Have you recently been infected by a virus, worm, malware application or spyware application?

Did you wonder how it got there? You do have antivirus software but not web content filtering?

Were you visiting ‘trusted sites’ such as Google Images, Facebook, Spotify, Autotrader, London Stock Exchange, Vue cinemas?

You were most likely hit by Malvertising. A new trend that has seen a rapid rise in the number of malware, spyware and virus infections in 2011. Three months ago we were lucky to see 1 infected machine a month, now it is increasing to 1 a week even with the protection of antivirus applications and network firewalls.

Malvertising is when malicious ads are inserted into a legitimate advertising network exploiting vulnerabilities that leave an opening for attackers to insert malware on vulnerable systems.

The advertisements server on Facebook, as an example, redirected users to a page informing them they need to install Adobe Flash Player and asking them to click and run AdobeFlashPlayer.exe. As soon as you do this, your machine is infected.

This has been a growing concern with computers used by ad firm Unanimis recently compromised to insert malicious advertisements into a number of the sites mentioned above.

Free or ad-sponsored services are great as they cost you nothing but because they cannot control all of the content that appears on their pages, it gives scammers a windows to infect your machine with these malicious applications.

View this presentation by the Online Trust Alliance find out how you can become infected by Malvertising.

The best defense is to use web filtering technology like SpamWOW! Web Protection to ensure that all of the files being sent to your computer are safe. Ask us how.

50 compromised Android apps have been removed from the Android Marketplace this week after being found infected with the DroidDream virus/backdoor that streams your information to remote online servers.
Clever hackers copied, edited and then repackaged existing applications and published them in the Marketplace under the original developers names.
The apps had been downloaded between 50000 and 200000 times meaning a lot of infected phones.
Apple has suspended 3 users and removed all the offending apps but not from already affected devices.
Is this the sign of a new trend in hacking and virus distribution? Is the Apple App Store next?
Some advice from our service team, treat your phone like your laptop. If you don’t trust who published it, it seems to good to be true or you don’t need it, don’t download it! Especially on business devices.

Is Google really ready for business?
After heavily promoting Google Apps for Business and their new Google Cloud Connect tool, designed to wean Microsoft based businesses to the Google cloud, this weeks Gmail outage has highlighted the risks businesses face in the cloud.
After Sunday when 40000 users faced a gmail outage, there are still lingering problems and some users offline. Given the importance of email to business communication this must have left some red faces at Google and a number of angry customers. If our service team left our customers in this situation there would definitely be some kickback for our response time.
Yes, there are some great benefits, especially cost, in moving your business into the web 2.0 cloud, but can you afford the risk?

Hot, isn’t it?

If you are sweating it out in the hot weather which started yesterday and will continue until sunday then you are not alone.  If your power has gone out a few times you are also not alone.

We have had a number of power issues, primarily around the industrial areas of Mascot/St Peters and Auburn/Chullora, but over the next few days all areas may be expected to have a failure.

Sydney is currently experiencing unprecedented power usage levels due to the heat (is your airconditioner on too?) and this is causing brownouts and failures in some areas. Some clients have had up to 5 failures today alone.

This coming Saturday is forecast to be the hottest day this week so check out these steps to protect yourself.

Is there anything we can do to protect our equipment? [...]

iiNet users nationwide who have tried to connect to the internet this morning may be scratching their heads, rebooting their routers and getting frustrated with their laptops.

Major network maintenance is occurring as core networking equipment is being upgraded.

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