New ways to get infected by malware

Malware infections continue to be some of the most frequent requests for support over the past few months, and they are becoming more destructive. In the past, we found most issues to be in the annoying variety, generating extra popups and slowing down a users system. Now we see more destructive infections that cause users to lose connectivity, refuse Antivirus updates, and make a system virtually unusable. In the past, the primary infection source was e-mail. Links and attachments in the emails tricked users to sites that installed the bad stuff. As users got more savvy, we began to see these infections less frequently.

The recent rise in Social Networking sites like Linkedin and Facebook is giving these dregs of society a new avenue to spew their sludge to unsuspecting users. Check out this link on the latest infections using Linkedin:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2358

 
 

Recently I myself almost fell for one of these crooks. I got a message on Facebook that a friend from High School had posted a new video. Immediately it took me to a site saying I needed to download a new flash player. Luckily I happened to be surfing on my Mac, so I did not get bombed. Don't get me wrong, Macs are not immune to viruses, I just got lucky.

 
 

The bottom line is don't trust links unless you are ABSOLUTELY positive you know where they go (Run your mouse over the link to see the true site you are going to). Don't open email you don't expect and make sure your antivirus definitions are up to date. It's not safe for any of us out there anymore.