Well. We made it to 2021 and tech is still advancing. And I’m still not updating this as much as I should. Apologies. This will be short because I INTEND to do a bit better. We’ll see if it actually happens. And condolences to those who have lost loved ones in the past year. Keep safe everyone – especially during the COVID stuff going on.
Online Storage research
So. Yes. 2020. It’s been a while (again). I don’t have much to update really – was in hospital – was out of hospital. That’s a story for another time.
With all of the online threats available, I’ve done some digging into online storage and things that can be done to mitigate virus/malware/ransomware issues. There are lots of great contenders, but I will update once I’ve done some more research and digging into it.
For the more technical persons, I’ve found some OwnCloud/NextCloud items and others which support WebDAV, but I’m having a horrible time with the transfer rate after mapping a drive in Windows. But – we’ll see how it all works out in the end.
Have a great 2020 all!
Ransomware in 2019
So yeah……….it’s almost a year in between my posts. It’s fine I guess – since the information is still good. Good things come to those who wait right?
First I’d like to make reference to an older post, and also say that this post will be updated with additional resource links later on.
INTRODUCTION
The landscape with viruses have changed and ransomware is the thing you don’t want to get. I’ve seen businesses come to a halt as a result of infections. And the main ways you get infected are:
- Emails
- Websites
- Flash/Thumb Drives
- User Database Compromise
So let me clarify each area so you know what to look out for.
EMAILS
This is the way I’ve seen most business places get infected. It starts out with one person innocently opening an email that either looks like it’s business-related, or it actually is business-related.
If it’s from a legitimate business contact then their system got infected. Other times it’s just random spam that seems legitimate. Usually opening the email does nothing – but you do have some which you should just avoid. Normally what happens is there’s a link or file attached and once the link is clicked or file is opened, then the system becomes infected.
WEBSITES
Sometimes a legitimate site can be hacked or get compromised. Links may be there along with pop-ups which may get accidentally clicked on. Some ransomware really just needs to get on the system – they don’t need user interaction – and then they start to work.
FLASH/THUMB DRIVES
This is somewhat self explanatory – you get infected once a drive is put in your system. Most times this method will require something to be run from the drive – and an AUTORUN file may assist the malicious program with installation.
USER DATABASE COMPROMISE
This one involves your password/s being stolen by hackers. A website that you may have access or membership to may get compromised and the user database gets leaked. These files are usually encrypted, but there are times when they may either not be encrypted, or the type of encryption used is easy to break by hackers. In this case you may either get emails including your password with threats to leak data. These can usually be ignored, but your common passwords should be changed immediately should this happen.
In other cases your email may be broken into – especially if your passwords are similar across sites – and then your details may be stolen or your account may be used to send out malicious software to your contacts.
PREVENTATIVE STEPS
There are a number of things that you can do to help with online safety. These include:
- Using a password manager.
- Practicing safe browsing.
- Using an antivirus application.
- Using backup services.
PASSWORD MANAGER
Many different tools exist. The most popular ones are probably RoboForm and LastPass.
SAFE BROWSING
- Only go to sites that you know.
- Don’t follow multiple links.
- Beware the lure of web-based games on less known sites.
ANTIVIRUS
Most antivirus programs have free and paid solutions. While the free solutions work, they only offer basic protection. You would need to supplement with free anti-spyware applications as well. Purchasing one of the antivirus suites will usually provide adequate protection.
BACKUP SERVICES
This is by far the best route to go if you have critical files you don’t want to lose. Either as a business or an individual, it’s best to have some form of backup – locally or cloud based.
The disadvantages with local backups would be:
- Some ransomware will lock the backup device.
- Device failure.
- Responsibility falls on you to maintain.
The disadvantages with cloud backups would be:
- Time to download (if internet is slow).
- Finding one to suit your needs and pocket.
- Finding one with versioning.
Versioning is the ability to go back in time with a file. So if it gets infected you can go back a few dates/revisions to find an uninfected version.
