IT Security Blog

A Few Tips to Avoid Phishing

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phishing example Chances are that when you open your inbox today you’ll find an e-mail claiming to be from your bank, an e-commerce site, or another online site you’ve visited. They might offer you an upgrade to your account, inform you that there’s been changes to their, and asks you to verify your account information. This could be a phishing attempt to get sensitive information like your personal information or passwords. Fortunately, you can avoid getting scammed by taking these precautions:

  • Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information. Phishers are getting more sophisticated in their attempts, so even if an e-mail appears to be legitimate, look for proof that it came from your e-commerce company. They should be personalized and carry information that only you and your company would know. They might show partial account numbers or other verification tools.
  • Use anti-virus software and a firewall, and keep them up to date. Phishers sometimes include script that can track your activities on the internet without your knowledge.
  • Never use the links in an e-mail to go to any webpage. Phishers will redirect you to a bogus site to trick you into logging in your account number and password. Log onto the website by typing in the web address to your browser. At the same time, never call any numbers in the e-mail. It could lead you to a VoIP provider that isn’t connected to your company at all.
  • Never fill out forms in e-mail messages asking for your personal financial information. Your e-commerce company would never ask you to send sensitive information in that manner.
  • Check your bank, credit, and debit card statements regularly to see if all your transactions are legitimate. Report any suspicious withdrawals immediately.
  • Finally, report the phishing attempt you received to your company and other anti-phishing groups.

[tags]phishing,spam,spoof emails,indentity theft,pharming,spam filtering[/tags]

Sharing your computer and keeping your files intact

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computer sharing

Living at home means that you have to share your computer with other people. In some companies, people also share workstations in case that they have different work shifts. In any case, it is important for you to make sure that your files are safe. Especially those that you use for work and those that contain confidential information.

Here are some tips for you:

  • Make sure you are using a password that is not easy to guess.
    If people know you well enough, they could probably figure out what password you will use. People tend to use passwords based on words, names and dates that important to them. Examples are pets‘ names and anniversaries. If you do this, chances are those who know you will be able to log in your computer using your account. Try changing your passwords every so often and make sure that they will be easy for you to remember but difficult to guess. Think of some cipher for it.
  • Set permissions on your files and directories.
    You could set that your files and directories will only be accessible to you. Do a chmod on them. Then again, whoever has root access will be able to get through. Maybe it would be easy for you to do this if you are the one with root access.
  • Protect your files with passwords.
    Although not everyone agrees with this, some people do this for their own sake. They feel better to have password protected files. A drawback, of course, is that if it has a difficult password to remember, you might as well have deleted your files.
  • Log out of your account or profile.
    If you have set your file permissions that you are the only one who can view, edit and execute the files, it will be pointless if you don’t log out. When you are the one who is still logged on, you leave your entire session open for intrusion.

Hopefully these tips have helped you deal with some of your dilemmas with regards to sharing your computer with other users.

Next Generation Robotics with Feelings?

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Cybernetics

We are all aware the field of cybernetics has slowly been penetrating the market, especially from the side of Japan. Miniature androids or robots have been seen as the next generation of machines that will aid human in their daily work, both in personal and business aspects. They are programmed to carry out any task as required without complaints since machines are deemed to be objects that do not have feelings.

However, various insights have shared that the eventual robots may come to a point where they would be created to have feelings. Playing god is what people would tag the creators of such a race and should this become a reality, the movies that we are used to seeing such as I-Robot may eventually come true. Although this development may be exciting to most people who love to invest on technology, the question of up to what extent these inventions would be as far as playing god is concerned will still be big question mark that will be in the air of technological breakthroughs for future gains.

[tags]robotics, robots, cybernetics, technology, automation[/tags]

AOL search gaffe

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AOL

Recently, the blogosphere has been rocked by the bit of news about AOL users’ search being made public. It was supposed to be used for a research or something but there was a security breach. As such, those information were made known to many.

Searching online is probably one of the most common things that people do. Whether it is for personal purposes or otherwise, they have the right to make their search private. The problem here is that the people from AOL should have been more careful about it.

What’s with protecting people from having their search history made public?

I personally see it as something important because people could get suspected of something they are not guilty of, depending on who is the one interpreting the data. Think of it this way: You are college student and you are studying literature. What if you happen to be studying literary works involving crime? On your computer, you will have different readings, perhaps? What kinds of searches would you make? What keywords will you use? You will look for materials on crime, etc. If someone sees your search history and starts thinking that there is a pattern like you have been temperamental and a bit violent compared to your usual self, this person might turn you in just because.

It would be nice to have search histories researched on so that search engines could yield better results when we use them. However, it could be abused too. Hopefully, all the other major groups behind search engines would learn from this gaffe AOL had. That way, people won’t be too paranoid that someone is watching them and accuse them.

Windows, Mac OSX, Linux — which is more secure?

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all three logos

There have been many flame wars, there have been different studies made regarding the security of each operating system mentioned in the title. The studies are sometimes said to be biased because it depends on what organization or company has funded the studies. At the end of the day, however, we must realize that no matter what operating system we use on our computers, we should be responsible enough to download security patches and the like.

Sometimes articles and threads on forums and blogs end up in fanaticism. Some of the points raised when it comes to vulnerability and operating systems would be:

The popularity of the operating system
Take for example Windows. It is probably the most popular operating system and some say that that is one of the main reasons why it is most attacked by hackers and creators of malware. They say that there is no point in attacking an operating system that is not used by many. The logic, they say, is that if you are going to do something, make sure it will be something big. (This is why there are people who seem to insist on getting a Mac — more stable and secure that way, as they say.)

Linux, BSD are operating systems that you can’t even run right away/properly/(insert phrase here)…
It sounds so petty, doesn’t it? But there are those who argue with Linux and BSD users that the difficulty with their operating system is that it is not easy to run it. Would an average computer users be able to use it and run it without much fiddling around? Truth be told, it looks like it is possible. But that depends on which Linux distribution you would run. In any case, the argument is more along the lines of “If you can’t even have the OS running properly, who would bother attacking it?”

Everyone must learn how to set up security measures. Be it setting up a firewall, being careful about which sites to check out, downloading patches — each of us will have different needs and we will have different experiences.

[tags]security, windows,linux,mac[/tags]

Online services and their privacy statements

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privacy

Do you socialize a lot online? Is it through chat, email or voice over internet telephony? Do you make a lot of online transactions? Where? Ebay?

If you have answered yes to a lot of those questions, here is another question for you: Do you read the terms of service of the sites that you sign up for in order to utilize their services? If yes, do you make sure that you even have a copy of it? If not, maybe it is time you should.

When we sign up for online services, we give out a lot of information about us. Some might be as detailed as including bank account numbers and credit card numbers too, especially if these are banking services and/or online auctions. There are different terms of service and privacy statements. Sometimes we just sign up without bothering to read on those. There are actually some sites that change their terms of service without notifying the users. Same thing goes for their privacy clause.

Usually privacy clauses would say that the information you provide is confidential and that they would not be passed on to others. However you cannot be too sure about them all the time. There are different cases linked to identity theft because of the information others have taken off the Internet. In America, there are some documentaries already and hopefully there will be sensible actions to be done about it. You don’t want to worry too much about buying flowers for your wife using your credit card. It is better to be aware rather than to feel sorry in the end.