather than opening an app, be extra careful when typing in the address. Some identity thefts create domains with the same address as major banks with two letters switched in hopes a consumer will accidentally land on the site and enter their username and password, said Junker.

And make sure you immediately log out of any bank apps or sites where your financial information is stored as soon as you're finished. While your identity is still at risk if your phone is stolen, this will buy you time to wipe out your information as soon as you realize it's gone.

Your smartphone could be your most dangerous possession - Jan. 11, 2011

Package Delivery Failure VIRUS

Be wary of emails from UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc, claiming they have a package for you that requires you to open a file attached to the email.  The attachment contains a virus.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/ups.asp

A common (and unfortunately, effective) technique for luring e-mail users into opening virus-launching attachments is to send messages that would appear to be relevant or important to many of their potential recipients. One way of accomplishing this feat is to make the virus-carrying messages appear to come from some type of business entity that many people commonly deal with, such as one of the large Internet auction or retailing sites, or a national bank (or other financial institution), or a major provider of a common service.

snopes.com: Package Delivery Failure Virus

FamilyShield - Block adult web content (FREE)

Use FamilyShield to quickly and easily secure your Internet

Block adult web content with our free family web filter

The single easiest way to keep your kids safe online — and away from adult websites — on your home Internet for free. No software to install.

• Every Internet-connected device in your home gets protected, instantly
  When you set up FamilyShield on your router, every device in your home that shares that Internet connection gets protected too. Your kids' Xbox, Wii, DS, iPad, and cell phone also get protected.
• This Web filter is always up-to-date
  We block a constantly updated (24/7) list of adult Web sites from ever reaching your computer.
• Comes with built-in security
  Take the guesswork out of identifying fraudulent sites. FamilyShield automatically blocks identity theft or "phishing" websites and virus-spreading malware websites.
• Makes your Internet faster and more reliable
  What's more, the service is powered by OpenDNS, a company trusted by millions around the world, including thousands of schools, businesses, and homes like yours to secure their Internet connections.

OpenDNS > FamilyShield