Summer’s almost here! You can feel it in the air. As it gets warmer and warmer your mind starts wandering through all the exotic places you’d like to visit. Maybe you can’t visit them all at once, but you can take them one by one and escape the urban jungle, if only for a few days at a time.

With the internet at your fingertips never has it been so easy to plan a memorable vacation. Customize it to your liking and oh, to that restraining budget! Now, looking for vacation offers on the internet is just the first step. Booking cheap flights and accommodation is next in line, closely followed by finding ways to optimize your time. But are all these steps safe to take in the online world? Ever heard of online travel-related scams? Well, if you let your vacation spirit take over your rational side, you might just let cybercrooks ruin your vacation plans. How can you avoid that?

Here are the 6 online security rules you may want to follow if you’re planning your holiday online:

1. 1. Beware of too good to be true offers. Cybercrooks may pose as travel agency and post fake offers on travel-related or daily deal sites, luring you to pay for services you’ll never receive.
   
   Tips: if you see a smashing travel-related offer – either for plane tickets or accommodation –, check it’s validity with the entity offering the accommodation or the airline company. Also, use common sense. If the offer is too good to be true, it probably is!

1. 2. Watch out for unsolicited travel-related e-mails. Cybercrooks may get hold of your e-mail address from social network accounts, online forums or any other website you have an account with – that, of course, if you share these details with the world – and send you e-mails seemingly from reputable travel agencies. They usually advertise cool offers and direct you to phishing sites.
   
   Tips: Don’t make public your personal details. Ignore too good to be true offers coming out of the blue – or, if interested, don’t click on the link they provide in the e-mail; just look up the offer using a search engine. Learn more about phishing and how to protect yourself against it.

1. 3. Do proper research before booking flights or accommodation. If there are no cool daily travel offers at the time you want to do your bookings, decide what kind of accommodation you want – hotel, hostel, bed and breakfast, maybe home/apartment rental? – and start browsing the web. Be very careful with sites featuring classified advertisements, such as Craiglist, and with sites featuring vacation home rentals, like HomeAway. These offer a wealth of scamming opportunities to cybercrooks who want to take advantage of you. They might even post photos of someone else’s home who doesn’t offer rental services, and trick you into paying for renting the place; once you get there, however, you’re faced with the real owner who says their home is not for rent. Other crooks may direct you to fake sites where you have to enter personal details, as part of phishing scams.
   
   Tips: browse for offers only on reputable sites of airline companies and accommodation aggregators. Look for and read their Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policies and FAQ/ Security section carefully, to know what to expect. Found a nice place to stay? Look for reviews from other travellers. Most reputable booking sites have travellers’ reviews.

1. 4. Don’t ever pay by wire transfer. Most travel-related scams involve payments by instant money transfer services such as Western Union or Money Gram, because crooks can easily get away with the money. If, say, you’ve found a nice-looking apartment you want to rent but the “landlord” requires wire transfer only, you might be facing a rental scam.
   
   Tips: pay for travel services by credit card. If, reputable third-party payment services like PayPal are allowed, use them – they ensure a secure payment, without having to disclose your credit card details. Be careful though and avoid the security risks they pose.

1. 5. Don’t overshare your enthusiasm on social networks. You’ve booked your vacation to a cool destination. Or maybe you’re about to leave on an adventurous journey. You’re super excited and you want to share your excitement with your friends. Stop! Think! Do you personally know everybody in your list of Facebook friends? If your profile is public, things get worse: thieves might get hold of the information you post, find out when you’re out of town and break into your home.
   
   Tips: Make sure your profile is private, and your personal posts can be seen only by close     friends; delete your home address, telephone number and even your e-mail address from your social network profiles; don’t post the exact dates of your departure and arrival or that you’re packing your bags to go on vacation. Be very vague about the whole thing.

