Forgot to include a tidbit from Sam's last week that really deserves it's own post.
A friend's laptop was taken over by the Homeland Security Moneypak Virus.
Poor, unsuspecting and unprotected students (and old people) may be freaked out enough to actually believe this nonsense and try to actually pay to get out of their transgression. (In this case, the transgression was visiting a streaming movie site online without the necessary blockers and firewalls.)
My kid, who probably got her first computer virus before kindergarten, waved off the impending insanity, and decided she would unhack the hack, especially after learning that the IT folks on campus won't touch a personal computer. My guess is that's all they'd end up doing all day long if they did.
Here's part of our conversation, which will ring true to pretty much anyone who's ever worked with IT guys on a consistent basis.
A friend's laptop was taken over by the Homeland Security Moneypak Virus.
Poor, unsuspecting and unprotected students (and old people) may be freaked out enough to actually believe this nonsense and try to actually pay to get out of their transgression. (In this case, the transgression was visiting a streaming movie site online without the necessary blockers and firewalls.)
My kid, who probably got her first computer virus before kindergarten, waved off the impending insanity, and decided she would unhack the hack, especially after learning that the IT folks on campus won't touch a personal computer. My guess is that's all they'd end up doing all day long if they did.
Here's part of our conversation, which will ring true to pretty much anyone who's ever worked with IT guys on a consistent basis.
Then she had the scare of finding a link with instructions that included clicking on another set of instructions that immediately downloaded itself onto HER computer, and it turned out to be this stupid thing called SpyHunter which is really malware itself, that runs a million scans, tells you every cookie is a virus, and then makes you pay to remove them. And it inserts itself into corners where it's a pain in the ass to get rid of. Sonofa... I got her through uninstalling everything related to SpyHunter and editing the registry to make sure her laptop was entirely cleaned off before getting her some better instructions.
She tried following them, only to discover, surprise! it ain't easy!
I think she's still rebooting, typing "explorer" and trying to get through step 1, even now...
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