EXTERNAL SOURCES
Here I’ll be placing some links to information about some known and not-so-known ransomware. LOCKY is probably the most popular one, and has had removal programs available. NOZELESN has been around for a few years and there’s still no “cure” for that as yet.
https://www.ccn.com/florida-man-fired-after-lake-city-suffers-massive-ransomware-attack/
The link above shows some of the things that can happen when your business gets infected.
On February 18, 2016, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid a $17,000 ransom in the form of bitcoins for the decryption key for patient data.[17] The Hospital was infected by the delivery of an email attachment disguised as a Microsoft Word invoice.[18] This has led to increased fear and knowledge about ransomware in general and has brought ransomware into public spotlight once again. There appears to be a trend in ransomware being used to attack hospitals and it appears to be growing. [19]
You can see the original article on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locky
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/679953/nozelesn-ransomware-support-help-topic-nozelesn-how-fix-nozelesn-fileshtm/
The link above shows how discussions have been going on for years about NOZELESN with no fix.
IN CLOSING
The digital landscape changes every day, and protection is needed against malicious programs and persons. Sometimes we cause misfortune upon ourselves due to lack of knowledge, but sometimes we’re just unfortunately at the wrong site at the wrong time.
Being Jamaican I’d like to point out that there have been many incidents where local government sites got hacked. The major issue is that businesses and individuals give little thought to cyber security. This is something that needs to be taken seriously.
Hopefully this article helps. Keep safe online.
Update: Post Frequency In Blog.
Something that I’d like to address – the content updating. While other companies, individuals and websites will push daily content it’s not something I’m keen on. Why? There are hundreds – thousands – millions of resources available online. Many times you’d go to sites like “HowToGeek” or “LifeHacker” and find similar articles – either with the exact same method or different methods to accomplish the same task. I’m just one guy and at times I will find information that is either not available anywhere else online, or very hard to find. This is the information that I push – quality over quantity. When things change then I may get into the race of trying to push content before other sites do, but for the time being the focus is getting information out there that will be helpful to all persons that visit my site. That’s all for now – see you in the next update! And hopefully it won’t take over a year……
Setup Invoice Ninja on HostGator (Shared)
Introduction
This document is created to help persons setting up InvoiceNinja on HostGator Shared Hosting accounts. While the instructions may be specific to HostGator the principles may apply to other hosts.
Requirements
- HostGator account or other hosting account / website.
- FTP access to site.
- SQL database and user creation.
- PHP 7.0 or higher.
- InvoiceNinja 4.5.5 (as of this writing) – extracted ZIP.
- FTP client.
Disclaimer
I’m doing this entirely voluntarily. If you mess something up I will not be held responsible. This is to help persons with HostGator Shared Hosting accounts – if you’re hosted elsewhere then the principles may apply but the steps may be different.
Please be aware that during tests it was found that uploading and extracting the ZIP from the host file manager failed. There seems to be a permissions issue which is why the longer route of uploading the extracted files was taken.
Thanks
All thanks go out to the following users:
https://www.invoiceninja.com/forums
@billyggla
@Hillel Coren
http://www.techjamaica.com/forums/
@p1xl
@khat17
I had lots of trouble during the initial testing and setting up. These users provided suggestions and assistance through the entire process to get things going.
Setting Up
If you’re familiar with setting up some of these things you may perform the steps in any order. I will be going through in exactly the same way that I managed to get things working. You may follow if you like or read first then pick your order.
First – get to your cPanel for HostGator and log in. We want to create an SQL database and user using the wizard. Once you’ve logged in locate the wizard from the available options.
Once you’ve located the wizard setup the database with whatever name and password you like. You may use the password generator available when you get to that step, but ensure that you save the information in a safe place.
Once you’ve created the database and user you will next need to add the user to the database. This is all done automatically through the wizard – you want to ensure that the newly created user has all privileges.