1. 6. Use travel-related mobile apps thoughtfully. You’ve finally reached your destination. You can’t wait to feel its vibe and pulse. You want to download a street map and walking tours to your smartphone, to help you explore the place properly. Maybe even check-in from cool sites, so that your friends can see where you are? Wait! Are all these mobile perks safe? Some travel-related apps might be infected with malware, while checking in from foreign places might be a heads-up for cyberstalkers and thieves.
   
   Tips: Go over to rule #5. Download apps only from reputable app stores and check out the reviews from other users beforehand. Use geo-location services carefully – do not check in while on vacation, and disable the geo-tagging feature on your smartphone, so that if you do post a photo online, it’s not marked with the exact location and the date it was taken.   

Ever fallen victim to a travel-related scam? What other advice would you give folks out there who want to plan their vacation over the internet?

Every social media interaction and every piece of information about yourself in the online world – likes, tweets, +1s, comments, blog posts, a photo tag or video of yourself shared on social media – can influence people’s perception about you. Yes, your online reputation precedes you. It’s at anyone’s mercy (especially yours!), and it can have negative consequences for you in the real world.

Picture this:

You’re being interviewed for your dream job. You’ve successfully passed the first stages and now it’s time for a chat with the big boss. You’re still a bit dizzy from last night’s party, but it doesn’t matter. The success you’re going to achieve in the next five years unravels before your eyes and makes you grow wings of excitement and professional charm. You’re definitely going to sweep your future boss off his feet. As you go on about your achievements, he nods and seems rather intrigued. But suddenly, he starts looking at something on his computer. He starts frowning. Did you say something wrong? He looks at you and says: “Great party you went to last night. You’re quite a party animal”. You start thinking – wait, how does he know? Oh, Facebook! But you didn’t post photos nor did you check in from the party venue. Maybe one of your friends did – and your profile is public! He goes on, visibly not pleased, saying: “And your Facebook posts and comments are rather… out there”. Oh that Facebook Timeline! You start panicking. This is not good. A couple of hours after the interview you receive a call from the company recruiter telling you they’ve decided to go for another candidate. Your dreams are shattered. Your life, it seems, is ruined.

You might think that would never happen in real life. But it does. Many employers these days are using social media to screen candidates and even monitor employees’ online behaviour. So your online reputation is something you might want to consider revising.

Don’t be the person in the scenario above. Just follow these 5 simple steps to control your online reputation:

1. 1. See what the web says about you.

You’ve probably Googled yourself at least once by now. Do it again. On a regular basis. Search for your name, nickname and usernames on search engines. Don’t forget Twitter, other social networks and the sites you frequent. Look at every comment you’ve written, every photo you’ve posted or you’ve been tagged in on social media and video associated with your name. This might be time consuming but it’s worth your while. If you’ve found a compromising piece of information about yourself, chances are a prospective employer will find it just as easily.

1. 2. Ponder every word associated with your personal image.

After doing thorough research on your online presence, try to think how others perceive you based on your findings. And if there are comments you’re not comfortable with, delete them; if you think certain photos of you put you in a bad light, remove them; if you’re tagged in compromising photos, remove the tag and ask the friend who tagged you to remove the photo as well. Also, review your likes and interests. If you’re not really sure what types of information could be considered “compromising”, do the “granny test” – would you want your grandmother to see the photo/read the post or comment? No? Then get rid of it.

1. 3. Take proper action – redeem yourself.

 Now that you’ve “cleaned” your online image, keep it that way. Use common sense when interacting and sharing stuff on social media, and do not reveal too much personal information. For example, you might reconsider checking in every time you go to your favourite club. Not only can this paint the wrong image of you with a prospective employer, but also can draw stalkers’ attention and at risk your physical privacy and/or security. Also, it’s best you separate the personal from the professional and create different profiles.

1. 4. Adjust privacy settings.  

Check out the privacy settings of every social network you have an account with and read their privacy policies carefully to know what to expect. Turn your profiles from Public to Private (if you haven’t done that already), decide who can see your profiles, who can comment on your posts, and block unwanted access. There have been cases of employers asking their employees/potential hires for their Facebook credentials.  Clearly, this is a huge privacy violation (read Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities). If you’re ever faced with a similar situation, do not hand over your credentials. Moreover, it’s best you learn how to protect your online accounts from internet security threats such as hacking.

