iOS Safari Virus Detected 18444232465

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1-844-423-2465

This strange pop-up started occurring via Safari. Every time Safari was opened it would simply open the mail up and it kept re-opening every time you canceled. I couldn’t figure out which website was the offender. Regardless if you see phone number: 1-844-423-2465 (not affiliated with Apple) it is a good indication that your Safari has somewhat been hi-jacked.

Solution: Simple go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data. That will hopefully solve your issue.

Domain Name Registration .COM US$10.99

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It’s difficult to stay competitive in the domain name registration business (pricing wise). How it works is the more registrations you process the higher the tier, the lower the price. Therefore, we are happy to announce we have reached a new tier which is allowing us to offer domain name registrations at US$10.99. The price is the SAME for renewal and transfer. Please note that our price will not fluctuate on daily basis like some domain name registrars. We will maintain same pricing model unless there is a change to the base price which we have no control over.

We passing off our savings to you the customer. Thank you!

 

5 second video freezes / locks up iPhone on iOS10 iOS9

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Really strange bug was found inside of iOS 10 (and tested on iOS 9). If you run a short 5 second video it will run like any other normal video. The video has sound, and lasts 5 seconds. You can even close the video after you view it, or leave it open in the background. It does not make a difference. About 5-10 seconds later after viewing the video, you will notice your phone simply slow down and eventually it will lock up / freeze. The only way out of it is a hard reboot. After reboot everything seems to be back to normal. This works on any device such as iPad, iPhone, iTouch running on iOS 10 and iOS 9. I haven’t had the opportunity to try earlier versions of the iOS

What is it? Memory leak? Virus? Not sure as of yet, please use caution before running the video. Due note that the video did NOT affect Android devices

5 Second Crash Video

How to hard reboot:

iPhone 7 = hold down power and down sound rocker

All others = hold down home button and power button.

Edit: I found an old iPod touch running iOS 8.4. And the video above had no issues locking it up. I wonder how far does this go?

Edit (December 3, 2016): The above has been patched on iOS 10.2b. It appeared to be a memory leak.

iPhone stuck in reboot loop (iOS9)

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I installed BiteSMS (for iOS 7) by accident. And my iPhone got stuck in the infamous reboot loop. You will notice your phone reboot, and you will see Apple logo, and eventually after 60 seconds it will reboot again and so on. Here are suggested solutions that I have attempted:

1. Hard Reset – Holding power and home button. Result: same Apple reboot cycle.

2. ReiBoot – Excellent software that lets you Enter and Exit Recovery mode. Result: same Apple reboot cycle.

I was running out of ideas. Then I read somewhere that you can by-pass Cydia substrate by holding Volume UP until you actually see your phones lock screen. Result: SUCCESS

Once I was in, I was able to get into Cydia, and I unstainstalled BiteSMS. Then I held the power button and shutdown and rebooted thereafter. All was back to normal.

I hope this helps someone who wants to preserve their jailbreak. This was performed on iOS 9.0.2.

App attempts to access privacy sensitive data

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During process of uploading an app to the AppStore you might run into an issue where you will receive an email indicating that your application needs further keys inserted in your info.plist file.

The two keys that I was required to add were: NSCalendarsUsageDescription and NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription. Both do require a string explaining to the user how the app uses this data. Without the two, you are trapped and your application will fail Apple’s approval each and every time.

The solution is fairly simple, open your info.plist file and add the following:

NSCalendarsUsageDescription

NSCalendarsUsageDescription
$(PRODUCT_NAME) calendars use.

NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription

NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription
$(PRODUCT_NAME) bluetooth use.

Resubmit your binary and your application should/will pass Apple’s quality assurance.

How to leverage browser caching

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What is browser caching?

Every time a browser loads a webpage it has to download all the web files to properly display the page. This includes all the HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images.

Some pages might only consist of a few files and be small in size – maybe a couple of kilobytes. For others however there may be a lot of files, and these may add up to be several megabytes large. Twitter.com for example is 3 MB+.

The issue is two fold.