Once this is done you want to connect to your FTP for the website and create the folder you’d like to use. This means if you want to use www.mysite.com/invoice then you’ll log on with the FTP client and create a folder in /public_html/ called invoice. If you’re going to use a sub-domain then you will need to remember this path as well. For this I called mine ninjatest and all screenshots will reflect that. Change it to whatever you’d like yours to be. So my path is /public_html/ninjatest just to be clear.
Next you want to copy (drag and drop) all the extracted files to the FTP. Please note that this will take an extended time. Initially I tried to upload the ZIP (took about 2-3 minutes) and then use the HostGator file manager to extract and manage the files. Each time I did this it didn’t work. Suggestions from the persons that provided help said there were file permission errors which were happening as a result of using the HostGator file manager to do the extraction. While transfer via FTP took far longer (3-4 hours) it is the more reliable option. If you opt to use the HostGator file manager – or if you have another host and want to try that – you may go right ahead. It may work, it may not. If you have any errors then use the longer FTP transfer route. Once completed you want to setup a subdomain if you’re taking that route.
Ensure that your subdomain points to the /public folder within the path that you had uploaded InvoiceNinja to. Once completed you should see a confirmation.
You should also see this subdomain populated in a list thereafter if you check.
The next step is to ensure that PHP7 (or higher) is used in the /public folder for InvoiceNinja. To do this, go back to the main cPanel and locate the PHP SELECTOR.
Once it’s up, navigate to the /public_html/ninja/public path or wherever you had it saved.
Once you’re there, change the PHP version using the drop-down list to 7.0 or higher. For this I chose PHP EDGE (7.1) and then clicked UPDATE.
Once it’s completed you’ll get a confirmation.
At this point you should be able to access InvoiceNinja from one of two URLs:
- yoursite.com/ninja/public
- yoursite.com
Once it loads you can then complete the setup by filling in the fields. Please note that you may need to setup an email account for the invoice system.
And that’s it – you’re done! Have fun using InvoiceNinja!
A Few Notes
Cron Jobs
The system does allow you to setup cron jobs to automate sending out billing reminders and such. HostGator has options for EasyApache versions 3 and 4. If you find that running a cron fails, try the command for the other version of EasyApache.
EA4: /opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/usr/bin/php /home/username/public_html/cron.php
EA3: /opt/php70/bin/php /home/username/public_html/cron.php
Once you’ve gotten that sorted, the instructions from Invoice Ninja state that you should use 8AM as the time. I personally changed mine to 9AM.
0 8 * * * /usr/local/bin/php /path/to/ninja/artisan ninja:send-invoices
0 8 * * * /usr/local/bin/php /path/to/ninja/artisan ninja:send-reminders
You’re going to change /usr/local/bin/php to the relevant path for EA3 or EA4 as mentioned above.
Client Access
If you don’t password protect the client portal based on the invoice links sent, ensure that you give a disclaimer to the clients. The portal is very powerful and has a dashboard with links to client historical data. This means that forwarding the email to other persons will potentially allow them to see all payments made. The recommendation is to have each client setup their password to access the portal.
Conclusion
So far everything is working. I’m still getting accustomed to it and the automation duplicates at times when I manually send things – but that’s not so bad. Once everything is streamlined it should work perfectly.
How To Get TeamViewer 11
Introduction / Explanation
At times you may be asked to install an older version of TeamViewer than what’s currently available. At the time of this writing TeamViewer 13 is the current version. The reason for this is persons may have licenses for older versions and don’t want to upgrade due to the new licensing options. Other reasons may include the ability to use older versions with less “nag screens” (like version 5). This document will go into how to install TeamViewer 11 from the official website as well as from my own website. The principles will also apply to older versions.
Installing Older TeamViewer
The link available as of this writing may change, as TeamViewer has changed the link to their older versions before. I will cover 3 different ways to get the older version – I was going to do a fourth with going directly to their main site, but it’s extremely difficult to navigate to the older versions. Actually, with the new site layout I was unable to find my way without using a Google search.
Direct Link to Official Site
First go to the link: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/previous-versions/ – once there you can scroll down and optionally click the agreement to accept cookies for the site.
