This is a funny IT Security Glossary. It is only meant as a joke because everyone needs a little humor in their lives, from time to time.
Security Idiot: Impress Your Peers With Your Grasp of IT Security Terminology
Friday, July 17, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Nikola Tesla Day
Nikola Tesla is the true unsung prophet of the electronic age; without whom our radio, auto ignition, telephone, alternating current power generation and transmission, radio and television would all have been impossible.
Ben Johnston, My Inventions : The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla (1983)
In my adult life, when I learn of some fact of history that has been twisted or omitted – it always takes me by surprise. The rock band Tesla was the first time that I heard about Nikola Tesla. That was in 1990, when their live acoustic album, Five Man Acoustical Jam was released, which contained the "Love Song." Around that same time, I was visiting Carlsbad, Czech Republic. The hotel room had a radio that actually had the name Tesla on it.
This really caught my interest and I have studied Nikola Tesla throughout the years. One fact that astonished me was that he sold his patents for the polyphase alternating current system of generators, motors and transformers to George Westinghouse. It would have made him a wealthy man, but he later released Westinghouse from the contract. Where would we be today without his inventions and lifelong work? While this has nothing to do with Information Assurance, sometimes it is good to remember the basics and somewhere in all of this is a lesson on patents or even copyrights. Happy Nikola Tesla Day!
WHAT ARE TESLA'S GREATEST INVENTIONS?
1. AC polyphase transmission and AC motor in 1887-1888 -- (the world's primary power--electrical and mechanical). (No, not Edison--Tesla has all the US patents for polyphase AC.)
2. Fundamental circuitry for radio in 1891 -- (providing worldwide communication). (No, not Marconi--Tesla has the defining US patents for radio, upheld by the US Supreme Court.)
The Tesla Memorial Society - Links to Other Tesla-related Web Sites
The Tesla Foundation of North America (TFNA)
PBS: Tesla – Master of Lightning
The Complete Nikola Tesla U.S. Patent Collection - Title Order
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Sunbelt Software – New Partner of StopBadware.org
This is great news! I have been a longtime advocate for all the work that they do at Sunbelt Software.
StopBadware.org, Sunbelt Software partner to fight badware
New Data Will Allow Broader Reach, Richer Analysis
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 30, 2009 — StopBadware.org, the collaborative initiative to combat viruses, spyware, and other bad software, announced today that Sunbelt Software, developer of the VIPRE anti-malware product line, will participate in the effort as a data partner. Sunbelt Software joins Google in contributing data to the project, which is based at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The initiative is funded by Google, PayPal, Mozilla, AOL, and Trend Micro.
Hundreds of thousands of websites—some might count them in the millions—are associated with the distribution of badware. Some are deliberately malicious, trying to trick users into installing a virus on their computers, while others are legitimate websites that have been tampered with, putting the site’s visitors at risk. In the most egregious cases, such sites can infect computers with vulnerable software simply by a user browsing to the page, a practice known as drive-by downloads.
StopBadware.org collects the URLs of these badware websites, whether malicious or compromised, from its data partners. It uses the information to support and encourage site owners and web hosting companies in cleaning up and protecting their sites. The initiative also conducts analysis of infection trends, offers independent reviews of its partners’ findings, and operates a community website, BadwareBusters.org, that provides help to people who have been victims—or wish to avoid becoming victims—of badware.
“We are thrilled that a well-respected anti-malware company like Sunbelt Software has come on board as a data partner,” said Maxim Weinstein, manager of StopBadware.org. “The new data offers us a different view of the badware website landscape and will help us to extend our reach and to provide richer analysis.”
Monday, June 15, 2009
Phishing Toolkits
News-
Use of phishing toolkits on the rise
iTWire, by Peter Dinham, 14 June 2009
There’s been a huge increase in the use of phishing toolkits, with 42 percent of phishing URLs last month generated using the toolkits, and the emergence of a new trend of phishing attacks towards the popular social networking site, Facebook.
Symantec, in its June phishing report, says it observed an increase in URLs using phishing toolkits during May of 100 percent over the previous month, with a 14 percent decrease in non-English phishing sites compared to February.
The security firm also reports that during May, more than 98 Web hosting services were used, which accounted for six percent of all phishing attacks, which was a decrease of five percent from the previous month.
David Cowings, executive editor security response at Symantec, says phishing sites were categorized based upon the domains they leveraged and “a considerable increase was seen in the number of phishing sites using automated toolkits,” and, he adds, “this increase was a result of a large toolkit attack targeting an information services brand.”