These large files take longer to load and can be especially painful if you’re on a slow internet connection (or a mobile device). Each file makes a separate request to the server. The more requests your server gets simultaneously the more work it needs to do, only further reducing your page speed.

Browser caching can help by storing some of these files locally in the user’s browser. Their first visit to your site will take the same time to load, however when that user revisits your website, refreshes the page, or even moves to a different page of your site, they already have some of the files they need locally.

This means the amount of data the user’s browser has to download is less, and fewer requests need to be made to your server. The result? Decreased page load times.

Here’s something you can add to your apache htaccess file and see if it improves loading times for you:

 

##EXPIRES CACHING
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year”
ExpiresDefault “access 1 week”
##EXPIRES CACHING

Let us know what you think?

EDIT: Its actually ##EXPIRES CACHING no need to have # after caching.

Case and Tempered Glass

iPhone 6S Plus tampered glass protector + case (both cheap) – 1 year later

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When I purchased my iPhone 6S Plus I decided to purchase tempered glass protector and case. There was many choices that I had. I ended up going with:

Leesentec iPhone 6s/6 Plus Case Transparent Protective Case for iPhone 6 Plus 5.5” Soft Crystal TPU Case [Ultra-Slim] (Crystal Black)
– CA$6.99

And

Y&M(TM)iphone Tempered Glass,9H Hardness Ultra Thin Scratch-resistant Tempered Glass Screen Protector Protective Front Film For iphone 6 Plus/6s Plus (iphone 6 Plus/6s Plus)
– CA$6.99

Grand total for the order was CA$13.98. Pretty cheap investment, but how would it hold up 1 year later?

The results were pretty darn good for such a cheap investment. Tempered glass took most of the beating and did have issues, whereas the case did its job without any noticeable damage on the phone or the case itself.

Here’s the image of the tempered glass:

Tempered Glass

 

Let me explain the yellow circles. The circle on the left hand side at the top is an air bubble. I have no idea how it got there. It occurred about 6 months after use. There is also another small air bubble which I didn’t circle. It is located in the same area as the large air bubble (top left).

The circle just below large air bubble, was a drop via pavement. There was no damage on the body or the screen, but the tempered glass did damage fairly well. You can say that it did its job.

Last but not least is the bottom right corner circle. That occurred about 6 months after use as well. There was no drop invovled it just simply started to chip away.

In summary, I would definitely recommend a tempered glass and some sort of a case. You can cheap out just as I did, however if you do encounter MANY drops, I would HIGHLY recommend a better quality tempered glass and case.

 

 

Microsoft Outlook ActiveSync 14.0 and your cell phone

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When you connect your cell phone to Outlook.com email service, do you ever wonder what sort of information Microsoft has on your cell phone? You can actually check and see, by going to your OPTIONS > MOBILE DEVICES under your outlook.com account. You should get a screen similar to the one below:

 

Mobile Devices

Now before we go any further. I do have 4 devices hooked up, 2 are cell phones, and other 2 are applications (located on the tablet+desktop). Let’s concentrate on the 2 cell phones. I have a BlackBerry and an iPhone. Let’s see what they have logged on those two devices.

You might already be surprised that BlackBerry actually reveals your full phone number to Microsoft. Online they only show last 4 digits, but believe me…Microsoft has your full phone number, whether you like it or not. iPhone surprisingly does not gives your number out to Microsoft. 1-0 for iPhone.

I have selected BlackBerry (highlighted) and all you we need to do is click on the little pencil to see additional information. Let’s see what information they have on the BlackBerry:

BlackBerry Details

I have removed last 4 digits of my phone number, Device ID and Device IMEI. Microsoft had the entire identity of my phone. EVERYTHING!. If you are keeping count, that’s iPhone 4 and BlackBerry 0.

Let’s look at the iPhone:

iPhone Mobile Device Details

iPhone did not reveal everything, as a matter of fact they have shown limited information. The only thing I had removed is Device ID. I probably could have left it, as I don’t see that same ID listed anywhere on the box or on the device. Final Score: iPhone 4 and BlackBerry 1.

Is BlackBerry truly a privacy oriented company? From what we had observed here, no they are not. As a matter of fact they didn’t keep anything private from Microsoft (Outlook client).

