Mailbag: When Scareware Attacks, Are Your Gadgets Trying To Kill You?, More
    Scareware victims have been 
venting 
  to us 
all 
  week. Here are some more of your thoughts, including some praise for Vista's 
  scareware-fighting tactics:
   My own laptop became infected and I could not even turn my Office on! 
    I turned the machine off and prayed I would not have to format it. A colleague 
    sent me this 
    link and it worked well. I have not had a problem since running the malware 
    removal software.
    -Susan
  Regarding your scareware item, I am a system admin responsible for over 
    40 Vista machines. I've had Vista deployed since March 2007 with User Access 
    Control enabled. The users don't have administrator rights to their box. I 
    haven't had a single virus or malware incident reported by my users or by 
    Symantec AntiVirus.
   You tend to bad-mouth Vista in many of your articles, but you can put 
    me down as one admin that loves it because the users can't mess it up.
    -Ken
  Oddly enough, I can give some support to Vista on this one. After having 
    set up a computer that I was not concerned about, I decided to put Vista to 
    the test. I went to any number of search engines and started searching for 
    any site that I thought might give me a nasty bug. I finally found one. I 
    allowed the system to accept whatever was being offered despite Windows Defender 
    screaming at me not to do it. Yup, I was then infected. Symantec AV was helpless 
    against this new computer corrupter that I picked up and Vista sure hated 
    it, as well. Ended up just rebuilding the system.
   This along with another experience I had taught me one lesson: My system 
    is more secure with Windows Defender on and without Symantec AV than the other 
    way around (as you're not supposed to run AV with Defender on). To date, I 
    haven't seen anything to prove me wrong. Now, I'm sure there are others who 
    have had the opposite experience, and I'd like to hear from them. That way, 
    I'll know where not to go as well. The additional experience was that I ran 
    a test computer for around three months with Defender and no AV. I then installed 
    AV and ran a scan. No virus. Two weeks later I had a virus; my Defender was 
    turned off. But hey, maybe that's because I'm not using Forefront/Antigen, 
    right?
    -Jacob
  I wrote an article re-infecting a VM with a sample malware I obtained 
    from a client's machine, and documented all the corners of the VM that were 
    infected. See it here.
    -David
A recent story about Mac Pros emitting 
  a bad smell that may or may not be benzene prompted Doug to ask readers 
  whether they fear their gadgets. One reader is keeping a wary eye on his phone:
   My phone might not be popping popcorn but it sure is sending strong signals 
    into my head. I am sure the Bluetooth isn't much better. Sometimes I feel 
    like one of the fish in the water by the nuclear tower in the "Simpsons" 
    after the nuclear waste has oozed in.
    -Anonymous
And while hotel Internet connections are getting 
  a bad rap for being unsecure, John thinks they're not that dangerous. In 
  fact, they could be worse:
   Want to talk about really unsafe connections? Some workers hit the strip 
    clubs. Maybe these clubs should offer hot spots...umm, never mind. Seriously, 
    though -- as long as you have proper security on your laptop and only enter 
    information on secure Web sites with certificates, it is no more vulnerable 
    than your home network.
    -John
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
 
	
Posted by Doug Barney on October 08, 2008