Posts by David Anderson

InfoMessage
1) Message boards : News : Should BOINC boycott Russian projects?
Message 114505
Posted 28 days ago by ProfileDavid Anderson 		This has been suggested. We're not going to do it, but the idea <a href=russia.php>merits thought and discussion</a>.
2) Message boards : News : Windows malware reported
Message 114314
Posted 22 Jul 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		An analyst at Huntress send me the following instructions for removing the malware. I hope they are useful.

---------------------
Several things will be needed to remove the malware.

1) Delete the malicious scheduled tasks and services. The names of the tasks should follow the patterns outlined in the blog post, but they will all vary slightly so we can't say exactly what they will be called. Look for recently created tasks executing binaries named as described (example "SecurityHealthService.exe") in our blog post or executing encoded or obfuscated powershell with conhost.exe. Example Task Names: Google_Maintenance_Worker, System_Health_Service_12345534359, Enable-StorageBusDisk. These may appear to be similar to legitimate tasks/services so be careful not to remove the legitimate ones.

2) Some of the commands in the scheduled tasks may use powershell to "get-content" stored in directories such as "c:\users\<user>\appdata\local\Microsoft\[random_word]". Examine this directory for suspicious files such as "Enable-StorageBusDisk.log" matching the name of the scheduled task that executes the powershell command.

3) Audit the "c:\users\<user>\appdata\roaming\" directory for related files and subdirectories (e.g. a folder called" Secure Transaction Systems") and remove any suspicious files. Look specifically for BOINC.exe (and renamed versions of it) and remove all related files in the directory.

4) Look for an "update.js" file in the Downloads directory and remove if found.

This isn't guaranteed to remove the threat and all changes made to the system, as we don't know what all has happened exactly on each machine, as that will vary slightly. The tactics used may change as a result of the blog post as well. But this should be a good guide to get started removing at least the persistence associated with the malware campaign. As long as there is not an active network connection to the malicious server from either powershell or BOINC software, the threat should be reduced greatly. The best method to guarantee the threat is completely removed is to reinstall the operating system or restore from a known good backup copy whenever possible.
3) Message boards : News : Windows malware reported
Message 114285
Posted 19 Jul 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		A computer security company called Huntress released an <a href=https://www.huntress.com/blog/fake-browser-updates-lead-to-boinc-volunteer-computing-software>analysis of how this malware works</a>.

It confirms that this attack is not due to any vulnerability in BOINC.

The report doesn't describe how to remove the malware.
4) Message boards : News : Windows malware reported
Message 114191
Posted 26 Jun 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		We have received several reports of malware that installs and runs the 8.0.2 BOINC client on Windows computers. We are investigating this; we currently don't know how the malware works or how to defeat it. We'll report whatever we learn here.

This is not a vulnerability in BOINC; rather, it's malware that illegally installs BOINC.
5) Message boards : News : User Manual moved to Github
Message 114133
Posted 15 Jun 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		As part of our effort to move documentation to Github, we have moved the User Manual from <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/User_manual>Mediawiki on the UCB server</a> to <a href=https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/wiki/User_manual>Markdown on Github</a>.
6) Message boards : News : BOINC client 8.0.2 released
Message 114083
Posted 30 May 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		The 8.0.2 version of the BOINC client has been released for all platforms. Download it <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php>here</a>. Release notes are <a href=https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/wiki/Client-release-notes>here</a>.
7) Message boards : News : BOINC Workshop 2024
Message 113968
Posted 30 Apr 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		The 20th annual BOINC Workshop will be held 29-31 May,
at CERN in Geneva. <a href=https://indico.cern.ch/event/1379525/overview>Learn more and register</a>.
8) Message boards : News : BOINC wins a prize
Message 113910
Posted 18 Apr 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		BOINC is <a href=https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/stocktaking/Prizes/2024/Champions?jts=ZJZ09V&idx=15&page=14>a prize winner</a> in the WSIS competition for E-Science projects. Congratulations to all of us!
9) Message boards : News : BOINC needs your vote (by Thu 4 April) for a UN-sponsored award
Message 113824
Posted 25 Mar 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a United Nations-sponsored initiative aimed at building inclusive and equitable information societies worldwide. BOINC has been nominated for <a href=https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/stocktaking/Prizes/2024> a prize at the 2024 WSIS forum</a>, and has passed initial hurdles; the last step involves public voting.