1. 5. Set in place alerts for every time your name is mentioned online.

That may sound like vanity or egocentrism, but in this case vigilance goes a long way in helping you “save face” in the online environment. To get real-time alerts of what’s posted about you on the web and hence take immediate action, you can use some free online monitoring like:

• Google Alerts
• Repvine
• Social Mention
• Me and the Web
• Boardreader
• Monitorthis

Has your online reputation ever caused you trouble? What other monitoring tools would you recommend for interested folks out there? 

You’ve probably heard of it by now: Pinterest is social media’s newest sweetheart. Adored by ladies all over the world, the platform has drawn the attention of a whopping crowd: 11 million active members, among which an impressive 87% are women, put their interests, wish lists, achievements and indulgences on virtual display for the sake of …well, who knows, fame and noble-mindedness?

At first glance, Pinterest is flawless: visually attractive, diverse, sleek and easy-to-use, it enables you to collect all your favourite web items and arrange them into beautifully crafted pin boards: from recipes, to inspirational quotes, fashion must-haves, tech news and DIY tips, it’s all there. It’s like neatly placing tags on your home-made jam jars before storing it: unquestionably a rewarding feeling, no wonder women fancy it!

But before you rush to see what the fuss is all about and create an account, here’s a list of the things you should be aware of:

1. 1. Copyright issues. Basically, when you add a ‘pin’ (an image or video) to your online board, you must have the legal right to share it, either as the owner of it or with permission from the original source. Why? Because others might share it or use it for commercial purposes and Pinterest clearly says members, individuals or businesses, are solely responsible for what they pin or repin.
2. 2. Visual content is king. Like with any other social sharing site, things can easily get out of control: millions of users posting millions of videos or images that may have violent, offensive or racist character might negatively impact viewers, especially teens. For example, boards promoting the ‘thin-spiration’ trend with images of excessively thin young women are very popular and encourage dieting and exercising in order to lose weight, until achieving a ghostly appearance.
3. 3. Limited access. In order to limit children’s exposure to inappropriate content, Pinterest has prohibited access for children under 13, yet chances are your kids are already browsing its pages. You can use a Parental Control app to find it out and if your underaged child is on Pinterest, you can restrict or ban his/her access to it. Comforting, isn’t it?
4. 4. Also, the site is sovereign. It can use/modify your content in any way and can terminate your licence at any time given, for any reason or without any explanation. A bit of tyranny?
5. 5. You take full responsibility. If you access a third party website, which might be malicious and infect your computer with a nasty virus, you are the only one to blame. You can never be too careful, so protecting your computer with an efficient antivirus program is vital for your safety. To learn more about the scams you might fall for, read this article.

Before you go, I found some pinteresting facts and tips that might come in handy or just stir your curiosity:

1. 1. If you want to go against the ‘sharing’ stream, don’t let anyone repin your content by adding a small piece of code to the header in the html section of your page: <meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />.  When someone tries to ‘Pin It’ using the browser’s bookmarklet, this message will appear: This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!
2. 2. The boards about products generate the most repins: clothes, jewellery, furniture, anything that appeals to the feminine audience.
3. 3. More than 80% of all pins are actually repins, which means there’s little original content, yet the spread is amazing.
4. 4. Etsy.com, the online market place is the leading source for pins, followed by google.com and flickr.com.
5. 5. The most popular boards are ‘Elephants’ the Art category (source: Repinely) with almost 4 million followers and ‘Delicious’ with 3 million and a half repins (source: Pin Reach). Surprisingly - or not - one is about elephants made from unconventional materials and the other about food.

To avoid getting into trouble and become a role model pinner within the community, you should follow this ‘Pin Etiquette’: be respectful and authentic, credit your sources by linking to the original source and report any offensive or harmful content to protect fellow members. For more information on this topic, check out the site’s Terms of Service.

