Turn on Remote Desktop in Windows 7 or Vista

Turn on Remote Desktop in Windows 7 or Vista

Remote Desktop is disabled by default in Windows 7 or Vista, but it’s easy enough to turn it back on. If you need to access your Vista PC from another box, it’s an essential thing to turn on.

Important note: Remote desktop is only included in the Professional, Business, or Ultimate versions of Windows. Home editions do not have remote desktop.

To get to the configuration page, you can either right-click the Computer icon and choose properties, or you can type in system into the start menu search box, and then find the entry for System.

Now you’ll want to click the Remote Settings link on the left hand side:

Now you can finally turn it on:

To connect from another Vista / Win7 PC on the same network, click the bottom radio button. If you need to connect from an XP/2k machine, click the “Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop” radio button.

Don’t worry about setting up firewall rules, Vista or Windows 7 does that for you automatically.

Note: This should work for both Windows 7 and Vista.

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Modern Replacement for HijackThis

OTL by OldTimer – A Modern Replacement for HijackThis

OTL by OldTimer is like HijackThis — on steroids. OTL scans your system for malware, and produces detailed logs. It’s primarily a malware diagnostic tool, but has advanced removal abilities. It is used alone, or with other tools to remove malware completely.

OTL is a flexible, multipurpose, diagnostic, and malware removal tool. It also has some curative ability.

Modern malware will hide all, or most of itself from detection in a HijackThis log. HijackThis (HJT) is very popular, and if malware can hide from it, it has a better chance of survival. But mostly HJT fails to detect malware because, with the exception of some bug fixes and minor updates, it has not been updated in a long time. A brief history lesson… Merijn Bellekom is the creator and developer of HJT. He sold it to Trend Micro in March, 2007. Trend added an “Analyze This” button to collect data, updated HJT to be compatible with Windows Vista/7, and fixed a few bugs. While malware has evolved much since March 2007, HJT has not. The need for a more powerful diagnostic tool that is updated often spurred developers to create their own pseudo versions of HJT. Among them DDS by sUBs, RSIT by random/random, and of course OTL by OldTimer Of them, OTL is the most robust, and has the most advanced ability to remove malware. The most common use for OTL is to post a log in a malware removal forum for analysis by an expert. However, it’s also a good idea to run an OTL log as a baseline before running any advanced removal tools. In the event those tools don’t completely remove the malware, the OTL log can offer valuable information to remove the remainder. A complete and detailed OTL tutorial has just been made public. It has been available to experts and forum helpers for some time. While most people will never use all the features of OTL, or only use it to create a log, others will find all the information offered in the tutorial helpful. One of the most powerful features of OTL is its ability to run custom scans. This allows the log output to be modified very easily, and quickly adapt to the latest malware threats. An always up-to-date custom scan recommendation can be found in our Malware Cleaning Guide. Following is a “Quick Start” Guide to creating an OTL log:

1. Simply Download OTL.exe (alternate mirror) to your desktop, download folder, or other convenient location. In the event malware is blocking OTL.exe from running, alternate versions are available as either .com (mirror), or .scr (mirror).
2. OTL doesn’t need to be installed, simply run it by clicking the icon (approve any UAC warnings on WIndows Vista or 7).
3. First paste custom scan information (if any). Second, click the “Quick Scan” button.

4. When the scan completes, it will open two windows in Notepad. OTL.txt, and Extras.txt. They are saved in the same location as OTL.exe. Copy the contents and paste to a forum for help, or if you’re an advanced user and have read the tutorial, analyze the output.

 

New P2P Trojan Discovered

Once launched, the malware will install itself in the WINDOWS directory where it installs a registry key to ensure that it loads on startup.

Security researchers at Arbor Networks researchers have discovered a new botnet that compromises machines infected with the Heloag Trojan that is specifically designed to manage the downloading and installation of a spectrum of additional malicious software.

“Upon detailed inspection, this bot does not appear to have any DDoS capabilities built into it, it appears to only manage downloads on the infected PC,” say researcher Jose Nazario.

The way it works is that the trojan is downloaded from either 7zsm.com or elwm.net. Once on an infected PC, it then install itself in the WINDOWS directory.

Names observed include:

• C:\WINDOWS\csrse.exe
• C:\WINDOWS\ThunderUpdate.exe
• C:\WINDOWS\conme.exe

The malware then installs a registry key to ensure that it loads on startup:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon = [filename]

(Where [filename] refers to the installed filename from above)

It then makes a connection to the C&C server for the botnet, often on TCP port 8090, to register itself and await commands. Traffic is usually preceded by a single byte to indicate the message purpose:

• 01 – initial hello
• 02 – keep alive, idle message
• 03 – download the named file
• 04 – connect to other peers
• 05 – send hostname to server
• 06 – clear
• 07 – close connection

Trojan.Heloag infected hosts often download other malcode over HTTP from a central server, and can also connect to other bots over TCP, often using ports 7000-7010.

Nazario said that the Trojan not only calls out to the command-and-control server in order to download new EXEs to load onto the infected PC, it will also connect with other infected machines over TCP.

“It’s unclear what the purpose of this is, but it appears to be some form of peer-to-peer,” adds Nazario.

 

How to Simply backup Windows 7

How to Simply backup Windows 7 with free backup software?

Why you need to backup computer?