Vote for BOINC! Instructions are <a href=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x9Xi3tq7Y9dlDD0Xb0Ul0yYCXct5pDqIqssqARxvrXg/edit>here</a>.
10) Message boards : News : BOINC in schools
Message 113601
Posted 13 Feb 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		Registration is open for <a href=https://computationmoonshot.org/>The Computation Moonshot</a>, a competition for high schools which encourages students to learn about scientific computing.
11) Message boards : News : YouTube video on BOINC server setup
Message 113586
Posted 11 Feb 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		A new <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbAM-T09Tkk>YouTube video</a> shows how to set up a BOINC server. Thanks to Alex Bryan for producing this.
12) Message boards : News : BOINC 7.24.3 released for Mac
Message 113520
Posted 30 Jan 2024 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		This version fixes a problem that causes GPU apps to fail after a Mac OS upgrade to Sonoma. Download it <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php>here</a>.
13) Message boards : News : BOINC-related paper published
Message 113154
Posted 22 Nov 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		A <a href=https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293289#>paper about public participation in science</a> (including BOINC) was published in PLOS One.
14) Message boards : News : Einstein@home launches Zooniverse project
Message 113099
Posted 13 Nov 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		Einstein@home has launched <a href=https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rsengar/pulsar-seekers>a Zooniverse project called "Pulsar Seekers"</a> to help classify radio pulsar candidates.
15) Message boards : News : BOINC client 7.24.2 released for Mac
Message 113011
Posted 30 Oct 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		This release fixes problems with the BOINC screensaver on MacOS 14.0 Sonoma. We recommend that you <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php>install it</a> if you use that version of MacOS.
16) Message boards : News : Promo materials from SCI
Message 112941
Posted 16 Oct 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		<a href=https://thesciencecommons.org>The Science Commons Initiative</a> has created some images that you can use to make posters and flyers about BOINC, and also videos about installing BOINC on Windows and Mac. See it all <a href=sci.php>here</a>.
17) Message boards : News : MacOS 14 Sonoma breaks BOINC screensaver
Message 112861
Posted 8 Oct 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		The screensaver doesn't exit properly. To force it to exit, hold down the command and shift keys while pressing Q to log out of the system, then log back in.

We hope to fix this problem soon. Until then, if you run MacOS 14, <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/BOINC_screensaver#Disabling_screen_saver>disable the BOINC screensaver</a>.
18) Message boards : News : BOINC client 7.24.1 released
Message 112650
Posted 7 Sep 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		The 7.24.1 version of the BOINC client software has been released for Windows, Mac, and Android. Download it <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php>here</a>. Release notes are <a href=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Release_Notes>here</a>. Thanks to everyone who contributed to developing and testing this release.
19) Message boards : News : Video and paper from The Ramanujan Machine
Message 112612
Posted 31 Aug 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		Check out a new <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk04gfIt8yM>video</a> and <a href=https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.11829>paper</a> from <a href=https://www.ramanujanmachine.com/>The Ramanujan Machine</a>, which has used BOINC to discover new expressions for fundamental mathematical constants.
20) Message boards : News : Italian Masters thesis on BOINC
Message 112468
Posted 6 Aug 2023 by ProfileDavid Anderson 		Check out <a href="TESI pub en.pdf">The democratization of science: Analysis of the voluntary distributed
computing platform BOINC</a>, a Masters thesis by Antonio Cerrato. Also in <a href="TESI pub.pdf">the original Italian</a>.
Next 20

Copyright © 2024 University of California.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.