When I heard my wife say,
”
Oh, damn
”
I knew we were in trouble. It wasn’t so much the words, but her
inflection that tipped me off. After more than 45 years I knew
”
oh, damn
”
was the limit of her vulgarity; therefore, how she said it was
important. In this case, her voice had that certain mix of
frustration and anger that immediately got my attention.
When I heard my wife say, “Oh, damn” I knew we were in trouble. It wasn’t so much the words, but her inflection that tipped me off. After more than 45 years I knew “oh, damn” was the limit of her vulgarity; therefore, how she said it was important. In this case, her voice had that certain mix of frustration and anger that immediately got my attention.
“I didn’t do a thing,” she said pointing at her laptop, “and look what happened.” It took only a minute to confirm the obvious; in spite of an up-to-date and operating first-class antivirus program, we were fatally infected with malware calling itself “Total Security.”
Total Security is a phony antivirus program. It installs itself from some contaminated link, hijacks your PC, and then blackmails you to pay the programmers do get your PC back. Meanwhile, it disables the internet connection, freezes your other programs and falsely reports a number of virus infections just to prod you along – it’s the case of the pot calling the kettle black – Total Security IS the infection.
If you’re stupid enough to pay the ransom, download, and install the “fix” you’ll find thing are worse than ever and your credit card will be charging up sales worldwide in only a few hours.
Malware stands for malicious software; it’s a type of software designed to do damage and, unfortunately, it does its job very well. Sometimes malware is loosed on the world for the same reason some twisted folks break your fence post or key your new car – senseless vandalism and destruction. On other occasions, the motivation is strictly political – malware cyber-attacks have been designed to wreak havoc on conflicting organizations and societies. Finally, and this is the case with Total Security, some malware is designed for illegal economic gain. There is no difference between this crime and someone breaking into your home, stealing your computer and holding it for ransom except that when you pay up, they don’t return the hostage alive.
According to Consumer Reports’ State of the Net 2009 Survey, 1 in 3 computers had heavy levels of spam, 1 in 7 had serious virus problems, 1 in 12 had spyware issues and 1 in 90 lost money to phishing attacks designed to gain your personal information. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, just wait. The total cost to government, business and individuals certainly runs into scores of billions of dollars a year and in the end, we all pay the bill.
In spite of our bad experience – we’re still fighting the problem – you can and should protect yourself. Get some good antivirus software, keep it up to date and use it. Never supply any personal information unless you’re sure you know who you’re dealing with. The screen may look like you’re on a known website, but if you responded to an email looks are meaningless, you may be talking to a computer in Russia or Africa, not the home office of your bank.
The government needs to put serious pressure on the criminals by identifying, prosecuting and punishing them. It’s also high time the industry leaders paid a lot more attention these problems; warnings after-the-fact are of little help. Eliminating the potential for mischief is critically important. Microsoft had $58.4 billion in sales in fiscal year 2009, with a net profit of $14.5 billion; that’s anything but a couple of guys working in a garage. It’s time for the industry to grow up and protect its customers – no other business would be permitted to sell expensive products with so many built-in defects.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at [email protected].
