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Watch out for fake USPS delivery emails!

usps

Fake USPS Delivery Emails?

We at SUPERAntiSpyware have been alerted to scam emails hitting users claiming to be from the US Postal Service (USPS) that contains a link that will infect them with malware. One of the emails being used by this scam is notice@ussp(DOT)com

The subject line of the email will typically be titled “Delivery notification – Parcel delivery *NUMBER* failed” containing a message that the user please call the number on the shipping notice we left at your doorstep (which there will be none!) to arrange a new delivery, and a link which you can view the delivery notice online, on the USPS website.

This is a fake link to a malware infested website.

If you see a link in a suspicious email such as this do not click the links or open the attachments no matter how innocent they sound. If it claims to be from an official organization, call them and ask if the email is legit. Better safe than sorry!

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“The HoeflerText Font Wasn’t Found” Google Chrome Malware Scam – What it is and how to avoid it!

HoeflerText Font Wasn’t Found ?

You are browsing the web and accidentally land on a website with nonsensical characters instead of letters and you receive a prompt to download a missing font in order to read the website. You are told in order to fix the error and display the text, you have to update the “Chrome Font Pack”. Whatever you do, please do not click that blue Update button!

HoeflerText
Fake Google Chrome Prompt asking you to install the malware

It is a scam designed to trick users into installing malware onto their systems. This malware is ranging from Ransomware, to Trojans, to various adware bundles.

How to avoid it

The fake dialogue box informing you that the “The HoeflerText Font Wasn’t Found” will claim you are using Chrome version 53 even if you are not using that version, which tells you something isn’t right and that the prompt you are seeing is fake.

Make sure you are using the latest version of Google Chrome which you can download by clicking here

Make sure you are also using the latest version of SUPERAntiSpyware with Real-Time Protection enabled, a feature only available for SUPERAntiSpyware Professional users.

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Tax Season is here – Watch out for Identity Stealing Spyware!

Taxes The Season is Here !

Keep your personal information safe this tax season by doing a Free scan with SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition

We want to remind everyone that tax season is the time of increased attacks in the forms of spyware, various methods of phishing , and scams. Spyware and Malware authors significantly increase their activity during the tax season in order to try to steal data and withdraw money from bank accounts, steal credit cards, passwords, and other malicious acts.

Watch out for Identity Stealing Spyware!

During this tax season its important to do a few things to help protect yourself online:

1) Make sure your Operating System and software applications such as web browsers and email clients are up to date.

2) Run a Complete Scan with SUPERAntiSpyware regularly with the latest updates, at least twice a week during this period of increased activity.

3) Be cautious before visiting strange websites, or opening strange email attachments. Think before you click!

4) Manually erase, or use privacy software, to delete sensitive data from you PC. Spyware cannot steal what isn’t there!

5) Lookout for spam phishing email impersonating government, bank, or tax company officials asking for sensitive information.

Do you have any security recommendations that help you stay safe during the tax season? Feel free to leave a comment below!

–SUPERAntiSpyware Team

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How to deal with Tech Support Scams

How to deal with Tech Support Scams Now!

You get a pop-up message that says you’re infected and for you to call “Microsoft” Tech Support with the provided number, a voice may come from your speaker instructs you that your data is in harm’s way and you should not shut off your PC. In a panic, PC users call this number and long story short, end up paying hundreds of dollars to a scam artist that claimed to fix something that was never an issue to begin with. This story is common today if you read the news.

A tech support scam artist claims to be an employee (or work with) of a major software company offering technical support to the victim. This can range from someone claiming to be your ISP, your cable provider, or even a Apple or Microsoft. The scam artist will claim the “company” has received notifications of errors, viruses, or issues from the victim’s PC. Scam artists are also claiming to work on behalf of the government to fight computer viruses and threats from enemy nations, hackers and terrorist organizations.

How they get you

Tech Support scam artists have a few tricks to try to extort you or scare you into paying them:

Cold Call. You’ll get a random call from the scammer who claims your PC is infected or has a serious error.

Pop-Up or Rogue Website. This is the more popular tactic where the victim will accidentally stumble upon a rogue website or receive a pop-up claiming you have a Windows OS Blue Screen Error, a massive data error, or a serious infection. Sometimes, it will lock your screen up and freeze your internet browser, or play a sound or voice over the speaker in an attempt to scare the victim. The pop-up or rogue website will always include the scam phone number for the victim to call.

Once you are speaking to them and letting them in

They will attempt to scare you further and instruct you to allow them to remote access your PC or devices to “fix” them. One they are in, they will claim they found the “errors” or “viruses” and ask you to pay for them to be removed, this usually amounts to hundreds of dollars. The money is collected from the victim usually by debit/credit card, wire transfer, or even prepaid gift carts!

