Windows Live Account Deactivation Scam!!!!

This morning I checked my email and I saw an email entitled
“[WindowsLive E-mail : Hotmail alert! ].

I thought this email has been sent by Windows Live. But it wasn’t the case. This email was a phishing scam, rather a news kind of phishing scam, this time hackers and spammers are targeting Windows Live Hotmail users (just like they did it to Facebook users). Hotmail is one of my favorite email services.





What hackers do is they send an email message that your Hotmail account will be deactivated in next 24 hours, actual message reads as:


Dear johndoe@hotmail.com,

This e-mail has been sent to you by Hotmail to inform you that your account will be deactivated within the next 24 hours due to several unsuccessful login attemps on your account.

To prevent this to happen please login securely to our activation link below:

https://login.hotmail.com/config/login_verify2?puser=johndoe@hotmail.com

If you have already confirmed your information then please disregard this message.

Regards,
Hotmail member services.



But the web address behind the login.hotmail.com is a malicious link, which will lead to lose the credentials of the users, hence user become victim. You guys are advised not to open any of the unknown links, before opening any link first make sure that this is a correct link.

You can verify the link by putting the cursor on it and see it in the status bar, if the actual (link behind the given) is something else then avoid it. By clicking on that link you will be redirected to a website hosting some malicious data. You should mark that email as phishing scam. So that email filter will filter that kind of emails, and hackers won’t be able to send those emails further.

cheers!!!

HOW TO GET RID OF SHORTCUT VIRUS ON FLASHDRIVE

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Ok...so all of a sudden you can't view some of your files and folders.....then you start seeing shortcuts of some of your files and folders turning up on your jumpdrive......don't panic!! Do NOT freak out.....your files are NOT lost...THEY ARE JUST HIDDEN!!

Shortcut files created by virus....

There is a solution! Let me give you some useful information on what this virus does:
First of all, it hides the original files and folders on your thumbdrive and create a shortcut copies these files and folders.

When I first discovered this virus I kept going into 'Folder options' to unhide these hidden files and folders, but what I noticed with this virus was that, not only does it hide these files, but it made them appear/ or gave them the attributes of a 'Protected Operating System File'.

If you know anything about a protected operating system file, then you would know that it is hidden by the system itself and just checking 'Show hidden files and folders' in folder options would not do a thing to them. Their attributes cannot be changed by a simple click of the mouse!

So.....since the root of the problem is identified, what needs to be done now is to figure out a way to convert these 'virus made' protected OS files and folders back to normal/original files and folders. This, I did successfully.....

TO GET RID OF THE SHORTCUT VIRUS ON YOUR FLASH DRIVE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW......

1. Open command prompt

>(Click Start -> Run -> type cmd-> Press Enter)

2. Type the following command:

>attrib –h -r -s /s /d F:\*.*

>‘F:’ would be any driveletter that your thumb drive is in

3. Press Enter, the scan should run for over a minute or so, just be patient….

4. Next step, open your thumb drive then delete all the shortcut files:

>right click in your thumbdrive folder

>Select ‘Sort by’ > 'Type'

>Highlight all shortcut files and folders and hit delete

5. Run a full system scan with your antivirus software as well as a scan on your jump drive.

6. You can also run the command on your Local drive:  >attrib –h -r -s /s /d C:*.*

* * The virus may have created some files on your thumbdrive that need to be deleted, these may include:

- x  (a ‘dummy’ video file)

- (folder files)

Hope this was helpful.....cheers!!!!