More.......
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Medical Identity Theft
Medical identity theft is more devastating to the victim than traditional financial identity theft. This article from the New York Times explains some of the known affects of this crime and the bureaucratic process to fix the erroneous information in medical or health insurance records.
Medical Problems Could Include Identity Theft
New York Times
By Walecia Konrad, June 12, 2009
Excerpt……
The last time federal data on the crime was collected, for a 2007 report, more than 250,000 Americans a year were victims of medical identity theft. That number has almost certainly increased since then, because of the increased use of electronic medical records systems built without extensive safeguards, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the nonprofit World Privacy Forum and author of a report on medical identity theft.
And uncountable, Ms. Dixon said, are the people who do not yet know they are victims. They may not know that their medical information has been tampered with for months or even years until, as in Mr. Sharp’s case, it shows up in collections on a credit report.
Medical identity theft takes many guises. In Mr. Sharp’s case, someone got hold of his name and Social Security number and used them to receive emergency medical services, which many hospitals are obliged to provide whether or not a person has insurance. Mr. Sharp still does not know whether he fell victim to one calamitous perp who ended up in several emergency rooms or a ring of accident-prone conspirators.
In another variant of the crime, someone can use stolen insurance information, like the basic member ID and group policy number found on insurance cards, to impersonate you — and receive everything from a routine physical to major surgery under your coverage. This is surprisingly easy to do, because many doctors and hospitals do not ask for identification beyond insurance information.
Even more common, however, are cases where medical information is stolen by insiders at a medical office. Thieves download vital personal insurance data and related information from the operation’s computerized medical records, then sell it on the black market or use it themselves to make fraudulent billing claims.
and…..
And there are none of the consumer protections for medical identity theft victims that exist for traditional identity theft. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act you can get a free copy of your credit report each year, put a fraud alert on your account and get erroneous charges deleted from your record. If your credit card is stolen and the thief goes on a spending spree, you’re not liable for more than $50 worth of the charges.
With medical identity theft, though, the fraudulent charges can remain unpaid and unresolved for years, permanently damaging your credit rating. Under the federal law known as HIPAA — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — you are entitled to a copy of your medical records, but you may have to pay a hefty fee for them.
Worse, HIPAA privacy rules can actually work against you. Once your medical information is intermingled with someone else’s, you may have trouble accessing your files. Privacy laws dictate that the thief’s medical information now contained in your records must be kept confidential, too.
Even when you are able to correct a record, say in your doctor’s office, the erroneous information may have been passed on to dozens of other health care providers and insurers. Victims must track down and resolve these errors largely on a case-by-case basis, Ms. Dixon says.
More…….
The FTC Red Flags rule require entities with covered accounts to implement programs to identify, detect, and respond to patterns, practices, or specific activities that could indicate identity theft. This will add another layer of consumer protection against identity theft and greatly expand the reach of the FTC, helping consumers fight fraud.
I would think that the providers of health care would be the first line of defense in preventing medical identity theft. The American Medical Association (AMA) is making efforts to persuade the FTC that doctors are not “creditors.” While the enforcement of the Red Flags rule has been postponed twice (November 2008 – original date, May 2009, and August 2009), the FTC has made it clear (see below: The “Red Flags” Rule: What Health Care Providers Need to Know About Complying with New Requirements for Fighting Identity Theft) that the Red Flags rule is based on each individual business. Only after considering the definition of a “creditor” and “a covered account” can they determine the type of program that must be implemented, based on the risk of identity theft.
These are references that relate to the Red Flags rule.
Health care and the Red Flags rule-
The FTC, by Steven Toporoff, May 2009
-Hot Issues Alerts - Law Firms: Do The FTC Red Flag Rules Apply To You? What Health Care Companies Should Know About The New FTC Requirements To Prevent Identity Theft
The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, H. Carol Saul and EpsteinBeckerGreen, 1 June, 2009
The FTC -
Fighting Fraud with the Red Flags rule
Do-It-Yourself Program for Businesses at Low Risk For Identity Theft
The World Privacy Forum - The Medical Identity Theft Information Page
An unanswered question - Do ID Theft protection services even provide coverage for medical identity theft?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Why I Fight Phish
Volunteering to help other people comes naturally to me. At a point, I had been researching Volunteerism and came upon this quote: I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. Edward Everett Hale, Ten Times One is Ten (1870) The funny (ironically speaking) part of it was that it was a 13-year old boy, Trevor Ferrell of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that repeated that quote to President Regan as he received a Presidential certificate for Volunteerism. He started out by taking blankets to the homeless on a cold winter’s day and that spark grew into Trevor’s Place. The point is that anyone can make a difference in the life of others and when you volunteer for something, it is better if it is for something you are interested in. This is even true when you apply that interest to learning or work.
