What's new Pussy Cat?

Egads, I will be humming that tune now all night. Tom Jones! Remember him? My Mom had the biggest crush on him. I will have to remind her when I talk to her tomorrow. Well that was then and this is now, lol.

Oh my, what's new? Life has been so busy and full. With huskies, puppies, craft shows, the Earth Mart, and recently our local OctoberFest, I was pretty busy creating, and happy to say that I almost sold out on everything that I had made (and I thought I had lots!) There is one more Christmas craft show at the end of November, but truthfully I don't think I have enough stuff left to sell and not enough time to make up mass quantities, but I'm not too worried if I don't make it this year. My local sales have picked up and I've been doing pretty well. I hope that's a sign that the economy is turning around? I sure hope so.

What's new with the huskies? Aleutia is in a motherly way and should be having pups within the next two weeks. That means cute little cuddly Christmas puppies! Sweet! I love having puppies and puppy squeels filling the house. I can't wait!

Winter is fast approaching. The weather sure changed suddenly.... like overnight! One day it was sunny and warm. The next day it was cold and they were talking snow. Wow! I thought winter gradually settled in. I have a feeling it's going to be another cold winter here... UGH.

The kids are good. My Grand kids are growing like weeds. Steve, Kiersa and Cohen came down and spent the day with me at the Priest River Octoberfest. We had a blast! Good food, good beer, great band, good company! It just doesn't get any better than that.

In a nutshell that sums up what's been going on around here. Things will slow down now that summer has ended. The craft shows are done. Soon I will be snowed in. I will have 3 or 4 months to build up my jewelry and craft supply to get ready for next years Earth Mart. I did really well with my sales there this year.

Ok, I guess it is time to call it a night and shut down the computer. I hope everyone is happy and well and enjoying all that life brings. Until next time,

Ciao.
~LVS

Surviving a hack attack!

Have you ever had your computer hacked? Someone, an unknown person, hacks into your computer and completely takes it over. They change all of your settings, you can't even turn your computer off (except to unplug it.) All of your configurations and settings are changed. They now have access to all of your files, your passwords, personal information... anything that you have saved on your computer is there for them to see (and use!)

It started out simply enough. One of my Etsy girlfriends asked me to join her Mafia on Facebook.com. Now I am not an online game player. Years ago I used to play games at Pogo.com with my Son and Daughter-in-law, but since I opened my Etsy stores I found I didn't have time for that anymore so I let my Pogo subscription run out.

Facebook was different though. It was a social network. A perfect way to meet new friends and share my Etsy stores with, or so I thought at the time I joined it. Little did I know it would turn into one of the worst nightmares of my life. I thoroughly enjoyed playing "Mafia Wars." I built up my character over the course of a month and I put in a lot of time and effort in doing so. I was getting by on little or no sleep, wacking other Mafia families, having friends and family join my Mafia family and by the end of a month I had over 1000 people in my happy family.

Perhaps that is where I got in to trouble? I didn't know 90% of these people. I didn't really know anyone other than by their Mafia Family screen names. I joined a couple of Mafia Wars groups and before long I had more Mafia Family friends than I could shake a stick at.

My Mafia Wars character was hijacked, as well as my Facebook account. Try as I might to report this to Facebook I wasn't having any success. I was locked out of my account so I couldn't access it to tell anyone. I created a second Facebook account and reported that my friends account had been hijacked. I tried sending them emails to no avail. I finally reported it to the FBI. In the course of the hack/hijack I was hit with numerous viruses and I am sure it was "their" (whoever took over my account and character) way of ensuring I couldn't get back online for awhile. While I was knocked offline my back account was drained. This person was playing Mafia Wars (as though it was me) and paying to play! It went through my PayPal account and although I reported it to PayPal, paypal treated it as a "household" problem. Although I told them I live alone, with 3 huskies, I couldn't make them understand or listen, but perhaps they didn't want to? I was small potatoes compared to the gaming company and owner of this Mafia Wars game. I am sure PayPal made some hefty revenues off of others who played this Mafia Wars game, both on Facebook and my Space and Twitter too.

I could go on and on and on and explain my month of turmoil and personal H*LL. Once you are a victim of identity theft life doesn't feel the same. You feel victimized, violated, unsafe, terrorized. I had nightmares for almost a month. It cost me almost $500.00 in repairs to fix both of my computers, not to mention the money that was drained from my account. I haven't seen my credit cards statements yet.... yikes!

My word of warning to all of you out there who have joined one (or more) social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, My Space and others, be careful what you share. Only share within your private network of friends. Be sure you have all of the latest Windows updates and patches. Use a good Antivirus program and run regular scans. Be sure your antivirus program is updated daily. Use several good (free) malware programs, like Malwarebytes, Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, etc. Run these regularly and search for any unsuspecting malware and spyware that has infected your computer, and DO use a good Firewall to block intruders.

I thought I was well protected. The first thing they did when they took control over my computer was disable my firewall, antivirus program and disable system restore.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me.

Ciao,

LVS

Trojan Vundo and 360 Virus

I just spent 4 days, (IM'ing, emailing and phone conversations,) trying to help my Mother remove Trojan Vundo (virtumonde) and the 360 virus from her computer. I researched online and found lots of suggestions..... and I think we tried most all of them. I will tell you what they suggest does NOT work. Symantec's virus removal tool will not delete it. Nor will all of the other programs that they tell you have free downloads. We actually bought one, webroots SpySweeper. It will find them sure enough and tell you to delete them you need to register the program. Once you buy it, run it, it finds the virus, when you try to delete them it says that the files can not be deleted. You just bought a program and are still left with the Virus. Both my Mom and I have requested refunds, which they have yet to do, so buyer beware!

Now before you spend days of needless downloads and try this, that, and all of the things that we tried, there was only ONE thing that I tried (and it is FREE!) It will not cost you a dime to get rid of both Trojan Vundo and the 360 virus. It is called Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. It can be downloaded from here:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Download this program and save it to desktop. You do not have to be in safemode. I turned off System Restore when I ran it.

Run the program to install it. Update the program to make sure you have the latest spyware definitions. Run "quick" scan. Once it finds the files, select "delete." It will remove all of the files it finds there.

After I ran Malware Byte I also ran Spybot's Search and Destroy. http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-amp-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html
Again, update this program before doing the scan. Also "quarantine" your system after doing the updates and run their scan to pick up any other unwanted cookies and tracking software. When finished run a full virus scan. I suggest doing this for a few days just in case. It is better to be safe than sorry. Then set these programs to run on a regular schedule.

I use AVG's Free antivirus and I swear by it. http://free.avg.com/ Although it didn't catch all of the Vundo and 360 virus files it did find most of them and put them in the vault. Neither Norton or McAfee's Anti-virus programs found these viruses either. This trojan and it's variants seems to have slid under the nose of all of the anti-virus programs.

For years I have run my computers with AVG Free (Anti-virus,) System Mechanic (keeps your computer running smooth,) Spybot Search and Destroy (Spyware removal,) and will now add malwarebytes.

Happy Bug FREE computing!

Ciao,
LV