Archive for 'Uncategorized'
Definitions not updating from Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 console
July 19th, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
If you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with Symantec Endpoint Protection (version 11 particularly here), and you find your clients aren’t updating their virus definitions, here is a fix that worked for me.
- Download the newest definitions to your server from a Symantec FTP site.
- Move the .jdb file you downloaded to the “C:\Program Files\Symantec \Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\data\inbox\content\incoming” folder (edit path if your installation is not default).
- Wait a little bit.
This seemed to “un-jam” the issue causing the clients not to update their definitions from the management console server. Don’t know if this is a long-term solution…I have to monitor for a while.
Giving credit where credit is due: Thanks AussieRyan for this solution, found here on Symantec’s forums.
Disable ctfmon.exe in Windows
May 14th, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Just unchecking the selection for ctfmon.exe in a program like Windows Startup Inspector or Autoruns doesn’t stop it from starting itself up again. Sure, you can block it with Group Policy, but that is a little heavy-handed.
You can disable it in XP by going into the Regional and Language Options in the Control Panel, choose the Languages tab, and click the Details button in the “Text services and input languages section”. In the dialog that pops up, make sure in the “Installed services” section you have only your default keyboard layout. If there are speech services installed, select them and click Remove. Then click the Advanced tab and check the box for “Turn off advanced text services”.
In Vista, go to the Control Panel, and choose “Change keyboard or other input methods” in the “Regional and Language Options” section. On the “Keyboards and Languages” tab, click the “Change keyboards” button. On the “Text Services and Input Languages” dialog, General tab, make sure in the “Installed services” section you have only your default keyboard layout. If there are speech services installed, select them and click Remove. If you find it still running after restarting Vista, you may have to run msconfig and uncheck the ctfmon.exe selection on the Startup tab.
Resetting the Gnome panel
May 1st, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Had a heck of a time fighting with xorg.conf on Ubuntu 9.04 this week. When I finally got the resolution set correctly, the Gnome panels were messed up. The trash icon was in the middle of the bottom panel and the user/power section was in the middle of the top panel. After Googling for the answer, I came across this post that explained how to reset the Gnome panel. Here are the basic steps:
- Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get a console
- Log in from the console
- Type “rm -rf .gnome”
- Type “rm -rf .gconf”
I restarted after this and my panels were indeed reset when I logged in (including the theme, fonts, etc), and the panels were behaving normally again.
BIOS-level malware
March 24th, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
This is scary stuff. Malware that infects the BIOS will not be removed when doing a full OS reinstall. What’s more, the researchers claim even flashing the BIOS does not remove it. It would not be dependent on an OS, so it doesn’t matter what you are running…it could still infect your PC or MAC or Linux (etc, etc) box. This would be bad.
Read the article at ThreatPost.
Do not trust Google ads
February 25th, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
I love Gmail. I use it with Chrome, so there currently is no ad-blocking going on like you can do with Firefox. The Google ads are context-based, of course, so you usually see ads relative to the email you are viewing.
Click for full size image
So I was viewing a thread update email from the Safer Networking Forums about an issue with Spybot Search & Destroy, a legitimate and very good anti-malware program, when I noticed no less than four “ads” for malware junk purporting to be Spybot.
WTF Google?
Export Outlook profile settings
January 12th, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
This is a great help when moving someone over to a new computer (at least if doing so manually). You can export Outlook profile settings using Regedit and import them on the new computer. You’ll have to manually move data files, though.
I know this works in Outlook 2003 and I believe it works in most other versions as well. Each profile is saved in its own key, with the profile name as the key name, under the following key:
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles
Export this entire key and subkeys and import them on the new computer. Then move data files over. If you can manage to make the username the same and the profile path comes out the same, you are golden. If not, then go into the settings of each profile and change the path to each data file.