Back in 2006 when the PIRT initiative was announced, I knew that it was something that I wanted to contribute my time to. The first reason was that it was in my opinion a great idea: to send out take-down notices for phishing and keep a public repository of the reports. Private citizens could submit email that is only normally deleted, erasing valuable evidence of a crime. Secondly, it was the military MyPay phishes that hit home for me. To target these Soldiers who give up so many things just to serve our country is like a slap in the face. Last but not least, I had the desire and willingness to learn. What I learned from the experience is that even the little guy (a figure of speech - small business owner, forums, personal websites, etc.) needs help from time to time and no one reached out to them in this aspect for free (at that time).
This PC World article highlights Gary Warner’s career up to 2007. It also backs up my claim that even one private citizen can make a difference.
Digital Vigilantes: The White Knight of Phish-Busting
PC World, 24 Dec 2007
Warner is now focusing on fighting cyber-crime full-time and on training a new generation of network forensics investigators. "You wouldn't believe the looks on their eyes the first time they got an email back from a Webmaster saying, 'Thanks for letting me know. I just shut that down.'"
When he spoke with IDG News, it was five days after final exams at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and though it would have no effect on their marks, four students were still coming into the labs to help shut down phishers.
"That idea that as a private citizen, you can help, that's the kind of thing we're trying to inspire," he said.
More………
I am a member at PhishTank and Digital PhishNet (DPN). I do support the Anti‐Phishing Working Group (APWG), just not as member because I do not belong to any of the member organizations or have the required email address. I wish that they would allow independent security researchers that are not a non-profit organization. The APWG does provide expert advice to the little guy.
What to Do if Your Web Site Has Been Hacked by Phishers
APWG, January 2009
You may receive a notice by phone or email from an individual or organization that claims knowledge of an attack. Obtain as much information from the third party as possible, including:
a) The person’s name
b) Name of their organization
c) Return contact information (phone, email, postal address, organization’s web site)
d) Web page(s), including the URL (link) the party alleges to be a phish web site
e) Nature of attack (attempt to steal personal information, to complete a bogus credit card transaction, to obtain user account credentials, etc.)
f) A description of any malicious content that appears to be downloadable from your web site (e.g., spyware)
and……
APWG encourages you to report the phishing site URL to the APWG via the email address reportphishing@antiphishing.org. Reporting to this address will cause most anti‐phishing organizations to receive a notification of the phishing web site. Security products, e.g., anti‐phishing toolbars, will be updated with the offending URL, thus offering protection to thousands, if not millions of potential victims.
and…..
The APWG provides a standard “you've been phished!” redirection page and instructions for its use at http://education.apwg.org/r/about.html. This strategy will prevent further use of the phishing site, keep your customers informed, keep your web site online for real time analysis, and afford you additional time to perform containment actions.
More………..
Even with CastleCops and PIRT gone, there are still ways to fight phishing on a daily basis. The volunteer opportunities do exist as long as the volunteer is interested and willing to learn. If ten people send a take-down request to the ISP for ten different phish, ten fraudulent websites will be able to remove that content, investigate the crime, and update their servers. If a modest estimate that each phish could have led to twelve cases of ID Theft, 120 people could be spared this. Ten Times One is Ten.
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Word Hacked
The Scrap Value of a Hacked PC
Security Fix - Brian Krebs, May 26, 2009
Computer users often dismiss Internet security best practices because they find them inconvenient, or because they think the rules don't apply to them. Many cling to the misguided belief that because they don't bank or shop online, that bad guys won't target them. The next time you hear this claim, please refer the misguided person to this blog post, which attempts to examine some of the more common -- yet often overlooked -- ways that cyber crooks can put your PC to criminal use.
I think that I understand why Brian Krebs used the word hacked in this blog post on Security fix. He wanted to reach out to the public and especially to people who say, I don’t have anything on my computer that is of any value to a cyber-criminal. To reach out to them with this very useful information, it is understandable that you must use basic terms. Terms that anyone can relate to in order to gain knowledge.
