Ben Hovinga

You or someone you know may have been a victim of account hacking viruses. I am going to show you how to spot it and fix it.

I am going to use facebook as an example because a friends facebook account has recently been hacked but this example can apply to just about any account like msn, twitter, even your bank account.

How It Happens

On a recent attack on my friends facebook account, one of his friends account has been hacked. This hacked account sent mass messages to his/her friends on facebook with a link to go see a video, and posted on his/her wall the same link. This link took my friend to a fake youtube page, a page that looks like youtube but is at a different web address, and then a pop-up opened saying that you needed to download software to see this video. My friend installed this software but later found out that it took over his facebook, this virus did the same thing as his friend, sent messages and links. But there is a deeper function, most of the time that is just to spread the virus around the web, the real function of the virus could be to steal information of destroy data on your computer.

Preventing Infection

Well now that you know what happens its pretty simple to see how to prevent any infection. I would say not to click on any link but that would contradict the point to sharing websites like facebook. Just be aware of the link address and the content, if the website looks like youtube but doesn’t have the http://www.youtube.com in the address bar then don’t click on it. If a website wants you to download software to view a video or photo don’t allow it to. Get away from that website as soon as you can, and tell your friend that their account may have been hacked then give them a link to this post so they can fix it.

Fixing The Problems

Well if you have been infected then you will need to fix it. Don’t create a new account and delete the old one because that wont fix anything, that will just delete everything you have and the virus can take over your new account. The first step is to scan your computer for viruses. avast! antivirus home edition is a good, free antivirus program that I personally have been using with no problems ever. After the virus has been removed from the computer all you need to do is change your password. To make a secure password you can use a password generator but that uses makes a password of random letters and numbers and it can be hard to remember. An easy way to make a secure password that you can remember is to make sure it is at least 8 characters long and contains at least one upper case letter one lower case and one number. For extra security you could add a symbol too. After all of this, make sure that you contact your friends not to click on the links and to tell them to read this if they have.

So today my brother was on MSN when a friend sent him a message. He clicked the link and downloaded a virus.

ahha is this you? http://hi5-photos.us/viewimages.php?={YOUR EMAIL HERE}

If you receive that message do not click it. It sent to me but when I clicked it, handy FireFox kicked in and asked if I wanted to download a Binary File. I got suspicious when a photo site wants me to download a program. My brother then ran down and told me not to click anything from him. That his computer got a virus and was sending everyone on his list the link.

So if you receive a link like this DO NOT CLICK IT! Or any link that wants you to download an EXE file.

Oh ya and the file that it wants you to download is DSC0003141-JPG.EXE but it will not show up on a virus scan.

In Windows Live Messenger (formally MSN) there is a feature called Dynamic Picture. What it dose is change your display picture to one of 4 different emotions based on emoticons used. For example if you use the smile icon then your display pic will change to a picture of you smiling for 4 seconds then turn back to normal.

All of these instructions are relevant to Windows Live Messenger version 14.

With Webcam
If you have a webcam then this is very easy to setup because you will not need to do any extra work.

Before you begin you need to make sure Windows Live Messenger (WLM) is using the correct camera settings. To do that go to the WLM main window and click the [Show Menu] button, the last button next to the search. You then want to go to [Tools] -> [Audio and video setup...]. The first screen you will see is the audio setup. You can change any of these setting if you want but are not required for this task so just hit [Next]. In the drop-down box select the camera that you would like to use and make sure that it is displayed in the big box below. Click [Finish]. WLM is now ready to use a webcam.

Now you are ready to create a Dynamic Picture. Start by clicking your display picture in the main window of WLM. Now click [Dynamic picture..]. Click the first frame and take a normal picture of yourself. Click the second frame and take a picture of yourself smiling. Repeat for the other frames. You can also change what action is done with the arrows below each frame.

Without Webcam
In some cases you may not have a webcam but still want to have a Dynamic Picture like the rest of the world. Don’t worry it can still be done and you have a few options to get you going. The first option is obvious, get a webcam, go buy one or borrow a friends. Option two, go to a friends that has a webcam. Your display picture will stay with you on all systems. Option three, I will describe in more detail below but involves virtual webcam software and a digital camera.

To start that third option you will need to get some virtual webcam software. This is software that you can install on your computer that can make other programs (like WLM) think that it is a webcam and will allow you to use videos, pictures or even another webcam in anything that requires a webcam. So start of by going to ManyCam and downloading the program and install it on your computer.

Now that the program is installed in your computer you now need to take some pictures of yourself with the digital camera and uplaod them to your compuer in a location that you can easily find them (Make sure the pictuers are not very big or the program will not accept them). When taking the pictures try to keep yourself in the center as best as posible, WLM will trim the sides.

Now that you have the pictures on your computer lets configure ManyCam. Open ManyCam and under the [Effects] tab click [Text over video] and make sure that [Show ManyCam.com Logo] is unchecked, that will get rid of the pesky logo. Under the [Sources] tab click [Still images] and then [Open new file], find your first picture (normal) then open it. You may need to click the picture in order for it to show up in the big box above.

Now go back to WLM and follow the above steps as if you had a webcam but make note of a few things when going so. When selecting camera you should use ManyCam Virtual Webcam. Also note that you need to go back to the still images page in ManyCam to change to the next picture.

That is how to get you started with Windows Live Messenger Dynamic Display Pictures. If you liked this tutorial then please leave comments.