In information technology, backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. These additional copies are typically called “backups.” Many personal computer users have the experience of system crash or data loss, for example, hardware conflict, bad ram, hard disk drives overload, viruses attack, software conflict, etc. If your system is crashed and then you will realize that you really need backup software after suffering the great pain to sacrifice your precious weekends or dating time to reinstall your operating system

Two common problems of Windows 7 users

Firstly, low disk space problem. No matter you upgrade from old operating system or fresh install Windows 7, the original partition size is too small for Windows 7. In fact, this problem can be easily solved by professional partitioning software, for example, EASEUS Partition Master, but some people still like to backup Windows 7, reset the partitions and then restore again. To these people, EASEUS provides a Windows 7 backup freeware.

Secondly, some people’s favorite application that doesn’t compatible with Windows 7 but they have to use these applications for business work or homework. Then they may consider backup Windows 7 and restore later when new applications published.

No matter which problem you may encounter, you’d better make a backup in advance. Fortunately, EASEUS provides free Windows 7 backup software, so you can protect your system and data under Windows 7 without any cost.

How to backup Windows 7 with this free backup software?

To launch backup operation, please click “Backup” in the main window, or select “Operation” -> ” Backup” from the menu bar, tool bar or action panel to start “Backup Wizard “.

Follow the Backup Wizard steps to backup your system:

1. Select the system partition. (Here is Partition C:)

Case1: Select the system partition:

Case 2: Sector-by-sector backup Option

You may notice that there is an option of “Create image sector by sector” at the bottom. Sector-by-sector backup can be chosen if necessary. If you choose it, it means you prefer to backup all sectors to the image file even though there is no data on the source partition or disk.

Tips:

Sector-by-sector backup will be operated automatically when there is bad sector on the source partition or unused space is less than 2%. Image backup file created sector-by-sector will produce large imaged file.

2. Select backup image location

Select the destination position to save the image and input a name for the image. Please save the backup image file to different partition or hard drive, especially the removable hard drive. If you save the file on to the original place, you cannot restore the image when this original partition is corrupted.

Tips:

1. The default path is the same as the last setting and the default file name is MyBackup.pbd. If you change the path, you must input a file name.

2. The backup path should include English character or number only.

3. Choose Backup options:

Here are two options: “Use Default options” and “Set the option manually”.

a. Use Default options:

If you choose “Use Default options” during this step, the backup image will be produced according to you previous set state.

b. Set the option manually:

If you select “Set the option manually”, you can set the Priority, Compress Level, Image protection and Image Splitting options. (This option also can be changed previously in “Tool” > “Option”)

Tips:

1. In menu “Tool” > “Option”, you can change “Temporary File Path” besides the settings above.

2. If the temporary file path is the partition that you want to backup, sector-by-sector backup cannot be achieved until the path is changed to another partition in “Option” menu.

4. Image comments:

You may add some comments to the backup image which will help you to find the image file faster.

5. Backup image creation summary

This window displays the list of operations which will be performed. Click “Proceed” to start the backup creation task. The task progress will be shown in the special window. You can stop the procedure by clicking “Cancel” or use the “Back” buttons to change the task.

6. Operation progress

There will be the process bars of current operation progress and total progress. After all the operations finished, there will be a pop-up window with the result notification.

Tips:

1. If you set a password for the image file, you need to confirm this password when you check or restore.

2. Please do not save the image file to the partition which you want to restore.

3. Burning image to DVD in Windows 2000 is not available.

You can save the image archive to local hard disk, LAN computer disk or CD/DVD. Besides backing up to an image archive, you may also clone disk to replace or upgrade the old one by this free Windows 7 backup software.

 

Ransom Malware Hits Internet

A Wave of Ransom Malware Hits Internet

from : John E. Dunn, Techworld.com

Criminals reused an attack from 2008 to hit the Internet with a huge wave of ransomware in recent weeks, a security company has reported.

In the space of only two days, February 8 and 9, the HTML/Goldun.AXT campaign detected by Fortinet accounted for more than half the total malware detected for February, which gives some indication of its unusual scale.

The attack itself takes the form of a spam e-mail with an attachment, report.zip, which if clicked automatically downloads a rogue antivirus product called Security Tool. It is also being distributed using manipulated search engine optimisation (SEO) on Google and other providers.

Such scams have been common on the Internet for more than a year, but this particular one features a more recently-evolved sting in the tail. The product doesn’t just ask the infected user to buy a useless license in the mode of scareware, it locks applications and data on the PC, offering access only when a payment has been made through the single functioning application left, Internet Explorer.

What’s new, then, is that old-style scareware has turned into a default ransom-oriented approach. The former assumes that users won’t know they are being scammed, while the latter assumes they will but won’t know what to do about it.

The technique is slowly becoming more common — see the Vundo attack of a year ago — but what is also different is the size of this attack, one of the largest ever seen by Fortinet for a single malware campaign.

Fortinet notes that Security Tool is really a reheat of an old campaign from November 2008, which pushed the notorious rogue antivirus product Total Security as a way of infecting users with a keylogging Trojan.

“This is a great example of how tried and true attack techniques/social engineering can be recycled into future attacks,” says Fortinet’s analysis.

According to Fortinet, the “engine” pushing the spike in ransom-based malware is believed to be the highly-resilient Cutwail/Pushdo botnet, the same spam and DDoS system behind a number of campaigns in the last three years including the recent pestering of PayPal and Twitter sites.

Ransom Malware Article From TechWorld.Com