So, despite these flaws, are you planning to create a Pinterest account?

This spring, don’t forget about your computer! Do a thorough cleaning to get the best out of your system this year.

With the sun shining and the fresh air coming through the windows, you’re bound to feel the irresistible need to clean everything you’ve neglected during the cold winter months. So you move around the furniture, clean the windows until they squeak, and put away all those dreary winter hats and coats. But what about your PC, doesn’t it deserve some attention, too?

Unused programs, temporary internet and operating system files, and a disorganized hard drive take their toll on your computer, compromising its speed and performance, even its internet security. A serious spring cleaning will make your computer run faster and smoother, which means more free time for you to enjoy the new season.

Whether you’re using a laptop or a desktop PC, here are the main cleaning tips we recommend:

1. 1. First, back up all your important data. The last thing you want is to accidentally delete your family photos or the projects you’ve worked so hard on. You could use a program that syncs files with other computers or save them on external hard disks, but the safest way to store your data is on a safe online drive.

1. 2. Get rid of the clutter in your system. Start with the most visible places – your desktop and the system tray or taskbar in the bottom right corner. You’ve probably gathered a whole collection of files, photos and MP3s on your desktop, but do you really need them there? Take your time and neatly arrange them into specialized folders. And what about the small icons you see in your taskbar? They all start up when you turn on your computer and that takes time and resources. A simple right-click will remove or turn off the ones you don’t actually need on a daily basis.

1. 3. Remove the programs you don’t use. Old programs always seem to find a comfy spot in your system to relax after you’ve forgotten about them. The rule here is “Trash whatever you haven’t used in over a year”. Otherwise, you’re just wasting space and slowing down your work.  Deleting the files won’t do it, though. You need to uninstall them from the Control Panel or using their own uninstall kit.

1. 4. Reorganize your hard drive. The information you use on your computer every day gets stored onto the hard drive in bits and pieces, wherever it can find a place. This saves valuable time on given tasks, but it does have long-term consequences. When the information gets too disorganized, your computer has to work overtime to find it. You can put back the order in your hard drive by using the defrag tool that comes with your operating system (Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter).

1. 5. Update your software. To be in top shape, your computer needs an updated operating system and fully patched programs. Software is never actually “finished”, but continuously improved and patched. No program is perfect, so providers work hard even after they’ve sold it to you. And it’s not just about performance and speed. It’s about computer security, too. Outdated programs are responsible for vulnerabilities and secret entryways into your system, all of which can be used by hackers and malware to compromise your internet security. You can get these critical patches and updates from the manufacturer’s website yourself. Or you can save time and effort by having a piece of software known as a vulnerability scanner that automatically detects outdated programs and points you to the necessary updates. Some internet security suites come with this time-saving tool.

1. 6. Clear your cache of temporary files. Every browsing session leaves behind small files in your Temporary Internet Files folder. So you can imagine how, over time, a huge collection of such items can affect your browsing speed and reduce the free space on your hard drive. You can get rid of them directly from your web browser or you can leave this task to a special tune up tool that comes with some internet security programs.

Whether you carefully go through all the steps or just some of them, the time you spend now looking after the computer will actually save you a lot more time and effort in the long run. After all, you’ll have a clean, high-performance system to work with all year.

Do you have a set schedule for cleaning your computer? Or do you ignore it until it starts playing up or slowing down? Tell us your habits.

You might think that testing security software is an exercise in scientific, unbiased objectivity - a study of mathematical precision. This might lead you to think that such test results are The Truth, and that there is no room for discussion.

If that’s what you think, you’re wrong. Partly wrong, at least.

The test results drew headlines in tech media around the world, with Neil Rubenking of PC Mag taking the lead in reporting that, basically, most security products for Android phones failed the test miserably. As a result, the smartphone owners using the products would be at risk whenever they went online from their phone, even though they pay good money to stay safe from malware.

