Active programs at a glance

The Windows Task Manager can show you at a glance exactly which programs are running on your computer - including hidden programs or those that run at startup. There's a quick way to get to the Task Manager. Simply hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys, and tap the Esc key. Doing so will present you with the Processes tab of the Task Manager. From there, you can select a running application and click the End Process button to shut it down.

Activating your screensaver

In Windows, you can easily force your screensaver to activate more quickly. Right click your desktop. Select Properties from the pop-up menu. In the resulting dialogue box, click the Screen Saver tab. In the box next to "Wait", click the up or down arrow until the desired number of minutes is displayed.

Be wary of online health sites

With all the rain we got this past week, it is no suprise that clinics around town had a surge in business recently. Generally, this is because for most Malaysians, the family doctor is the first point of reference for any ailment; be it for minor, or serious ones. however, more and more people are heading to the Internet to get information about their health concerns. Some do this so that they can decide whether the discomfort they are feeling warrants a vsit to the doctor's. For some, the information is becoming a huge trend with cyberchondriacs trawling the Web soaring to about 160 million in 2006. A 37% rise over 2 years, according to market research, firm Harris Interactive. The firm says that cyberchondriacs now represent 84% of all online adults in the US, up from last year's 80%, and 72% in 2005.


But there are concerns that information from the Net are viewed as more than a source of reference for further discussions but rather as a means for self-diagnosis. An online report stated that the information can cause confussion & unnecessary alarm. More worryingly, surfers could also be fleeced by irresponsible parties. Apparently, there are hundreds of unscrupulous sites which exist purely to make money. The consultation, if any, is rather one-sided, and patients often don't know who they are talking to or what their motives are. They could even be victims of counterfeit medicine producers. Before Malaysians get to the level where the US cyberchondriacs are at, there is a need to educate Malaysians on the fact that not all viewed on the Internet is true. There is also a need to somehow verify the sites - whether they are actually authentic. Of course, there are millions of sites out there & that the authorities can't possibly screen all of them. But we can start with the relevant agency screening the sites residing in local servers.

Eudora reborn as open source

Eudora, a pioneering e-mail program named after author Eudora Welty, is rising from a technical grave as an open source program after owner Qualcomm Inc quit selling the product in May. Eudora routinely got strong reviews from computer magazines and had a loyal user base, but commercially it was overshadowed by software that Microsoft Corp included with new PCs, IBM's Lotus software & Web e-mail programs. Qualcomm donated Eudora to the open source community, which means that anybody is free to download and use it without paying for the product. Developers can also access the code, change it & share those changes. On August 31, the Mozilla Foundation started distributing a test open source version of Eudora, which was developed in the late 80s as one of the first e-mail programs by a student at the University of Illinois. Eudora is not yet promoting the product on its homepage, as it does its other titles, including its popular Mozilla Browser - a rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer - and Thunderbird, another e-mail program. The new version of Eudora is being developed under the codename Penelope and is available on the Web at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope. Mozilla has said it plans to develop both Eudora & Thunderbird. - Reuters

Beware of PDF spam

If you receive an e-mail message with only a PDF file attached, don't open it. PDF spam, as it's known, is just the latest gimmick that junk e-mail senders are using to get you to read their come-ons. These spammers use enticing subject lines to make you curious about what the PDF file contains. Typically, it contains the same stock tips, get-rich-quick schemes or miracle hair growth cures that spammers have sent for over a decade. - dpa

Protecting against Nuwar virus

The Nuwar virus has return, which was first discovered last year. Then, Nuwar propagated through mass e-mailed and attached executable files capable of transforming PCs into spam and infectious worm e-mail generators. The attached file, when run, dropped a downloader component onto the affected machine and planted copies of the mass e-mailer module. It then downloaded 4 other components which included a new downloader and a rootkit that hid the entire malware army. Nuwar was also known to create a zombie network that sent "pump and dump" spam. "Pump & dump" is a financial fraud that involves creating an artificial demand for stocks so that their prices rise. It's a scam that has proven profitable; as the stock prices reach their peak, the scammers sell their stocks and stop creating the artificial demand, and the stock prices naturally drop even faster than they rose.


Nuwar is clearly a social engineeering attack, and users are the primary targets. For consumers, they should scan their e-mail and instant message (IM) file attachments with security software, and only open attachments from known or expected sources. For enterprises, they need to implement a multi-layered approach that provides security at all possible entry points - including the Internet gateway, messaging gateway, endpoint clients, endpoint servers & the network. They must also keep all browser & instant messenger security patches up-to-date and educate employees about the symptoms of infection, and how to protect servers, computers and mobile devices.

'Bush' worm that dances into IM

Check out this animation of Bush, so says a message popping up in your MSN Messenger. If you click on the link that follows to see the US President letting his hair down, you will unwittingly invite a worm to do some fast-paced moves inside your computer. The worm Worm.Win32.VB.au spreads with the help of a message written in Spanish, which reads, "mira esta animacion de bush", coming from known and unknown contacts. Translated into English, it reads, "See this animation of Bush". After getting into a victim's computer, the worm quickly sends the malicious links to all contacts present. The instant messaging (IM) worm is written in Visual Basic (VB) language & has a size of 122,880 bytes. It creates a few registry entries so it gets executed every time the computer is started. The malware does not contain any dangerous payload in its present form. But similar methods can be employed by virus writers in poliferating more destructive worms or Trojan downloaders in a possible second wave of attacks. Users affected with Worm.Win32.VB.au can download and run MicroWorld's free anti-virus utility MWAV to clean their computers.

E-mail worm lures with a screensaver

The next time you get an e-mail with the subject line "Screensaver" carrying an attachment, watch out. The e-mail worm Conycspa.p is spreading with the help of spam mail that promises you a screensaver. Once a victim of this malware campaign downloads the attachment web.exe and tries to run it, the worm gets activated. The worm comes with downloader Trojan capabilities as it tries to log on to files and sends the malicious attachment to all stolen addressess. It smartly avoids e-mail IDs that contain strings like "Webmaster" and "support". At a time when malware writers are piggybacking on vulnerability exploits to sneak into computers and do all harm, the author of this worm comes from a rather old school of thought. He relies on exploiting the human vulnerability of impulsive curiosity. And the fact these kinds of worms are still managing to get some victims stresses on the need better user education in e-mail handling. If infected with Conycspa.p, you can download and run the free MWAV toolkit from MicroWorld Technologies.

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