Posts Tagged ‘virus’

Data Recovery After a Virus Attack

Thursday, January 20th, 2011 by jrajani

Computer viruses can cause devastating damage to your computer’s hard drive. It is a scary thought that every computer user is susceptible to a virus attack that could wipe out all data from their computer. We live in a society with such advanced technology, that continues to grow every year, month, and even week, that there are now many viruses that even geeks don’t always detect until it’s too late.

 Luckily, there are many wonderful anti-virus programs out there that will help keep the viruses off of your computer. However, even anti-virus programs are not 100% effective. Just last month I was talking to a software developer who told me his computer was acting really strange for several days. He hadn’t done anything out of the norm that should have cause the change in behavior, so he started running anti-virus and searching files and programs for a virus attack. It took him a couple of frustrating days to finally realize that the virus had attached itself to one of his regularly used programs and actually hidden itself as part of the vital functions!

Recovering data loss after a virus attack is almost always 100%!

Not to worry though, if you have been the victim of an unwarranted virus attack. ADR Data Recovery is here to repair damaged and deleted partitions and corrupt operating system files that are preventing you to access your data. Believe it or not, virus recovery is actually one of the easiest recoveries possible, because the hard drive has not been damaged physically. All of your files are still there and accessible, but they do need a little professional help to fix the damaged parts, before they can be seen.

Steps to take when you have experienced Virus Data Loss:

  • Turn off your computer-do not use anymore
  • Do not attempt any type of self-recovery, or take it to a computer repair shop.
    By this point, your hard drive needs the equivalent to a heart specialist to repair it. That is where data recovery comes in.
  • We do not recommend DIY software recovery.
    They can be helpful in some cases, but more often than not, you are actually putting your data at further risk for complete recovery. This is because hard drives are delicate internally, and many times recovery is a one shot deal. If a program does not complete the recovery successfully, you are greatly limiting your chances of a professional completing the job.

We perform free evaluations on all drives suffering data loss from virus attacks. Once the evaluation is completed, we will provide you with an exact cost to complete the recovery. You will not be charged more than the price we quoted you while the drive is in our hands. This means, there is absolutely no risk to find out if your data is recoverable and what the price will be.

If you can not afford recovery at the moment, we have a couple of options for you.

  1. We have a payment plan, with several options to suit your needs and what you can pay per month.
  2. Because recovering data can be a one shot deal, we do recommend recovery at the time of evaluation. However, if you can not afford it now, but will want the data eventually, you should consider letting us recover it. After the recovery, we will put the data onto a new drive and store it in a secured facility, until you are able to make the payment. After that, we will send your data and new drive to you.

This content piece was originally published on the ADR Data Recovery Blog.

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USB Devices Continue to Pose a Threat to the Enterprise

Thursday, August 26th, 2010 by jrajani

25% of new worms have been designed to spread through USB storage devices once connected to a computer according to a new report from PandaLabs. Malware can be stored on devices such as cell phones, external hard drives, DVDs, flash memory and MP3/4 players. Survey responses from 10,470 companies in 20 countries shows that SMBs with 1,000 computers or more admit to having been infected by malware at somepoint and 27% of those confirmed that the source of the infection was a USB device.

According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, “At present, much of the malware in circulation has been designed to distribute through these devices. Not only does it copy itself to these gadgets, but it also runs automatically when a USB device is connected to a computer, infecting the system practically transparently to the user. This has been the case with many infections we have seen this year, such as the distribution of the Mariposa and Vodafone botnets.”

Email continues to be the number one source of malware, however, attacking IT infrastructure through USB device is becoming a popular trend among blackhat hackers. The basic process for implementation of a worm or virus through USB involves creating custom commands in the autorun.inf file which is found in the root of a USB device which can then load the virus automatically once the device is connected to the pc.

The Panda USB Vaccine product can be used by IT administrators to disable the autorun feature on computers and the USB device to prevent dangerous payloads from getting onto the infrastructure and causing damage to precious corporate data.