Among those who scored really poorly in the test was … yes, you guessed it: BullGuard! Very upsetting, we thought, as we’re generally not used to scoring low on malware detection.

Other companies, whose products did poorly, were also quite taken aback by the results. One of those companies, MYMobileSecurity, very quickly got in touch with AV Test Labs, and voiced their frustration with the results, causing AV-Test Labs to revisit their test methods.

It turned out that an incompatibility between many of the products and the testing environment made the product appear ineffective. Nice to get that confirmed. Even if it wasn’t entirely surprising to the industry because, as the wide range in detection results shows, the testers are mapping completely unknown territories.

The new tests proved worthwhile, as many of the products that at first had been dismissed as poor performers, now came into their own and proved their effectiveness.

For BullGuard, this meant that our Mobile Security product ended up with a catch rate of 65%-90%, and as AV-Test Labs point out in their summary:

“Products with a detection rate between 90% and 65% are still very good and could move to the top range depending on changes to the tested malware set. Some of these products just miss one or two malware families, which might be not prevalent in certain environments.”

All in all, the score is well above average and showed BullGuard to miss the elite +90% group by a hairsbreadth since we provided excellent detection rates for more than half of the tested malware families, and well above average detection for other 5 types. The other 3 families where our detection was either average or the family was missed them, tell us where we should direct our efforts. Improving those areas will certainly put us in the +90% detection group.

But how does it happen in the first place?

There is no question that AV-Test Labs do a very good job when it comes to testing security products – they’ve tested PC security products for  years, and I think it’s safe to say that they have the respect of the industry, as well as that of the media covering it.

Here’s the deal, though:

• This is the first sizeable malware test for the Android platform performed by AV-test Labs and mobile security is still unchartered waters. Android malware testing is a brand new discipline, and therefore there is no well-established methodology for these kinds of tests.

• The very way the Android platform works is a challenge to testing which directly influences how testing is performed.

• Testing rounds are currently mostly hands-on approaches by manually copying malware packages and installing them one by one. That’s tedious work and making sure all possible test scenarios are covered takes quite some time, thus limiting the amount of malware samples used during the tests.

So bottom line: Testing a new technology is not as precise and sophisticated a discipline as you might think. But naturally, as the market matures, test methods will improve. And this first large scale Android malware testing round will prove to be quite useful by showing areas that security software developers will want to focus on.

Until then, it’s certainly worthwhile to keep this note in mind which AV-Test Labs included in their original comments to the test results:

“Please bear in mind, that malware may not be the only or the most important threat to your Anti-Malware solutions for Android 4 device. Even if a product scores poorly in malware detection it may have other convenient features, such as remote lock and wipe, backup and phone locating, that make it useful for your purposes. It is also possible to run two or more security apps on your device at the same time, using only the best features of the single apps.” 

What is the most important feature for you, when it comes to mobile security? Antivirus protection or features like Antitheft and  Parental Control. Or maybe online backup?

PS from BullGuard:

We’d like to thank AV-Test Labs for the way they’ve handled this. The entire test was a very good initial evaluation of the AV engines for the Android platform and we are really grateful for AV-Test’s cooperation and prompt reaction in updating the test results.

A pretty blunt question! But one we all want the answer to. Let’s start with the basics. Here’s what the Facebook folks state in their Legal Terms:

“You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings...

 ...you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License)”

Basically, you own your Facebook data, but they can use it for whatever they want.  A bit worrying? And honestly, those terms make no sense to me. You own your data, but you don’t have full rights to it?!

To prove my point, I will talk about two other case studies that will show the questionable way Facebook handles this privacy issue.

“Europe versus Facebook”

An Austrian organization called “Europe versus Facebook” has made numerous complaints regarding Facebook’s privacy practices.  One of them addressed that Facebook was unable to send you a copy of all your data hosted on their platform as Google does.  After some pressure, Facebook agreed to send the data upon request within 40 days from the initial request, on a CD.

