Most of the time these attacks are “zero-day” attacks, in which a company like Microsoft or Adobe is aware of a vulnerability but unable to release a patch to fix it before it is exploited. The most notable attack to date are those performed on Social Media sites like Facebook. A user posts a link to a Youtube video that you absolutely MUST see, but if you mouse-over the link it is some obscure site, like tinyurl. This is pretty common in today’s age as a way to make long urls manageable, but these hackers use them to hide their real target, an exploited site. This site could be anything after they have control of it, some mom and pop bread and breakfast’s site, anything at all that the hacker has exploited and loaded its code into. The code then takes advantage of zero-day exploits (often Adobe, as adobe products are riddled with them, the greatest thing you can do is make CERTAIN adobe downloader is uninstalled after installing adobe products)which infect the users computer.

The most common applications to date are fake anti-virus softwares. They mirror programs like AVG and make false reports of viruses, ask you to pay to have them removed, and some people will, often a grand total of 60 dollars. The ones I saw at the tech place where I worked would only take that 60 dollars, but they would do nothing to clean up your system of THEIR fake antivirus, leaving you to seek professional help. Another common attack is using a keylogger to get credit card numbers which they then charge pennies to, but by using an automated script they can remove tens of thouasands of dollars a day from infected systems. These penny charges go unnoticed and these hackers don’t need a steady paycheck, tell me one job on the market today with a potential payout of $10,000 a day on a good day? There isn’t one. They can also use your computer as part of a botnet, used to attack servers (google DDoS using a botnet) or to bruteforce passwords that would take too long to do with 1 computer.

But I would like to challenge you, because I do not believe you are nearly as protected as you think you are. Download and run Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware, run it and see how many programs it picks up. I have not seen one computer which does not pick up at least 1 virus and 100′s of tracking cookies.

Also, if you were truly a wise and knowledgeable power user you would understand that Mozilla is not free of faults, that addons both slow it down and are insecure, and realize that just because nobody says there is a virus in a torrent does not mean it is clean. A good virus wouldn’t make itself known, its purpose is to go by unnoticed, and often times torrents I download will have trojans. I’ll install the software, patch it with the activator, and then use my antivirus to clean up the trojan. Win-Win.

Also, if you have any programs in your msconfig startup that are 6-7 random letters and numbers, congratulations, you have a virus you didn’t know you had. Better look into that.

If you don’t♦ want to pay for a commercial product don’t. In fact don’t even bother with the freeware. Instead Use Mozilla, utilize add-ons like Taco and ad block plus, avoid torrents that haven’t been tested, and finally don’t be a perv and hunt after pr0n on sketchy sites.

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2010/12/31/update-mcafee-and-the-ghost-license-issue/#ixzz1AcGd65uI

And asked how, if, as their own terms state, uninstalling the software terminates the license, they managed to continue charging you for a product you were no longer licensed to use. I strongly suspect that if you had uninstalled it from one machine and installed it on another, you would have been contacted to ask if you were transferring the license.

And if I were you, I’d email back and ask the question about how ‘normal’ (not that you’re not) people can get their money back like you have. Her response to that was to say that they have improved their practices but that doesn’t address those customers who they have already robbed.

Before everybody starts commenting about the smaller market share being not worth the development, the fact that it doesn’t automatically make things secure, and the sky is falling, let me just make a few pre-emptive counterpoints here:

1. Contrary to what most idiots in the IT field will try to tell you, while I don’t believe any computer is completely secure, Macs are more secure than Windows ever was due to the modular nature of it’s UNIX heritage and the fact that it heavily restricts Root access to users (or god forbid, allowing users to log in as Root).

Windows security at this point is basically down to using patches and 3rd party vendor solutions as a computing equivalent of sticking fingers in a dyke made of swiss cheese. At best you can cover a few of the holes at any given time, but every time a new patch comes out you basically rearrange your fingers to cover some holes and leave other open.

To be fair, Microsoft is boxed in at this point as they can’t really get out this situation without completely scrapping the current operating system and starting from scratch, but I doubt they’ll ever do that as too much of their business relies on consumers and companies legacy software needs.

2. Despite what people may tell you about the small market-share argument, Apple’s market-share amongst higher end consumer purchases is about 80-90% so clearly as Crackers are motivated by money (which is not necessarily accurate, btw) they would want to aim for the higher end market, but the fact that they haven’t been able to isn’t a lack of will, rather a testament to Apple’s work on securing OS X.

2a. Just to add to what I mentioned above, let me point out that the lack of market-share didn’t preclude people from designing tons of viruses for the “Classic” Mac OS, which before being discontinued had several hundred known viruses designed for it, however considering that OS X’s market-share is considerably higher than the “Classic” OS was, that also would tend to invalidate that argument.

3. The final and most important security point as far as I’m concerned is the physical access rule. Just as a million monkeys given an infinite amount time could one day replicate the complete works of Shakespeare, given an unlimited time, a finite number of people with varying levels of skill can get into any computer (provided they have physical access to the machine) including any government mandated encryption.

While I wouldn’t exclude Macs from the above statement entirely, I would state that because the methods do require a lot more tinkering with the internals and lower level firmware and KEXT manipulation, the odds of bricking the device during the attempt is high enough where a lot of people would hesitate to even try it.

That’s my 2 cents on the subject, anyways…

If you don’t want to pay for a commercial product, use a free one like Windows Defender or the one from AVG. Keep safe out there.

Best to you for the new year.

Rick Bennett