Security

WordPress 5.8 Update Could Not Be Verified

22 July 2021
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Security, Wordpress

While working on a WordPress site we were prompted to update to 5.8, but the manually pushing the button to update keep failing. The process would start, but would run into errors and stop. We tried just manually moving the directories “wp-admin” and “wp-includes” from a downloaded zip of the latest version, but this didn’t help. We ended up fixing everything by removing a few plugins we had installed and were not using. Once this was done the update button worked fine. On screen the update got to the end and read “updating database…” and hung there, but going back to the Dashboard everything was fine. The site was updated to 5.8 and running fine.

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Outlook Contacting:\\googleads.g.doubleclick

6 February 2019
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Outlook, RougeKiller, Security

Had a customer with an issue of Outlook “Not Responding“, and a dialog box would popup saying: Microsoft Outlook Contacting: \\googleads.g.doubleclick.net\pagead\viewthroughconversation\877065211”.

Running Outlook in safe mode would stop this from happening. Go to run and type in “outlook /safe” and hit enter.

The following article lead us to possible Malware. There were no obvious browser add-ins or extensions that could be causing this. We found the following article which prompted us to install and run RougeKiller.

Click here to see article.

RougeKiller found 3 items that we didn’t really see as a threat. One was just a shortcut, but one was a registry entry. We recreated the short and let RougeKiller Quarantine the three items. We restarted the machine and the issue didn’t popup again. We uninstalled RougeKiller and restarted the machine and Outlook was working properly.

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Outlook a program is trying to access e-mail address

6 December 2018
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Outlook, Outlook Add-in, Security, VIPRE

We had a customer who’s Outlook keep popping up the following dialog box.

Here is the link we used to understand the issue.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/i-get-warnings-about-a-program-accessing-email-address-information-or-sending-email-on-my-behalf-86cc5ece-379e-45e3-b8eb-3fefba09946b

This location uses Vipre Antivirus. We logged onto their server and went into the Vipre console. The customer’s machine appeared up-to-date with the client; however, the definitions were slightly behind. Not by much. We pushed “Definition Upates”, and this resolved the issue right-a-way.

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Browser Not Going To Site – Search Encrypt

1 November 2018
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Chrome, MalwareBytes, Security

We got a call from a customer who couldn’t get to a website she uses everyday. The issue was in Chrome. I went to the extensions to see if anything strange was installed. I saw “Search Encrypt“.

A quick search lead me to an article at Malwarebytes.

https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/226686-removal-instructions-for-search-encrypt/

This article was on removing Search Encrypt and a lot of places label it as Malware. We would too.

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What Does GDPR Mean

23 August 2018
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: GDPR, Security

The European Union has enacted the General Data Protection Regulation. It’s goal is to streamline the different privacy laws throughout the individual EU States. The benefits for the in the individuals or “data subjects” control over their personal data.

“Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional, or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address.”
the European Commission

This will allow individuals the right to access their data that any company has and give them the right to have this information erased. Companies also must make the consent process clear for the individual.

Here is a nice article from ConnectWise on how GDPR.

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Phishing Attempts From Cheapfixerproperties.com

27 July 2018
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Email, Phishing, Ransomware, Security, Spam

We had a customer complaining about emails stuck in the spam filter. They were getting an email with the subject line “(3) Incoming messages failed to sync”. In the email was a button to “Restore Messages”; however, when we hovered over the link the web address was for “https://cheapfixerproperties.com/…”.

We told the customer this was a Phishing attempt, and to not click on that button. They are ready had. We ran a full Vipre scan on their machine.

The URL takes you to a site that Google has already flagged.

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Email Scam – I do know, XXXXXXXX, is your password.

12 July 2018
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Email, Ransomware, Security

We received an email from a old customer who got an email with the following message.

“I do know, xxxxxxx, is your password. You don’t know me and you are probably wondering why you are getting this e-mail, correct?

actually, I actually installed a malware on the adult vids (sexually graphic) site and do you know what, you visited this web site to have fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching video clips, your web browser started out functioning as a RDP (Remote Desktop) having a key logger which provided me access to your display screen as well as cam. after that, my software obtained all of your contacts from your Messenger, FB, as well as email.

What exactly did I do?

I created a double-screen video. 1st part displays the video you were watching (you’ve got a nice taste lol . . .), and 2nd part shows the recording of your web camera.

exactly what should you do?

Well, in my opinion, $2900 is a fair price for our little secret. You will make the payment through Bitcoin (if you do not know this, search “how to buy bitcoin” in Google).

BTC Address: 149EV7BbQSuJTS8mHJ5kdjGBvSKMFu7tob
(It is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it)”

There was more to the email. The point is this email is a SCAM.

The biggest question was it was a password the customer had used in the past. Our best guess is someone gained access to an account they had and was able to capture name, email address and password. With this information they were able to get the scam started.

A Google search lead me to others that have received this email, and they all confirmed it was a scam.

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VIPRE – A problem has occurred in VIPRE Threat Scanner

27 February 2018
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Antivirus, Security, VIPRE

We had a customer who was having VIPRE pop ups. Here is a screenshot of what they were getting.

I contacted VIPRE and they knew right a way how to fix it. They said it was a bad definition that came down in early February. The fix is to download a small file that will remove the old definitions and restart the agent.  Here is the link they sent us.

https://homesupport.vipre.com/support/solutions/articles/1000259870-vipre-alert-2-6-2018-problem-has-occurred-in-vipre-scanning-engine-or-vipre-threat-scanner

I ran the executable which only took few minutes and I got a popup saying VIPRE was my antivirus. I could see in the VIPRE Console on the server that the definitions were updating, so the Console and the agent were communicating again.

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Windows Security Outlook Connecting To Prompt Dialog Box

22 August 2017
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Office, Outlook, Security

Had a user getting prompted by Outlook to enter credentials for another email account. There were no additional accounts attached to her outlook. I ended up using Microsoft’s Credential Manager and deleting out all the entries. This time when Outlook opened it was asking to log into a different account that the user once had linked to her email account. I quit Outlook and went back to the credential Manager and deleted out a new entry. Restarted Outlook and the issue was solved.

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Domain Expiration SEO Registration Is Set To Expire – Scam

1 June 2017
Dwayne Grimes
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Categories: Security, SEO, Web Rankings

We have recently received a couple of emails asking us to re-register our SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ). There is a link to pay.

This is obviously a scam. The SEO are carefully crafted words in the webpage. You can pay someone to craft the SEO and put it in the page, but you don’t need to “register” anything.

The company is qualiSEO.org. They charge $75.00 per year with multi-year discounts.

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