Beware. Virus alert. The dawn of pdf based viruses..

theconjurer

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Hello. I came across this article a while ago and holy shit...give it a read. I mean with the amount of ebooks and all that is circulated in the forum these days...this is a serious security concern or so I would think...

Code:
http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Blogs/3411.aspx

Just a warning of sorts to everyone here who downloads like a maniac. dont open just about anything..this is some serious shit. or atleast looks like it to me...

Also, this might not be news to some people here...doens't hurt to refresh your memory.
 
If you are getting pdf's from guru's then this shouldn't effect you.

Its all those no name guys you have to look out for...

At least this is as far as I can tell.

Cheers.
 
If you are getting pdf's from guru's then this shouldn't effect you.

Its all those no name guys you have to look out for...

At least this is as far as I can tell.

Cheers.

Guru's? haha.

You sound like one of the many gullable one's from DP falling for all the marketing lingo.
 
ermm hasent PDF virus been out for some time i mean easy to do easy to take out and if u have a firewall then u control what connects to ur internet :)
 
It's always good practice to disable JavaScript in your reader.

Foxit reader:

Edit->Preferences->JavaScript->Enable JavaScript Actions
 
Yup. That JavaScript threat from PDF's has been around for quite some time now. But if you have an updated PDF reader from Adobe and you have JavaScript turned off, I don't think it will be a problem. It's more problematic if you download and view the PDF immediately from the browser with the Adobe plug-in.

In any case, it may be a good time to actually review the alert bulletin.
 
I haven't seen any pdf based trojans or viruses that ranked higher than a medium risk.

I'm sure some exist. I'm also sure I've picked up the few I discovered from some "guru" rolling out their crap ebook here or on other forums.

On the topic of ebooks, what percentage of the ones you download do you actually read?

For me, I'd say it's less than 10%. Not sure why I bother.
 
If you rely on an AV for your protection your living in a false sense of security.
Use something that tells you what your Pc is doing instead like Spyware Process Detector v3.19
Spyware Process Detector is an anti-spyware tool that will detect all processes running on the computer and display their threat rating based on the intelligent analysis of all hidden properties. Another specialty of the program is its ability to detect a process that contains and executes alien code of another process. Users will at a glance see the detailed information about any selected process and detect all hidden threats, including spyware, malware, keyloggers and Trojans. 17 methods of process detection are available.

Unlike standard Windows Task Manager, Spyware Process Detector will detect even those processes and tasks, which are transparent to OS. The security rating is color-coded so that users can see the most dangerous processes at once. Red stands for the highest rating of danger, green for the lowest one, any color between red and green stands for varying levels of security threat. The program shows other details about each process, such as process ID, parent ID, security status, EXE filename, file path, description, etc. Startup Manager shows details information about processes that run on Windows startup. Once there is a process marked out as red or yellow, users have to choose whether to delete it or mark as safe. The current list of processes can be exported to the Excel format for further analysis.

The program detects new (undetectable by your anti-virus scanner) spywares, trojans and viruses. We recommend to use our program instead of standard Windows Task Manager with your anti-virus together
The only problem is most computer users don't even know what processes
are supposed to be running which to me is like driving a car through a
danerous wilderness and not knowing how to fix it if it breaks down.
I know 13 year olds that can write a FUD trojan that will bypass a firewall and disable your AV.
 
To All:

I will soon be condensing all of the important sticky rules (in the downloads section) into one comprehensive thread as soon as I have a bit of free time. I will also be sure to include the warning about turning off javascript in Adobe Reader and/or Foxit.

Thanks For The Heads-Up :)

Cheers! - "Wiz"
 
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Good news, You know i have avoided pdf lot in life, especially because there files are pretty dumb too, My printer slowly prints them.
 
Hello. I came across this article a while ago and holy shit...give it a read. I mean with the amount of ebooks and all that is circulated in the forum these days...this is a serious security concern or so I would think...

Code:
http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Blogs/3411.aspx

Just a warning of sorts to everyone here who downloads like a maniac. dont open just about anything..this is some serious shit. or atleast looks like it to me...

Also, this might not be news to some people here...doens't hurt to refresh your memory.

yes! i was ignorant as far as this is concerned. thanks added.:)
 
Hello. I came across this article a while ago and holy shit...give it a read. I mean with the amount of ebooks and all that is circulated in the forum these days...this is a serious security concern or so I would think...

Code:
http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Blogs/3411.aspx

Just a warning of sorts to everyone here who downloads like a maniac. dont open just about anything..this is some serious shit. or atleast looks like it to me...

Also, this might not be news to some people here...doens't hurt to refresh your memory.

Make sure your OS is up to date. And most importantly set Adobe to automatically update. These exploits have been around for a long time and Adobe have always patched it.
 
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