Thanks for reading.

Benefits of dedicated IP vs. shared IP

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Large business and corporations don’t really have to decide if they should be obtaining a dedicated IP or shared IP. Most of the larger enterprises end up obtaining a dedicated server which of course comes with dedicated IP’s. However, start-ups, and small-businesses do have to make that choice sometime during their venture if they should remain shared or simply get a dedicated IP.

Advantages of a dedicated IP address:

  • You can access your server before pointing any domain to your server’s IP address in DNS
  • You can access your server in case of a DNS error or failure
  • You can point any and as many domains as you like to the IP address of your server, and unlimited subdomains of those domains as well. You will not have to “declare” these by using the “add-on domain” function of a control panel — everything can be done at the DNS level. The disposition of requests to those domains is entirely your choice as well; You can map them into the filespace of the server in any way you like (using mod_rewrite on Apache, for example).
  • It is beneficial for email sender’s reputation. Establish and be accountable for one’s own IP reputation. In simple sense, your emails won’t get grouped with other less diligent senders and therefore ensures better Inbox placement.
  • It is good for a business identity.
  • It is “sometimes” required for particular third-party applications/scripts.
  • Your site is high traffic and needs dedicated resources to maintain performance.

If any of the bullet points are important to you, then it is time to get your own dedicated IP.

WordPress Malware (PHP.Trojan.Uploader & Php.Trojan.StopPost)

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WordPress as a platform is fantastic, and usually its a fairly secure. However, plugins that you use might be a different story. Some plugins are updated on weekly basis, and then there are those that are updated monthly, annually or sometimes are never updated again.

One of our clients runs a very active and informational website. The client had refused to do any updates because they were afraid that it might “break” something on their website. Which is totally understandable. For those of you who do updates on daily basis, sometimes its not a smooth progression and you spend more time troubleshooting the issue than anything else.

Client was hosted on a shared web server, and our firewall had alerted us that the website had been sending a large amount of SPAM. Approximately 200-300 emails per minute. We had immediately disabled the website and had ran a scan on the entire server.

As it turns out their website had been compromised via plugin and had injected itself authorizing use of the server’s mail resources. Upon further investigation the server had not been compromised just the clients website.

Here’s the complete log of what had been infected:

{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-includes/ID3/header.php.suspected
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-includes/images/smilies/options.php.suspected
{HEX}php.base64.v23au.184 : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-includes/images/wlw/object.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/themes/twentyfourteen/inc/inc.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/uploads/2015/ajax.php.suspected
{HEX}php.cmdshell.unclassed.358 : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/uploads/phpini.php
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/tinymce-advanced/css/test.php.suspected
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/eventON/assets/js/javascript.php.suspected
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/eventON/assets/css/test.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/display-widgets/session.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/shortcodes-ultimate/inc/core/general.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/shortcodes-ultimate/assets/images/player/view.php.suspected
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/business-directory-plugin/vendors/anet_php_sdk/lib/ssl/include.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/business-directory/business-directory-plugin/vendors/anet_php_sdk/tests/AuthorizeNetDPM_Test.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/model.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/vendor/yoast/api-libs/google/service/Google_BatchRequest.php
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/vendor/yoast/api-libs/class-api-libs.php
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/vendor/yoast/license-manager/samples/sample-theme-functions.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/stop-auto-update/dump.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/search.php.suspected
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/modules/validation/object.php
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/modules/ajax/static/css.php
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/modules/nextgen_basic_album/module.nextgen_basic_album.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/modules/nextgen_pagination/view.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/modules/fs/package.module.fs.php
{CAV}PHP.Trojan.Uploader : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/plugins/seo-image/javascripts/css.php.suspected
{CAV}Php.Trojan.StopPost : /home/user/web/website.com/public_htmlx/wp-content/gallery/gal1/thumbs/ajax.php.suspected

Unfortunately, the best we could do is restore from previous backup and perform a plugin update along with wordpress.

Moral of the story is, update your plugins people. And if the plugin is old, we wouldn’t recommend using it.