Please bear in mind that your screen resolution may show more details than the one in the screenshot.
Once you scroll down you will see options on the right. Select the version required and then the appropriate module. Most likely you will be asked to either install the full application (option 1) or use the quick support tool (option 2). If your tech asks you to install a version not listed, click on “Need An Earlier Version?” from the options on the right.
Google Search
The next option would be to use a Google search. Simply type in “teamviewer 11” and your first link should show the page given in our first set of instructions.
From there simply follow the instructions as given in the first set (scroll up to previous instruction set).
From My Site
You can get directly to TeamViewer 11 from my site using this link: https://carlosthomas.net/Remote-Assistance/ – then download/install/run on the version I’ve asked you to download, or you can go to https://carlosthomas.net
Load main site. Go to REMOTE ASSISTANCE.
Once the page loads, scroll down (if needed).
Click on the button for the version required and once completed either install or run the version based on instructions given.
AMD/ATI HDMI No Sound Fix
Some persons like myself have ATI/AMD graphics cards with HDMI output. At times you may end up with a monitor (or TV) that has HDMI in and you can use the speakers on the monitor (or TV) for sound. Problem is, after some update of the driver you may find that the sound suddenly stops working. If you had sound before or just installed the latest driver and suddenly have no sound, here is something to try.
Please note that this is a last resort. One of the first things you should try is locating an older graphics driver online then installing that. If that still doesn’t work then you may proceed with the 8 steps below.
STEP 1
Open the sound properties for your playback devices. Do so by right-clicking on the volume icon in your taskbar then going to PLAYBACK DEVICES.
STEP 2
Click on your HDMI device and then go to PROPERTIES. If you have more than one HDMI device just ensure it’s the correct one afterwards by checking if it says ATI or AMD.
STEP 3
Click again on PROPERTIES on the next window.
STEP 4
If applicable, click on the CHANGE SETTINGS option in the next window.
STEP 5
Click on the DRIVER tab and look for one of two options. If you have the ROLL BACK DRIVER option then chances are you had the sound working before. If that option is not clickable, then you probably just installed the latest driver. At this point you click on ROLL BACK DRIVER if it’s available and then OK on the remaining windows then test your sound. If you don’t have the ROLL BACK DRIVER option (or it didn’t work) then move on to clicking the UPDATE DRIVER option then going to STEP 6.
STEP 6
Click on the option that says BROWSE MY COMPUTER FOR DRIVER SOFTWARE.
STEP 7
Click on the option that says LET ME PICK.
STEP 8
Finally, you should see multiple drivers available. Note the version numbers – in my list there are 4 versions available. Two of them are 7.12 while the other two are 6.1. Make a note of the last digits in each and the dates. At this point you may try from the oldest version to the newest.
After completion you should be able to hear sound from your HDMI device.
BLU Studio 5.5 De-Brick / General Flashing
Intro
Recently I had an issue where a friend got a virus on his phone. Usual thing – saw some post about increasing his followers online on some social media thing, couldn’t resist, got the virus on his phone. Originally he took the device to a phone store and paid to get it sorted out – they didn’t do a good job. Virus was still on his phone. And so began the hunt.
Getting In
There are a lot of sites and threads online about fixing this issue. Basically, this phone uses a MediaTek chipset which can be flashed or firmware updated using Smart Phone Flash Tool (SP Flash Tool). There are different versions of this tool out with the most popular ones being version 3.X and 5.X depending on your needs / phone. So let’s go a bit further into what needed to be done and how I got it sorted.
Sites & Theory
So I found a number of sites as I said. One of the more popular ones would be XDA.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/blu-studio-5-5-d610a-unbrick-help-t3090885
In that thread persons wanted a solution but none were confirmed. The one provided was helpful, but nobody confirmed it. Next I found a Google Plus post.
https://plus.google.com/111407788156930060467/posts/UmEHWGK2jXv
This seemed more promising, and the person seemed very helpful. Many persons thanked him, but it still didn’t work for me. Why?
