New Malware Simulates Hard Drive Failure

An anonymous reader writes "A nasty strain of malware goes beyond mere sensational alerts, it makes it seem the user's hard drive is failing. It moves files from All Users and the current Windows user's profile into a temporary location, making it appear as though problems with the hard drive are causing files to disappear. It also disables a user's ability to change wallpaper images and sets registry keys to hide certain icons — giving the impression that programs are going missing as well. Of course, it's all done in an attempt to get people to buy the software that will fix it."

The Game of Catchup

[MightyMartian]

Had this one get on one the computers I administer. Managed to poison the profile and for a brief while I thought the files had been deleted. Of course, I got the inevitable "isn't your AV and anti-malware software up to date", to which I responded "As much as can be, the user is relied upon not to be a simpering moron who clicks on every possible link."

Oh, and by the way, Microsoft, your fucking browser still sucks and is still atrociously insecure. Shape up, Redmond.

Re:The Game of Catchup

[The Dawn Of Time]

"it's like a computer, only useless."

Re:False alert

[LurkerXXX]

AND BACKUPS! *AND BACKUPS*!!!

RAID is *NOT* a substitution for backups. Delete a file on the RAID and it's gone. Someone takes the machine, and it's gone.

Backup your computer to offline media, and make sure to keep a (hopefully encrypted) copy of it at some remote location (like a family members house, work, wherever)

RAID IS NOT A SUBSTITUTION FOR BACKUPS!

Re:The Game of Catchup

[gad_zuki!]

>Oh, and by the way, Microsoft, your fucking browser still sucks and is still atrociously insecure. Shape up, Redmond.

Really? Care to point to some statistics showing me big holes in IE9 that are actively used by malware?

Not much out there. Oh, there's no shortage of Java, Flash, and Adobe Reader holes, and according to stats lifted from crimepacks those are the ones used.

I just looked at that stats on my website. 90% of those users have Java installed. How many of those are the latest version? Maybe 50% Most of the flash installs are not the latest version. Who knows what version of Reader they have.

Plugin security is a nightmare right now. Blame Sun and Adobe for not having autoupdaters like Chrome does for Flash. Joe User has no idea what he's doing with a computer. Blaming MS isn't really helping him.

Re:The Game of Catchup

[Attila Dimedici]

Except that Windows does not have anything like the Ubuntu Software center, or whatever the repository is called in other distributions.

Re:My end users say it was coming from MSNBC.com

[Mashiki]

And sites complain when people block ads. This is of course why anyone with a brain blocks ads.

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Re:The Game of Catchup

[jimicus]

The problem you describe isn't exclusive to the Linux kernel by any means. I have seen more-or-less the same sequence appear in all sorts of places - OpenLDAP's done it with multimaster replication (and still is doing it with server-side sorts), FreeBSD has done it with journalled filesystems, The Gimp is doing it with CMYK support and I don't doubt there are other pieces of software doing the same thing.

The sequence of events generally goes something like this:

1. A specific F/OSS product is missing a particular feature. It may or may not be particularly important, but it's missing for whatever reason.
2. That feature starts to appear in other software. Maybe commercial software, maybe other free software. In any case, it starts to appear. The person(s) behind the product being discussed don't think it's particularly important and make the conscious decision to ignore it.
3. It becomes apparent that the feature in question is actually quite useful. But it still doesn't get implemented because that would mean the person who made the original decision not to would have to admit they were wrong - something that many people find very difficult. Anyone questioning this is told "submit a patch" - but it's far more likely they'll just use something else, something that does meet their needs.
4. It becomes apparent that the feature in question is not useful, it's essential. Still it doesn't get implemented - if anything, the person who decided not to implement it will become ever more vocal in their criticism of the feature. I have actually seen people put together stonking great essays on how the feature is unnecessary - maybe even harmful - to back up this view. It's far too late, of course - by this time it's crystal clear to any impartial observer that the original decision was poor, and anyone still defending it is deluded.
5. A patch to implement the feature is accepted and the feature is announced with much fanfare at the next major release. No mention of the previous view is made.

(WTF slashdot? No ordered lists?)