Sounds great. But (with Facebook, there’s always a “but”) when Europe versus Facebook tested this service, they were surprised to find out that important data was missing. Of course, they asked Facebook about it. And their answer was:

“Pursuant to Section 4(9) of the Acts, personal data which is impossible to furnish or which can only be furnished after disproportionate effort is exempt from the scope of a subject access request. We have not furnished personal data which cannot be extracted from our platform in the absence of is proportionate effort.

Section 4(12) of the Acts carves out an exception to subject access requests where the disclosures in response would adversely affect trade secrets or intellectual property. We have not provided any information to you which is a trade secret or intellectual property of Facebook Ireland Limited or its licensors.”

So, I raise my question again: Do you really own your data on Facebook if they don’t give you a way to save your entire database?

Deleted photos still online

According to Ars Technica, even after deleting them, your photos are kept online by Facebook. When asked, Facebook replied that the reason for this is of a technical nature and not intentional. Really? The issue was first reported back in 2009, and it has not yet been solved. 3 years to solve a technical glitch?

And there are thousands of stories like this online. Our common sense tells us always to presume innocence. To be honest, in Facebook’s case this can’t apply anymore. Not for me, anyway.

Do you feel the same? What’s your take on this? 

We all know and hate it: it’s annoyingly persistent, attention-grabbing and impossible to avoid. Yes, I’m talking about spam e-mail, creeping like a pesky bacterium you have to learn to live with. Junk e-mail has been around for a couple of (Internet) ages and has no intention of going away.

However, never lose hope of a lighter mailbox. Take a look at these promising tips to help you identify spam and learn how to prevent it.

First of all, how do you recognize a spam e-mail? Pay attention to:

1. The sender: most of the e-mails are sent through bogus addresses that seem valid.
2. The subject line: usually includes “money” (“Earn”/”Save”/”Win money”) and promotes a sense of urgency (“Last chance”, “Order today”, “Call now”). Check out a complete list of spam-triggering words commonly found in subject lines, here.
3. The message: emotional or business-oriented, spammers lure you into giving away your financial information, passwords or PIN numbers under a variety of false pretexts such as doing a good deed for charity or receiving an unexpected prize. 

It may seem easy to identify a foe, but let’s use this recent Facebook scam as an example.

What’s wrong with this picture?

• Inviting you to reply to an e-mail address which differs from the sender: if the sender is fake and risks being shut down, the second account is the one controlled by the spammer.
• The huge amount of money involved.
• Winning a prize even if you haven’t agreed to participate in any type of contest.
• Keeping your winnings a secret.
• Deceiving mobile phone number:  usually redirects you to a fake location so the spammers cannot be traced.

Now that you have spotted a bad e-mail, it’s best to cut the evil off at the root and reduce spam as much as possible. Here’s a list of good practices:

1. 1. Don’t reveal your e-mail address in forums, blog comments or chats and don’t sign up using your primary e-mail address. If you must expose yourself online, use a special address for social networking.  You can also trick spammers by leaving out periods and “@” signs or write with letters: "yourname AT yourdomain DOTcom."

1. 2. Make your address almost impossible to guess. Sounds ridiculous, but it’s another easy way for spammers to add names to their lists. Once given a domain name, a program will send mails to all sorts of (likely) user names at that address, from aaaronb@ to zzziddyw@, for example.

1. 3. Use an efficient spam filter. It’s essential that you use a tool to sort out the spam you’re receiving. The most powerful ones include an advanced Bayesian filter to statistically identify spam based on word patterns or word frequency. To learn more about this technology, you can check BullGuard Spamfilter. And try it – it’s free.

1. 4. Never reply to or click on any links in a spam message. Follow these golden rules to stay safe: don't buy any products or services advertised in spam, don't reply to or forward the e-mail and don't click on anything! If you do, you risk catching a virus or your address might be used to spam your entire contact list. And I’m sure your friends wouldn’t be happy about it.