The word hacked brings up the controversy of the word hacker or cracker to me. My personal opinion is that you should call people by their name. An example of this is that an Identity Thief steals identities. An Identity Thief can be further categorized as a cyber-criminal, if they use a computer to commit the crime. The word hacker is best described by Bruce Schneier in his book “Beyond Fear.”
Hackers are as old as curiosity, although the term itself is modern. Galileo was a hacker. Mme. Curie was one, too. Aristotle wasn't. (Aristotle had some theoretical proof that women had fewer teeth than men. A hacker would have simply counted his wife's teeth. A good hacker would have counted his wife's teeth without her knowing about it, while she was asleep. A good bad hacker might remove some of them, just to prove a point.) Bruce Schneier
My husband had a great idea of getting out of Canada as fast as we could on way home from Alaska. His plan was to cut down to the United States from Calgary instead of Winnipeg. We came out in Montana and drove Highway 90 through Wyoming and South Dakota. I will never forget that leg of the journey because we ended up driving through Sturgis, South Dakota in August. I do not know anything about motorcycles , but to see that many Harleys in one location is a breathtaking event. The reason I mention this story was that the motorcycle enthusiasts that flock to Sturgis once a year come from all different professions and have had bad encounters with the media. This led me to realize that they could be compared to hackers in the sense that you cannot judge the entire group only by the ones that receive bad press.
I could name just as many good hackers as bad hackers, but understand that anyone can learn many valuable lessons from both of them. This in itself is a double edged sword. Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Gmail - Enabling the HTTPS setting
I have been wanting to write about this for a while. When you send an email without the encrypted settings set in Gmail, your email messages can be read in plain text during transit. If you use web-based email it is better from a security or privacy perspective to use HTTPS (if it is available). This point can be can be argued both ways, but the basis of Defense in Depth is that your use a layered approach and avoid a single point of failure.
Updated 29 April 2009
If you sign in to Gmail via a non-secure Internet connection, like a public wireless or non-encrypted network, your Google account may be more vulnerable to hijacking. Non-secure networks make it easier for someone to impersonate you and gain full access to your Google account, including any sensitive data it may contain like bank statements or online log-in credentials. We recommend selecting the 'Always use https' option in Gmail any time your network may be non-secure. HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, is a secure protocol that provides authenticated and encrypted communication.
-To enable this feature in Gmail:
Sign in to Gmail.
Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
Set 'Browser Connection' to 'Always use https.'
Click Save Changes.
Reload Gmail.
More here
Please read the warnings and incompatibilities from the Gmail support page. Number three of the steps above is under the General tab and located at the bottom of the page.
Friday, May 22, 2009
TechBite Highlights PC Pitstop
TechBite Technology is Steve Bass's Weekly Newsletter. I have read and enjoyed many of his PCWorld articles over the years. This week he highlights PC Pitstop’s Full Tests and other free tools. If you are familiar with PC Pitstop, they are in the process of transitioning from the old Full Tests to OverDrive.
Free Super Sites and Tools to Test Your PC
By Steve Bass, Newsletter #29, 20 May 2009
Are you sure your PC's healthy? Think back to when you heard that kerchunk sound coming from your hard drive. Or the last time your Internet connection was down -- and I don't mean just suffering from the blues. My advice: Check inside your computer's case with these free diagnostic tools and see if anything's amiss before disaster strikes.
-PC Pitstop: The Best of the Best
There are lots of testing sites around, but if you want to visit just one site to test your PC, I'd recommend PC Pitstop.
More here…..
PC Pitstop has a great forum with friendly staff and members. Even if you think that you cannot learn anything about computers, PC Pitstop is the place to go to learn. If you encounter problems running OverDrive, this is their forum for help. If you need help interpreting the results or have any questions about the test, go here. They allow you to run the test anonymously, but if you wish to post in these forums or provide a TechExpress link you must be a registered member first.
This is from Steve’s Time Waster section. The video shows lighthouses in a very different light.
http://stevebass.posterous.com/so-you-want-to-live-in-a-lighthouse
You can subscribe to TechBite here.
Friday, May 15, 2009
SpywareHammer – Social Media Security Forum
SpywareHammer is a great new anti-spyware forum. They went live in September 2008 and currently have over 2000 registered members. The experts will happily assist you with malware removal and more. They have HJT, Rootkit Removal, Hardware, and Software troubleshooting. Bugbatter is an Administrator at SpywareHammer and a fellow Microsoft Consumer Security MVP. She has created a dedicated forum for Social Media Security at SpywareHammer. Her latest two posts highlighted Facebook and were from the article excerpts below.
