Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley February 4, 2013 Deadline March 2013 Issue Infection Prevention: Phishing, Trojans, Viruses and Malware Shock. Horror. Anger. Informing a small business owner that her computer had 4912 infected files, four rootkit viruses and a phishing redirect affecting her Web browser, I witnessed a range of emotions that understandably concluded with anger. A simple mistake led to a panicked early morning phone call to me. “I clicked on a link I thought was to a YouTube video. The message was from a friend, I thought,” my client explained. “And now, I can’t get anything done. Am I going to lose all my data?” Her situation demonstrates a chain of events that is all too common. Tracing the events will help others avoid this same experience. The series of events began when a friend of my client accidentally give away her e-mail password to an evil “phishing” bot. This was not a skilled hacking effort, but a simple ruse. Phishing requires bait. Criminals ...