Got a call from a client today complaining that he could no longer access the Internet. He's running Zone Alarm 7.

Trek out to the site and lo and behold, we can ping IP addresses thru the firewall, but we can't resolve any names. Turns out DNS had a big hole in it, and it's been patched by the major vendors, Microsoft among them.

So, Microsoft rolls out KB951748 yesterday as part of Patch Tuesday, and this morning all the machines set to autoupdate who are also running Zone Alarm find themselves out of luck.

The quick fix is to run ZoneAlarm's Internet Zone Security in "Medium" mode.

Zone Alarm released a knowledge base article suggesting three options: the aforementioned "medium mode" fix; uninstalling the patch or adding your DNS servers to the trusted zone.

Adding the DNS servers to the trusted zone is the most secure solution as it allows you to run in full stealth and still enjoy the "benefits" of the Microsoft path.

There's some new malware floating around -- a variant of Trojan.ZLob --which asks you to install a new codec to see some videos... but what it really does is change your router settings so that all of your internet traffic gets routed thru their servers before going to its final destination.

If there is more than one computer behind the router, each machine will have its traffic redirected.

The malware attempts to use the default username and password of common routers to change its settings.

It's easy to change the default username and/or password of your router. Take a few moments and protect yourself.

Hats off to Brian Krebs of the Washington Post for bringing this to light (with an assist from Sunbelt Software.)

There's a new bit of malware out there going by the name "MonaRonaDona" and it basicially infects your PC, changes Internet Explorer's title bar to announce itself and does a few other more or less benign things. It's designed so that you Google the name and buy a piece of anti-malware for $40 which disables it.

The anti-malware program does, in fact, disable MonaRonaDona... and that's all it does. Nothing else.

The good folks over at DSL Reports' Security Forum have put together a sure-fre way to clean your system without shelling out the 40 bucks.

Get the details at this link:

MonaRonaDona removal

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20088377-

The oddest things so far is no one seems to know how you get infected in the first place... so remain vigilant, don't open emails that you don't recognize, and certainly don't do that with attachments.

Save early, save often.