by Jerry Stern
CTO, PC410.com

The FBI Virus, the FBI’s latest alleged malware, crossed my workbench this week. The so-called, and mislabeled, FBI Virus, isn’t a virus, and it’s not from the FBI.

The FBI virus is a little different than most malware–it adds the IP address and geographical location and the current user name to an on-screen blackmail threat, and asks for a highly-untraceable payment of $300 to return control of the computer. It stores that information–the screen image was taken while the infected PC was disconnected from any network.

Cleanup is of intermediate difficulty, widely published elsewhere. This is a routine removal for any computer repair tech, but it requires booting & scanning from some device other than the infected drive, so it’s not something most PC owners can clean up themselves.

Prevention: Keep all patches up to date, but in particular, outdated Adobe Flash plugins seems to be the entry opportunity that applied to this infection.

by Jerry Stern

So, what’s the quickest way to get me to delete your business email?
Easy–invite me to a webinar!

I get these invitations every day. If I attended all of them, I’d get no work done. Ever. Or eat dinner. Or lunch, for that matter. Sleep is dubious. And that’s just from the companies that I already buy products or services from, not including the webinar offers from mystery companies who appear to be in my industry, but don’t actually explain what their service is.

Bluntly, why would I trust an hour of my time, and an extra ten minutes of “log in early to test your connection” time, to someone who has not yet mastered the concept of the elevator pitch? Webinars have their place–they’re good for technical topics. Not so good for sales. Horrible as corporate introductions–they send a message of slowwww….

Quick, we’re in the elevator. You have ten seconds–tell me what you do, and don’t bore me or I’ll get off on the wrong floor. Done, great, and maybe I’ll ask for a business card if you were clear and concise. If not, not. I won’t waste time doing business with time-wasters, so if you have convinced me that you need an hour to explain your company, uh, no, not going to happen.

So don’t invite me to webinars. You can email me, and keep the pitch short. ‘Above the fold’ short. Elevator short.

Or I’ll delete your message in the time it takes me to click on the next available elevator button.