New Websense Security Labs Research Finds Cybercriminals Imitating Social Networks to Spread Malware
Fraudsters Create Hundreds of Thousands of Facebook Clones to Target Users at Work
SAN DIEGO, CA, May 13, 2009 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX News Network) -- Websense, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBSN) today released the results of new research conducted by Websense Security Labs™ that reveals a growing domain-name cloning trend among cybercriminals seeking to take advantage of the huge number of social networking users, particularly those using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Criminals are increasingly using domain names that include words like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, with no official connection to the real sites, to trick unsuspecting visitors to visit fake Web sites and lure them to input sensitive information or download malicious code. In fact, Websense Security Labs research indicates that in a research sample taken from the Websense URL database, more than 200,000 phony copycat sites were found, all using the terms Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in their URLs. Examples similar to samples found include, unblock.facebookproxy.com, buy.viagra.twitter.1234.com or hotbabesofmyspace999.com (note these are just sample site names that are similar to the sites researchers found).
Further research shows that the hackers are taking steps to create these cloned domains to circumvent security measures put in place by organizations to filter the original domain in a business setting. Many of the domains are proxy avoidance sites which are used to try to evade traditional Web filtering technology.
and-
The Inside Facebook Guide to Protecting Your Privacy on Facebook
by Jessica Lee May 13th, 2009
Now that everyone from family to colleagues are connecting on Facebook, how do you continue sharing freely while maintaining your privacy and reputation in the years to come?
Facebook allows users to customize their privacy settings at a granular level, but a surprisingly low percentage of users actively manage their privacy settings. Many users who complain about the lack of privacy on Facebook aren’t even aware of the privacy configurations available to them. Below, Inside Facebook guides you through all the steps you need to know to protect your privacy on Facebook.
While these articles are about FaceBook, the discussions can cover any Social Media applications. I will see a news article and go to post it only to find that Bugbatter has beaten me to it. Keep up the great work! Please feel free to register at SpywareHammer and comment, discuss any concerns, contribute your own lessons learned, or ask questions.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate
I am very interested in Beta Testing. The valuable lesson that I learned from Office 2007 Beta was that in no circumstances should you ever Beta Test anything on a computer that you are not ready to reformat before installing the final application. Due to the availability of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) and the fact that it will be free for at least a year, I will definitely be testing it.
You can follow the Windows Springboard Series on Twitter (MSspringboard) and this is a link to the Featured Windows 7 Resources on Microsoft TechNet. Just keep in mind that you are forewarned that the Windows 7 RC will expire June 1, 2010 and the bi-hourly shutdowns will begin on March 1, 2010.
These are two interesting articles that relate to Windows 7 RC.
Windows 7 setup secrets
Ed Bott, May 1st, 2009On May 5, the general public will finally be allowed to download the official Windows 7 Release Candidate. It’s been up on BitTorrent networks for more than a week, and developers with MSDN or TechNet subscriptions have had access to it since early this morning. But those groups constitute a tiny fraction of the people who will be seeing the Windows 7 release candidate for the first time next week.
For the benefit of the early adopters and those who patiently wait, I’ve been gathering information on the right and wrong ways to set up Windows 7. For the past week or so I’ve been installing and upgrading the RC code on a wide variety of systems—notebooks and desktops, with and without touch and tablet capabilities, with and without TV tuners and Blu-ray drives, as clean installs and upgrades, in x86 and x64 flavors, documenting the process.
In this post, I want to share seven of the lessons I’ve learned along the way, including a few setup secrets that even some Windows experts don’t know about.
Secret #1: Choose the right Setup option
Secret #2: Start with a clean disk
Secret #3: Back up your old drivers first
Secret #4: Do a nondestructive clean install
Secret #5: You need less disk space than you think
Secret #6: Unblock the upgrade path for Windows 7 beta
Secret #7: Unlock those extra editionsMore......... here
and
Microsoft to give away free Windows 7 Release Candidate for a year
Son Huynh, April 30th 2009
On May 5th, general users will have access to an entire year of Microsoft's brand new operating system, Windows 7 RC, for free! It is already available to download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. This version is only the Release Candidate and will expire June 1, 2010. The Release Candidate is merely the near finished product and is basically the final stage in testing. It's supposed to have all the features of the final version. We don't know when the final version will be released but rumors say it'll be either late 2009 or early 2010.