1. 5. Report spam to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you receive an e-mail who seems to come from a friend, but it’s actually fake, you can complain to his/her ISP at an address like: abuse@ (ISP’s name).com; abuse@yahoo.com, for example. To find out which ISP to contact, you can use SpamCop , a tool meant to analyze spam messages and send complaints on your behalf.

Remember, being skeptical and staying informed will always help you stay out of trouble!  Has spam ever complicated your life?

Did you know that that your Internet connection can be dropped on 8th March? The cause: a new type of malware (DNSChanger) that modifies your internet connection settings and changes your DNS Servers. Don’t worry, you can easily prevent and fix that.

Some background info

So…why is having the right DNS servers setup on your PC important? Well, this service/server converts those user-friendly web domains (ex: www.bullguard.com) into an IP (217.72.253.133). Basically, the computers are communicating with each other using those numbers. The domain names have been invented for the human mind, to be more easily memorized. If a DNS server is down, when entering the domain name into the browser, the page will not load. Of course, you can use the IP (http://217.72.253.133/) but who can remember that?!

Confused? Check out this cartoon:

About DNS Changer malware

Unfortunately, cybercriminals have figured out that if they control the DNS servers, they control the websites you want to connect to. In this particular case, they created a new type of malware, called DNSChanger, which has the mission to replace your DNS servers (usually provided by your Internet Service Provider) with rogue ones created by the criminals.

This virus has been around since 2007, infected millions of computers worldwide and stealing around $14 million from the infected users. The mechanism: using the bad DNS, they redirect you to phishing websites, adware etc.

The good news if that, at the end of the last year, FBI succeeded in finding and arresting all the gang members behind this and found the location of the rogue servers. They had the good sense to not simply shut down the servers (and break the Internet Connection for millions of users) but instead replaced them with legitimate ones.

Unfortunately, these will not be online indefinitely. According to the court permission, FBI can keep the servers online until 8^th March. (The Bureau has applied to extend this safety net until 9 July). 

UPDATE: The court federal  granted the Bureau another 120 days to keep running these Domain Name System servers that were keeping hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of infected computers online. The deadline is, now, 9 July 2012.

What to do?

First of all, check if your DNS servers are among the rogue ones:

• 85.255.112.0 through 85.255.127.255
• 67.210.0.0 through 67.210.15.255
• 93.188.160.0 through 93.188.167.255
• 77.67.83.0 through 77.67.83.255
• 213.109.64.0 through 213.109.79.255
• 64.28.176.0 through 64.28.191.255

To do that, follow these steps:

1. Click on START | RUN and type CMD in the Open: field, then click OK.  This will open a black command prompt window.
2.  At the prompt type: ipconfig /all and press Enter
3.  This will show you lots of information about your network connection.  Find the line that says “DNS Servers . . . “.  If that line contains any address from above you will need to change your DNS servers.

Also, you can use this quicker way provided by FBI: https://forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS or the DNS Ok tool mentioned by Alexander Uhde in the first comment.

After doing that, please make sure you regularly scan your computer with a trusted antivirus product.

Have you followed the above instructions? Did you found your DNS servers replaced?

We’re really excited about the brand new product that is just about ready to launch, and we hope you will be, too! If you’re up for it, you can try it today – the beta version of BullGuard Mobile Backup is out there, ready for you to test.

If you sign up as a BullGuard beta tester, you get the chance to win a full years worth of Mobile Backup. And you get a golden opportunity to share your insights and ideas with our developers on how we can improve the solution.

What’s in it for you? Prizes!

As a token of our eternal gratitude for your BETA efforts, we are rewarding the 10 Best Testers with free Mobile Backup. The Best Testers will be selected based upon both the quantity and the quality of their feedback and bug reports.

Here’s what we’re giving away:

• 1 x 1 year of 10 GB Mobile Backup
• 2 x 1 year of 5 GB Mobile Backup
• 7 x 1 year of 2 GB Mobile Backup

What’s so cool about Mobile Backup?

• 2GB Backup – more than enough space for your most important files, contacts, messages and other data, with additional storage available if required.

