Technical Tidbits™

I received 966 of my Microsoft Award Promotion winning e-mail this morning! And I won it in their Microsoft New year Bonaza EMAIL DRAW! (Their spelling not mine!)

I guess they really wanted me to make sure I know I won!

And in case I didn’t understand what a winner was, they made sure I knew I was also a wenner! (I guess that’s better than being a whinner or a weiner!)

Here’s what it said:

You have won £1,000,000.00 GBP in the recent email drawof the Microsoft New year Bonaza EMAIL DRAW. you are advise to contact your claims department with the below informations.Full Name;Home Address; Country of residence; occupation: Contact Phone Number;Contact Person: Mr. Lewis Desmond E-mail:gaminghouse125@hotmail.com.

See how I traced the sender back to a poor schmuck running a botnet in Canada.  View the details here: http://mice.org/microsoft-award-promotion.html

If anyone knows TomTS in Barrie, Ontario Canada, tell him to clean up his computer!

Point him to my post about the free botnet removal tool from Trend Micro!

I was doing some research on TrendMicro for a student and accidentally fell on this hidden new tool! RUBotted is a new, free botnet (zombie) detection and removal tool in Beta from TrendMicro.

In my PC security course, I teach my students how to detect zombies and botnets but this tool makes it a snap!

I just downloaded the small file and installation went 1 – 2 – 3!

I was relieved when the installation completion announced that: NO BOTNETS FOUND!

It also runs quietly in the background (systray) and doesn’t appear to be using any huge amount of resources. In fact, I don’t even notice a difference in my system performance.

The requirements to install this new tool is minimal so even if you don’t have the latest and greatest PC or processor, check this out!

Kudo’s to TrendMicro for creating a great new Botnet (Zombie) detection and removal tool! And FREE!