Virus Total

At www.virustotal.com you can analyze a file to determine if it presents a threat. Virus Total was begun by a Spanish company, but is currently operated by Google, which presumably is a basis for regarding it s a service with a great deal of integrity. Virus Total collects information from multiple antivirus engines and website scanners, including AVG, BitDefender, Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, and more than 50 other antivirus products. It also uses different tools to determine the format of tiles.

When you upload a file to the site, Virus Total generates a list indicating which of the antivirus productions have listed the file as a threat.

It also provides a more detailed report which among other information, shows if the signature of the file has been verified.

DLA Piper Ransomware Attack

Since this past Tuesday the document

management and email systems of DLA Piper have been shut down due to a ransomware attack known as Petya.  See this notice currently on the firm's site: 

Petya works by encrypting a Windows PC's Master File Table.  It uses an External Blue Exploit that exploits a vulnerability in the Server Message Block protocol that provides shared access to files and printers.  A user of an encrypted PC will see  

a message like this:

Note that Petya does not actually have the ability to undo the changes it makes. 

The encryption process can be stopped if a user shuts down immediately after seeing a screen indicating that a CHKDSK command is running

A Windows security update from March  can deter Petya, and a read only dat file ( at C:\Windows\perfc.dat) will prevent the encryption process.  

Don't use any of the most common 25 passwords

According to password management software developer Splashdata these are the 25 most common passwords in use online. Be sure to avoid using any of these. 10% of people use one of these passwords. The number password, 123456, is used by 4% of people.

1. 123456

2. password

3. 12345

4. 12345678

5. football

6. qwerty

7. 1234567890

8. 1234567

9. princess

10. 1234

11. login

12. welcome

13. solo

14. abc123

15. admin

16. 121212

17. flower

18. passw0rd

19. dragon

20. sushine

21. master

22. hottie

23. loveme

24. zaq1zaq1

25. password1