My theory is that various phone manufacturers use the same chipset, and in the case of BLU, they release different versions of the phone with slight differences. Either you have to find a BASE ROM or one that works SPECIFICALLY with your model.
The Fix (Part 1)
Now this is what you probably came here for. I’m not going to go into too much detail as I expect you to have some knowledge on the subject. So………..
- Obtain correct firmware for your phone.
- Connect bricked (or working) phone.
- Install appropriate drivers to flash the device.
- Place phone in “download mode” if applicable.
- Run SP Flash Tool.
- Connect phone.
That about covers it. Files that I used specifically for the D610A that I fixed are available in the MEGA link below.
https://mega.nz/#F!pNUTkZIb!9B8bPn8PxWGfkmIMe8PnvQ
Below is also another link with instructions on how to use SP Flash Tool on just about any device.
The Fix (Part 2)
In my case a second part was required. This is in case you find after flashing that you have no signal on your SIM or have checked and have no IMEI. So. Here’s that set of instructions.
- Check IMEI status in settings or by dialing *#06# (GSM code doesn’t work on all phones).
- If IMEI is invalid proceed. If it shows your IMEI then do nothing further.
- If your IMEI is invalid or blank, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnJr7RQa2Kk
- This will involve accessing the engineering screen for your phone.
- GSM code is *#*#3646633#*#* (doesn’t work on all phones).
- Download the appropriate tool for your phone if the GSM code doesn’t work.
- Location from engineering mode is “Connectivity – CDS Information – Radio Information”. From there go to either Phone 1 or Phone 2″
- The commands are below, but ensure you reboot after sending each and check back the IMEI.
- The command to send is “AT +EGMR=1,7,”new-imei”” for SIM1 and “AT +EGMR=1,10,”new-imei”” for SIM2.
- Once the IMEI is confirmed you may use the phone normally.
And that ends the method used to fix the BLU Studio 5.5 (D610A). The files I used may or may not work for your phone. If you find that it worked then GREAT! If it doesn’t work, try one of the other firmware files that may be found online. Another site to try for firmware files would be GSMHOSTING.
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f606/all-blu-mobile-flash-files-firmwares-tools-1874408/
These instructions may work for other phones with similar problems. Hopefully this information helps you to get your phone (or your friend/family/customer) back up and running.
Please note that I did not use the “BLU Phone Driver.exe” which was packaged in the “Blu Studio 5.5 Stock ROM.rar” file.
Windows 7/8/10 Can’t Find Installed Program
Have you ever gotten this as an issue?
“Windows cannot find ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Program\ProgramName.exe”
For example:
“Windows cannot find ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\TeamViewer\TeamViewer.exe”
While I’ve seen it before I’ve not had the need to fix it until recently.
So I did some digging and came upon this as a solution.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
delete the key labeled “teamviewer.exe”
this also applies to windows cannot find skype.exe,just replace teamviewer.exe with skype.exe…
This probably also applies to other programs with the same problem.
The information was found at the link below and the credit goes to the user that posted the info – RickRosendaal
Hopefully this helps everyone else that may have come across issues like this.
Phone Credit Scam
There has been an increase in the number of text messages that you will get these days from persons claiming that they
accidentally sent you credit and are asking you to send it back. You will get this from persons on both mobile networks. I don’t know if it makes much sense to report these individuals since our local services – law and mobile – either don’t care or don’t have the resources in place to deal with these types of fraudulent activities.
This post is intended to help you identify what a scammer’s text will look like versus one that’s actually from your phone company.
SCAM TEXTS
DISSECTING THE TEXT
These scam texts can basically be broken down like so:
With these texts above you will notice that they’ve typed out the full message that you might receive from the provider. Below you will see what an actual text from your service provider will look like.
ACTUAL SERVICE PROVIDER SMS
While it is possible that you may have actually received some credit on your phone the best way to know is by checking. Simply dial *120# from your handset to see whether or not you have additional credit. This only works if you knew how much credit you originally had. Still – the SMS you get (text message) should show your current balance. Just make sure it matches.