+++*

Symbolic Forest

A homage to loading screens.

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Viruses, and other geekery

In which we still have no satellite internet, and encounter a virus

Quite a few people, recently, have come to this site looking for information on Aramiska, the European satellite ISP which apparently collapsed last week. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any information, anywhere. The company promised to release a statement on January 30th; it never appeared. Their disappearance is still a mystery.

Moving on, this email came in to one of our work addresses yesterday:

I noticed whilst browsing your site that there were problems with some of your links, when I tried again with Internet Explorer the problems were not there so I assume that they were caused by me using the Mozilla browser.

Very nice and helpful, you might think.* However, if you read on, you might get a little more suspicious…

I have enclosed a screen capture of the problem so your team can get it fixed if you deem it an issue.

Hah. If you’re not suspicious yet, you probably shouldn’t be allowed near the internet. If you look a little closer, the attachment is a .scr file – which could, I suppose, look like “screenshot” to the non-technical. If you try to open it,** then: congratulations, you have a virus, one known as W32/Brepibot. It’s a “backdoor”, a tool that then enables hackers to connect into your computer and harness it for their own nefarious purposes. Well done.

* As our work website was designed by an apparently-clueless PR chap with no previous knowledge of website design at all, it is also entirely believable.

** and you’re using a Windows computer, and don’t have up-to-date virus protection