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Two Trojans that Can Harm Your PC

Saturday, July 31st, 2010 by jrajani

trojan

Phising trojans are now designed to prevent a reboot or completely crash the victims PC after data theft is complete. These trojans can now trigger a phony antivirus program which can trick the user into giving away their credit card number in exchange for a serial number that is never delivered.

“In some cases, the crashes were the result of poor coding by the malware author,” says Andrew Brandt, Lead Threat Research Analyst at Webroot. “But increasingly, it appears that this behavior is deliberate and occurs without warning. This unfortunate trend appears to be getting worse, leaving a raft of perplexed, angry victims unable to use their computers in the wake of an infection.”

Here are two recent examples of trojans that have wreaked havoc on consumer PCs:

Zbot.

Many phishing Trojans turn an infected computer into part of a botnet, a zombie army of Internet-connected computers that are
controlled remotely and unbeknownst to their owners. Botnets can send spam, spread malware to other computers, engage in distributed denial-of-service attacks, serve as covert file storage areas and a host of other undesirable activities. It is speculated that new variants of Zbot may deliberately disable the PC as a distraction, making it more difficult for the victim to become aware that credentials were stolen and used until it is too late.

Tacticlol.

This phishing Trojan arrives in email inboxes disguised as either UPS shipping information or some sort of Facebook account update. It typically downloads at least one rogue antivirus program when a victim unzips the attachment and runs the file. One of the rogues used in a recent infection is called XP Defender. The rogue itself disables common browsers, Outlook Express and other
Internet-enabled applications, among other things.

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Do Social Networks Pose a Security Threat to Corporate IT?

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 by jrajani

A recent Trend Micro 2010 corporate end user survey included 1,600 participants in the U.S., Germany, U.K. and Japan determined that internationally, social networking has risen in the workplace from 19 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010. The highest increased in social networking in the corporate IT environment was found in the U.K. with a 6% increased and Germany with a 10% growth in corporate users utilizing social networking while at work.

UK and Germany lead in workplace social networking access

Additionally, the survey found that users using a laptop were more likely to visit social networking sites then desktop users. The global adoption rate for social networking on a laptop increased 8% from 2008 to 2010. In the United States the level of access to a social network from a laptop grew 10%.

In 2010, 29 percent of laptop users versus 18 percent of desktop users surveyed said they frequented these sites at work. In Japan for 2010, small-company employees were much more likely than those from large companies to visit social networking sites – 21 percent from small companies compared to 7 percent from large companies.

Laptop users who access the internet outside of the company network are most likely to share corporate confidential information via instant messenger, web mail and social media applications than those who are always connected to a company network. This activity is extremely significant in Germany and Japan.

Sharing confidential information over social applications

As social networks become an increasingly reliant tool for communication among corporate workers they become targets for malware and trojan viruses. For example, KOOBFACE, the “largest Web 2.0 botnet,” controls and commands around 51,000 compromised machines globally. The scale of the threat from a social networking virus is very real and organizations must formulate security policies which allow their employees to access social networks responsibly. Simply banning the use of all social media in the office will lead to employees formulating strategies and devising work arounds which could expose the enterprise IT infrastructure to increased security threats.

David Perry, the global director of education at Trend micro says, “Social networking is an extremely important tool both for personal and professional-relationship building. And while most companies’ concerns around social networking in the office center around the loss of employee productivity, what they may not realize is that many social networking sites are built on interactive technologies that give cybercriminals endless opportunities to exploit end users, steal personal identities or business data, and corrupt corporate networks with malware.” He added, “With the right security solutions and social networking guidelines implemented, there is no reason why companies who choose to allow their employees the option of visiting these sites should be overly exposed to these risks.”

Now more then ever the enterprise IT department has to collaborate with employees to ensure they are aware of potential threats looming on social networking sites and prepare them to use the tools in a productive and safe manner.

Has your infrastructure been effected by a security threat from a social network? Leave your comments below.

Source: Trend Micro

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