If the tech support scammers are remotely accessing your devices, they can use this as a way to hold your information hostage and ransom you. They can intentionally install malware onto your PC, or steal your sensitive data on your PC such as passwords, financial accounts, and other data. There have been reports of the scammers becoming so agitated they have threatened to destroy the computer and all its data unless the victim pays on spot.

What can you do to stop them?

We at SUPERAntiSpyware recommend a few different forms of defense and mitigation against the plague of tech support scams:

Do NOT give out credit card or bank information.

Recognizing what is occurring and ending the call immediately if you are speaking to a tech support scammer.

Do not allow unknown and unverified organizations remote access your devices such as your phone or PC.

Make sure you are using the latest version of SUPERAntiSpyware and it is up to date.

If you see a pop-up or you stumble upon a rogue website that is claiming you are infected, have an error, or a Blue Screen of Death go ahead and close your web browser, if needed force it down via the Process Manager. If you cannot do that, reboot your machine.

If you are a victim

File a fraud report with your Bank or Card issuer immediately and stop payment, or see if you can dispute the payment if it has already been made.

File a Complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center

Change your passwords to the services the tech support scam artists may have uncovered when they remote accessed your PC.

Remove any remote access software the scam artist may have had you install on your PC.

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Our Top 5 Mozilla Firefox Extension Picks For Better Web Security

Top 5 Mozilla Firefox Extension Picks For Better Web Security

Security and privacy are some of the major concerns when using the internet. One of the more popular Open Source internet browsers Mozilla Firefox allows users to add extensions to the browser adding new functionality. Here are our picks for the top 5 Firefox security and privacy extensions that you should install for safer browsing along side using your SUPERAntiSpyware software on your PC.

Click on each link and it will bring you to the Firefox Extension website where you can learn more about the extension and its creators. Most of these extensions are available on other popular browsers, such as Google Chrome or Opera so do not feel limited to only Mozilla Firefox!

1) uBlock Origin – A lightweight ad-blocker and anti-tracking extension that is efficient on memory and CPU footprint.

2) Privacy Badger – Developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Privacy Badger is an anti-tracking extension that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from tracking where you go on the web. Privacy Badger Works great alongside uBlock Origin.

3) HTTPS Everywhere – Developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and The Tor Project. HTTPS Everywhere ensures that you always connect to a website using a secure HTTPS connection if one is available. HTTPS is a form of encryption making your browsing much more secure.

4) DuckDuckGo Plus – DuckDuckGo is the search engine that doesn’t track you. This add-on makes DuckDuckGo your default search engine and includes some other useful features.

5) NoScript Security Suite – Preemptive approach to prevent security vulnerabilities out on the web. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from sites you trust, guarding your trusted sites against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS), cross-zone DNS rebinding / CSRF attacks (router hacking), and Clickjacking attempts.

Do you have any Mozilla Firefox extension recommendations? Feel free to leave a comment below!

–SUPERAntiSpyware Team

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Facebook Malware Attack

Facebook Malware Attack Warning

We’re receiving reports that Facebook is being used as a new vector for executing malware attacks, specifically as a means to distribute the Locky ransomware. While the ransomware variant is not being hosted directly on Facebook, this new version is being hosted in a peculiar way.

The attack starts by a presumably infected machine sending out a message to people in your friends list. This message is actually a SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file that is being masqueraded as an image for you to download to view. Once the file has been downloaded and opened, the payload is delivered. Because of the way SVG files work, JavaScript can be embedded into those files and opened with a modern web browser. That JavaScript will then execute and direct the user to a website that mimics YouTube, but with a completely different URL.

Once on that site, a popup is pushed to the user asking them to download a certain extension on your machine in order to view the video. After the extension has been installed, the attackers have the ability to view and alter data regarding the websites you visit, as well as access your Facebook account in order to message all of your friends with the same SVG file.

The payload is delivered through the Nemucod downloader Trojan, which has been known to download copies of Locky on victim’s PCs.

While Google and Facebook have been made aware of this attack, it is possible that proper remediation could take time. The best course of action if you receive such a message is to ignore it, clear your conversation history with that person, and report them to Facebook as having a compromised account.

If you have already been infected by this attack, there’s not much you can do outside of removing the offending extension in Chrome by going to Menu > More Tools > Extensions and check to see if either Ubo or One extensions are listed. This is also a good time to remove any unknown extensions that are installed as well.

Remember, once you have been locked out of your system by a piece of ransomware, your options for recovery are only as good as the backups you have made. Keep your backups up-to-date, and save your data on an outside drive as frequently as possible. Once a ransomware infection has taken place, any attached drives to your network are at risk. Never keep your backup drives attached to your machine when they are not in use.