A beta version of Windows 7 was released some time ago, and from using it for a short time, I can gather that it was much faster and more friendly than Windows Vista. Indeed for those of you who hated Vista, Windows 7 is Vista done right. Windows 7 boasts a lot of new features including a new taskbar, libraries, jump lists, etc. Windows 7 will also come packaged with the newest Internet Explorer (IE8).
The biggest improvement with Windows 7 is the performance. It will no longer take 5-10 minutes to boot up your machine. Windows 7 now has a much faster startup time, beating out both Vista and XP. We will also see a new feature called Windows XP mode which lets you run native XP programs on your machine.
People are saying good things about this Windows. Microsoft hopes it will make up for all the bad things about its previous version. I've heard news about IT developers leap-frogging Vista and going straight to 7 in their companies.More.... here
Saturday, May 2, 2009
MVP Spotlight - Hosts File & Other Helpful Topics
This is the Microsoft MVP Spotlight for Mike Burgess.
Security MVP Offers Malware Protection
Consumer Security MVP Mike Burgess's Hosts file continues to lead the fight against malware and security threats from around the world. The internet can be a harsh place to surf, but Mike’s Hosts file for Windows, can be used to block ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and even most web browser hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the internet connection to malware sites.
Currently, he has over 10,000 mailing list members, with 126 updates last year, and accolades from Pricelesswarehome.org, and the "Hype-Free" security blog. Mike's contribution towards Windows is a strong piece of armor in the constant fight for internet security.
Learn more about how the Hosts file can protect Windows users by clicking here.
From URL: http://blogs.msdn.com/mvpawardprogram/archive/2009/04/30/security-mvp-offers-malware-protection.aspx
What I thought was neat was that you can select from 11 different helpful topics with the drop down arrow (at the top of the page). This is just a small example of what Mike Burgess has to offer, in addition to the invaluable information about the Hosts file.
Security Issues for Windows and IE
Practice Safe Hex! - Browsing the Internet without protection is just plain foolish!
It can't be stressed enough on how important it is to keep your system up-to-date. This not only involves Windows Update, but also all the other programs on your machine. The vast majority of user problems (hijacks, adware/spyware) I see are due to failure to keep Windows patched, and lack of a proper "Layer of Protection".
-Preventing Vulnerabilities in Windows and Internet Explorer
* Tighten the Settings in Internet Explorer
* Do NOT run as Administrator or an account with Administrator privileges
* Build a Layer of Protection - there are enough freeware products available on the Internet that there is no excuse for not having an adequate defense. Add an anti-spyware program that has "real-time" protection such as Microsoft's Windows Defender (freeware)
More......
Sunday, April 19, 2009
A Beacon of Light
I have many mentors because I believe that you can learn something from everyone that will make you better or worse. The choice is yours to make, along with the consequences of that choice. One of my mentors once said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” To me that means exactly that. Shine a light into the darkness and try to share what is discovered. In the world of information security this process has been proven time after time. Change is the only constant.
This is where the name of my blog came from. Like a lighthouse sitting on top of a cliff, shining it’s light into the dark sea to safely guide the ships away from the danger. Another well respected mentor of mine told me to write about what interests you. While I believe in responsible disclosure, if the information is already being written about all over the Internet – the information is already disclosed. My interests are Information Assurance, Privacy, Information Security, Incident Response, Risk Management, Security Awareness Training, Security Policies, Log Analysis, Security Research, Security Metrics, ID Theft Prevention, Anti-Phishing, Anti-Spam, Anti-Malware, Social Media Security, Ethics in Computing, Beta Testing, and Writing.
When CastleCops moved on in December 2008, it was a sad day in my life. Paul, Robin, and all of the staff/members put a great amount of time (along with blood, sweat, & tears) to build CastleCops. In my opinion, it became a place on the front lines of the never ending and always changing fight against cyber-criminals. The team efforts of PIRT, MIRT, and SIRT were amazing. I am very proud of my time as a PIRT Handler and fought the good fight every day. Now that I have had the time to adjust to this change, I have realized that even with CastleCops gone - the fight still continues.
I do not know one person who knows everything. Some professionals may have more expertise in one area, but weaknesses in other areas. My point is that we need to work together as a community and share that expertise because that is exactly what the cyber-criminals are doing.
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