The “bad guys” on the Internet have long had a habit of finding the biggest security holes with the greatest potential impact. That’s one reason why the Apple computer line has remained effectively virus free (I caught at least one in the early Mac days (Scores), so don’t tell me there never has been any Mac viruses).

Over the years, operating systems have been “hardened”, so the bad guys have become creative and looked towards other avenues, to the point that Mike Cox in an article “Social media attacks dominate first half of 2010 malware trends” on eChannelLive tells us what is now going as as the biggest impact by the bad guys:

“Cyber criminals are putting increasing emphasis on using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as effective ‘spread mechanisms’ for malicious software,” said Arvid Gomez, Norman vice president, OEM and Technology. “In the past, they put nearly all of their efforts into compromising PC operating systems. As social media use becomes part of the fabric of our daily life, Internet users need to make certain they are taking the necessary steps to protect their privacy and security.”

He then goes on the discuss the koobface malware that has come through FaceBook since 2007. I encountered this at a client’s site about 4 months ago.

Another method to not only frustrate you, but also get some money, or your credit card number for use in, in the least case fraud, and the worst case, identity theft, are the “scareware” or “rasomware” programs that take over your system and basically demand that you buy their removal tools, which…are pretty much garbage anyhow. Mike has this comment:

Norman security experts also note that fake antivirus programs continued to plague many home PC and business users. Rogue antimalware programs have been around for a long time. In recent years however, they have become increasingly widespread, and represent a major problem. These programs can be difficult to eradicate, as they often consist of many different malicious elements.

I spent a better part of Wednesday ripping one of these attacks out of a laptop of a client’s office machine. I’ll say this: About 6 months ago, I could find these and get around them and eliminate them in about an hour. That was thanks to having seen several in a short time frame. They all had different file names, and loaded themselves from different places on the drive, but they all used the same methods. The one I ran into Wednesday had grown far smarter. I found it pretty quickly, but it had done many things to mask itself, and had placed some more hooks in the registry than I was used to deleting. Additional, I found a browser web director trojan in there, too. It may have arrived as a package deal, but it took 6 hours to find it, delete the offending things, much of the time was spent running scans, which found more things with each delete/reboot/scan cycle. It’s gone now and they are back to work, without having to just wipe the drive and begin all over, but it was a long day, when some elements have become smart enough to even force a load, regardless of some settings you applied to keep them from coming in a boot up.

I know many people don’t want to learn about the specifics of keeping your computers free of malware and other bad things, but your choice, as I see it, is to commit to some training by your local computer support person/people/staff/support company, or you can call us up and pay by the hour to undo what was maybe a 5 second decision on what to do about the question: “XXX is requesting to run. Do you want to block or allow it?” from your firewall protection. Because of the bad guys, you must get some education in how to keep from your system from becoming unavailable for a few hours (at best) to days (worst case).

Good rule of thumb: You can unblock accidentally prohibited functions. You will lose time and money if you let something in out of “I don’t have time to deal with this, I just want to get back to work!” frustration.

Read Mike’s article and practice intelligent computing!

In the digital world, you’re putting “content” out for all the World to see, literally. Not only can they see it when you post it, but even when you change your webpages or social media work, trust me, there are places that the dedicated can find the “old” versions, be it for good or bad purposes, or worse yet, bad legal purposes.

Via link chasing, I came across this this article “Social Media Marketing: Why You’re Better Off to DIY”, which says what I have mentioned in several meetings or talks.

My view has always been to help you understand why it’s so important that you are the one to be your voice. I can, as many others who work in this field, show you where to put the material you generate, but we don’t know your business like you do.

If you need coaching, I specialize in actually teaching people how to become proficient in managing their own content, to include how to save time while doing it. Get a hold of me if you need some direct, focused, customized help in this area!

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• The online shift towards social media (mediapress.co.za)
• Social Media is the New Public Relations! (ricksrss.com)
• How To Use Social Media For Journalism (ricksrss.com)

However, if you manage your financial and physical assets via electronic means, do you have a plan to make sure there aren’t problems for those left behind?  Good question, isn’t it?

Do you have a business that has customers?  Have you ordered product/services for them, that you have to be around to make sure gets where it needs to go?

Are you a financial consultant type of business, where you retain customer’s data and regualrly provide information to them?

Or, and one of a myriad of other circumstances that would be negatively impacted if the way to get in contact with your customers was suddenly completely unavailable?

Think about how you may ensure that a trusted person can keep the operations running so long as necessary to close out the work/records.

Someone is considering this already.

But this doesn’t only apply to your business life.  After you’re gone, who can get at your online email and data sharing/photo services?  How about MySpace and Facebook and Twitter accounts?

Not a fun topic, but not only planning the disposition of your real assets and bank accounts, you need to make sure that your digital life is managed for a successful close out as well.

Social media is here for a while.  Just as email is now considered for most, don’t be alarmed by doomsayers who bemoan the “graying” of Facebook.  Of all the email transmitted, about 97% is SPAM, but…we’re still using it to communicate.

Below are some questions that may help gauge your current use of social media, and tune up your attention to this form of marketing for your business:

• What’s the plan for your social media presence?
• Is your plan integrated into your marketing plan?
• What social media are you presently on?
• Which ones get you contact with others, who may be viable, qualified prospects?
• Which ones are you spending your social media input time on (and for how long)?
• How many entries involve your business/product/services?
• How many entries discuss your experience as a professional?
• How many entries involves non-business related (humor, local events, charity support)?
• How often are you posting?
• Are your social media sites/names visible on your business materials (business cards, brochures, website)?

Take a few minutes and answer these questions to help see if you’re effectively using social media to your benefit.

Feel free to contact me to help tune things up if you find you’re not doing as well as you should be.

Now, you can stop that world and get off, unlike the real one.

Over at TechCruch:  Wipe The Slate Clean For 2010, Commit Web 2.0 Suicide:

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.

Consider it your own digital version of Dr. Kevorkian.  Oh, and it will let you leave your last words, too.

Yes, pretty extreme, but it’s now a way off the social media merry-go-round. Oh, and once you start the process, it’s a done deal.

Caveat:  It only handles this for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

So, if you’re in the mood to “opt out” of what you got into, go and take yourself out of the game.

Sound extreme?  For some, it’s not.  This article discusses how major sites, get you in, then your data becomes theirs.