Win32 Virus Removal

This is a precautionary tale. Technology is man-made and what we make we can also misuse.

Twitter got hacked Thursday night. Visitors to Twitter.com were automatically redirected to a web site with a message saying “This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.” Twitter now reports that service has been restored to normal. No harm, no foul, right?

Many Blackberry users in North America are finally getting access to their e-mail after a shutdown of service this week because of an undetermined network issue. Phone service and messaging were apparently not affected by the outage. Some individual users were impacted; others just noticed a slowed response.

Recently Facebook has been urging its 65 million-plus active users to check and then update their privacy settings. A malicious worm called “koobface” has threatened Facebook users and other social network sites. This virus appears like an electronic greeting card video but can, if viewed, turn over control of your PC to the virus. The worm can get your account info and then send messages to all your friends, potentially infecting them. A component of the virus blocks connecting to security web sites so ridding yourself of koobface is not easy. Microsoft’s Malicious Software removal tool does remove the virus, providing you have kept up with your Windows updates.

The Supreme Court has decided to consider employer access to personal text messages if the employee uses a company-provided device. Although the original case involves messages sent on a pager, the decision is expected to have ramifications for all electronic communication on company-provided equipment. Privacy is no longer private, if it’s a part of the electronic virtual world we have created. If you tweet, text, e-mail or surf you are exposing yourself to various digital risks or surveillance of some kind.

Those of us who value and use technology need to respect that simple fact. – Pula Davis, for the editorial board