• Migration – one of the most common problems encountered when upgrading a phone is retrieving data from an old handset. What’s really useful is that the Migration works across platforms – this means you can backup the data from your old Symbian phone and restore it to a new Android device, allowing you to get up and running in no time

• Web access – BullGuard Mobile Backup’s web interface offers instant access to your files, allowing you to review and edit uploaded content any time, and anywhere.

• Set and forget – take the hassle out of regular backups by creating a backup profile that can be used to automatically refresh your secure online drive at regular intervals, ensuring that you always have the latest versions to hand if needed.

• Incremental backups – speed up the transfer process by opting to only upload files that have been changed or added since the previous backup, ensuring fast and efficient protection of data.

• Encrypted transfer and storage – rest safe in the knowledge that BullGuard’s servers are protected with the latest security and encryption protocols, ensuring that all of your data is kept away from intruders and malicious third parties.

• Support – as always BullGuard offers free 24/7 support to help guide you through the features of the software or answer any questions you may have.

There is no product like this out there.

Not only does it address one of the most common issues people have when buying a new phone: i.e. getting all of their data onto the new handset! It also offers a vital layer of additional security for users concerned about losing their data if a phone is lost or stolen and is a great complement to our Mobile Security package.”

Become a BullGuard Beta Tester and win 10 GB of Mobile Backup

If you want to have a shot at beta testing this exciting new smartphone app, sign up now.    

SIGN UP HERE

You sooo want those addictive, funny apps. And when you have a craving for a new one, your index finger itching to tap into a new, compelling app universe, you throw caution to the wind. You’re ready to download anything, and – yes, let’s be honest - security measures is the last thing you want to spend time considering.

But app land is a jungle, and not everything is what it seems. Cybercriminals are working round the clock to create illegitimate, malware-infested apps for you to download. When you do, you basically hand over control of all the content on your phone to the bad guys – including bank details, contact information, passwords and anything else you’re storing on there.

I’ve asked BullGuard’s mobile security experts  to give out a few tips on how you can make sure, an app is legitimate and doesn’t put you or your phone at risk.

Here’s their advice:

• Only download applications from the platform’s official app store: Android Market, App World (Blackberry), Ovi Store (Symbian) or Apple Store

  Avoid 3^rd party app repositories at all costs where there is little or no control over what gets published there. Spam e-mails or SMS messages with links to download apps represent a security risk as well.

 

• Read the reviews
  

  All app stores display reviews for the software available for download. Pay attention to what other people say and take some time to sift through the reviews: if there are several pages of reviews, make sure to go through some of them randomly. Even if the app is legit, reading reviews can also tell you whether the software may cause issues on the device.

  When sifting through pages and pages of free apps, a healthy dose of scepticism is required and going with a “guilty until proven otherwise” mentality will go a long way to keep malware off of your smartphone.

 

• It is vital to read what permission and resource access the application requires on your phone, particularly on permission based mobile platforms such as Android, Blackberry or iOS. Smartphone owners need to look at the app’s advertised features and compare those features to the list of permissions and resource access the software asks for. For example, it does not make any sense for small, entertaining games to have access to the contacts list and messages, or to send text messages to random numbers or being allowed to delete files from the device.

  You can easily identify discrepancies between advertised features, and what the application will really do on the smartphone.

 

• Do nor jailbreak or root the phone.

  For iOS device owners, it may be nice to be able to install applications that do not necessarily come from Apple’s App Store, but what the jailbreaking process does, is simply strip the iPhone of all security layers leaving the owner defenceless against malware or hacking attempts. A similar situation is presented to Android users that root their device; when this happens, installed apps will have access to the entire device and features.

 



 

• Install a mobile security suite and keep the operating system up-to-date.
  

  While security products provide protection against malware, keeping the phone’s operating system up to date will ensure that security flaws or holes through which malware can crawl on the device get patched.

What do you do to avoid malicious apps? Be honest, now … even if the answer is “nothing”!