This was a great opportunity for me to find out what it is like to have to survive without IT of any kind.

I had to hand over my laptop and my Nokia N71 smart phone. When I handed them over I was lost and it made it hard to work as almost everything that I do is based online.

All in all giving up Technology for 48 hours was an excellent opportunity but not something I will be doing again soon.

Mark

I’d like you to meet Adobe Flash. Innocent, helpful, flexible, runs-on-every-browser Flash. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you when Kevin, the quiet youtube-a-holic in your office causes everyone’s PC to crash when he watches his favourite video…

The A-Team Garage

Ok – so maybe I’m exaggerating a little to get the message across but lets think about this a little more – if I Ted, chief virus and spybot creator at Dodge Ltd wanted to create something and maximize the damage and distribution what would I need? Let’s use the A-Team example and try to imagine what ridiculous garage we can lock our creation into – that it just happens to have everything it will need to come out all guns blazing;

1. I would need people to unknowingly download my creation
2. I would like you to help me spread the virus
3. I would want to be able to propagate it to PCs behind firewalls so that my zombie network will grow
4. I would not have to worry about what OS you are running (or what version of windows maybe)
5. I would like to have my creation auto-update to the latest version whenever it can.

Now – lets say 4-5yrs ago I would have maybe made my creation use some exploit in Internet Explorer as it was the the most used browser in play. Notice I said most-used there. Sure lots of people might prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer – but out-of-the-box installs purchased by Average Joe will start with Internet Explorer on them and in most cases that’s what people stay with – they go with what they are familiar with.

With other browsers out there now the field is wider; IE8, IE7, IE6, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. What do they all have in common? Flash.

Wanted: License To Kill

I create a nice flash based game/video that has an average playtime of 2-3mins. That’s about long enough to prevent someone loosing interest and just the right length for a quick office interlude when you sit down at your desk with a nice fresh cup of coffee. I make it cute and easy to use, maybe even fun. I add some additional code so that while you are watching/playing my creation it’s downloading all it needs to do it’s dirty work.

Now that we have our creation built and we know what horror it will wreak on hapless PCs lets review our helper criteria we looked at above;

1. I would need people to unknowingly download my creation
   CHECK: You have no idea what the Flash app you’re loading will do before it loads – chances are it has already fully loaded by the time you see anything on your screen. I’m ready to play with – all I need is for you – the user to grant me my License To Kill by clicking ‘Play’
2. I would like you to help me spread the virus
   CHECK: My creation is cute and fun and popular. It’s on the 10-ten-things-to-do-while-having-a-coffee-at-your-desk list. You keep sending it to all your friends and colleagues telling them how much fun it is so that they too can experience the joy of Frankenflash.
3. I would want to be able to propagate it to PCs behind firewalls so that my zombie network will grow
   CHECK: Flash isn’t usually blocked by most firewall/proxies, unless the site is restricted (eg. No YouTube at work thank-you). You’re lovely browser, with all it’s security updates, running it’s man-of-steel version of Windows is about to download Kryptonite v1.0
4. I would not have to worry about what OS you are running (or what version of windows maybe)
   POSSIBLE CHECK: Ok so Linux and MacOS folks are maybe safer here than others but if I’m clever enough I can create something that will ignore the OS on the victim’s PC and just hose the network. How about a flash game that in the background keeps downloading http://www.company-i-dont-like.com in the background. If I can’t murder other PCs I’ll at least try to murder the network.
5. I would like to have my creation auto-update to the latest version whenever it can.
   CHECK: My game/video is popular, so pupular in fact that you bookmark it. It’s a handy game of Solitaire that you play for 5-10 mins when you want some much needed down-time after that TPS report. Every time you visit me to play I serve you the latest version of my creation.

Self Preservation

The easiest way to protect yourself from these types of attacks is not to automatically have Flash load. I’m not saying avoid Flash – I use it every day myself – just allow Flash content from the sites and people that you trust. It’s not a guarantee but it’s an easy way to prevent this type of attack.

Myself – I’m a Firefox user and although other browsers are just as good what I like about Firefox is the ubiquity of it’s AddOns. Meet FlashBlock (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433) – A simple AddOn that prevents flash on website from loading automatically so that you can choose whether or not to have it load – or only load the parts you want. There’s also a setting so that you can always-allow Flash from a certain site so that it doesn’t become a pain if you visit a flash-heavy site often that you trust.

There’s also the added benefit that today a large portion of Ads on internet sites are Flash-based and by having FlashBlock installed you are spared having 10 different Ads on the page trying to get your attention.

Want to know more?

Although what we’ve talked about above is probably over-simplified, there are currently several known vulnerabilities in Flash today, some of which have already been used in the field. If you’re interested in finding out more the two links below I found are a good place to begin the trail

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/07/flash-security-vulnerability-exploited-in-pdfs.ars

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/21/flash_vulnerability_menace/

If you would like to talk to someone here at iPing about your Internet Security just drop us a LINE and we would be delighted to help.

After the nightmare experience so many people had with Windows Vista on it’s release; it is no surprise that people have been waiting for positive reviews before trying Windows 7. So let’s get cracking and have a look at three of the features of Windows 7 that have really impressed me.

 1. Improved Speed over Windows Vista

 One of the big problems experienced with Vista was the speed at which it performed; so this was one of the big challenges that the people at Microsoft had to address. They did this by redesigning how Windows 7 displays graphics to your monitor.

Windows 7 can not start to display things before all the background information is worked out. So you do not get that feeling that your computer is freezing. This change has reduced the wait time for applications to load, save and respond to users’ requests. How this was achieved is not important, what is however important is the fact that this feature really improves usability in Windows 7 over Windows Vista. 

 2. Home Networking & Media

It is no longer the case that people just use a network in the office, therefore Microsoft have really catered for the home network in Windows 7. The ease at which you can now share your files between computers in your network will surprise you. It is also so much easier to connect printers to your home network and also to connect to your home Wi-Fi connection.

There are loads of new features in Windows 7 to make it easier to share all your MP3s, Videos and TV shows throughout your house by using your home network in Windows 7. You can view music or recorded TV shows from remote computer and play them across the home network. If you want to watch a recorded TV show, you can easily transfer it to your laptop so that you can watch it on the laptop at another time.

 3. Not So Many Annoying Pop-ups

One of the things that really annoyed me about Windows Vista was the fact that when I wanted to do anything with my computer I got a pop-up box asking me if I was sure I wanted to do it; also if an application was looking to do something we got the same pop-up. These constant pop-ups became really quite frustrating. In Windows 7, Microsoft have introduced a setting where you can adjust the settings to reduce or switch off these annoying little pop-up boxes.

 My experiences with Windows 7 are all positive and I will be suggesting to my clients based in Dublin to consider installing Windows 7 on new PCs.

If you would like to talk to someone in iPing about Windows 7 or your IT support in Dublin please drop us a LINE

Dublin really is a small village in terms of providing IT & Computer support and that is why it is so important to provide a high quality service at a price that companies feel is fair.

The iPing team provide support for your computer network; our engineers will support and design your network so that it will do what you want and need it to do and more.  Another important part of our aim to provide great support in Dublin is our ability to provide our customers with a quality phone solution.

By being an integrated point of contact for companies in Dublin for their computers and their telephones, we aim to provide companies with Total Network Peace of Mind. So if your company is looking for Total Network Peace of Mind just drop us a LINE.