June's 7th Blog 22nd June 2009

SOCIAL ENGINEERING



Having just read about this is really is very scary to know that any inforamtion that you might type in to your computer on My space, Bebo, or anything hackers can get that information and read through it to try and find your passwords to get in to other information that you might have on line. I never thought that they could do these things it really makes you sit up and think about your passwords and to have different ones for everything that you sign into and also have throw away email adresses also. And finding out that banks are starting to move away from these kinds of security questions is really worrying.



PASSWORDS AND CRACKING PASSWORDS



When I log into my work computer we have a password that has upper and lower case letters and numbers and every 6 or 7 months we are sent another instruction telling us that it has changes this is to make sure that we don't become to used to it and also to protect the system that we are on.



There are hackers out there that spend a great deal of time trying to get into your personal details especially bank accounts and they have software that can help them do this.



There is a company called Elcomsoft that has a password cracking software for sell and it can carry out dictionary and brute-force attacks on your computer.



Dictionary attacks, means that the computer goes through the whole dictionary trying to pick out the words that can crack your password. And Brute-force is that it works out every single charactor in your password until it get's it. Very much like the film wargames when you watch that it get's every number if I remember rightly.



Just always remember to mix letters up and use upper and lower case and change your password regularly.



EMAIL ENCRYPTION



This is a great idea, it very James Bond, you have to have to keys to work this, one has to be a private key that is only know to yourselve the other is a public key that you can give out to your friends, family and people that you want to have it. They can send you a message and they can encrypt it using your public kay and you can decrypt it using your private key. And what that means is that anyone who trys to read you information will not be able to as they will not have your private key details.

SECURITY SUITES

A security suit inables you to put protect your computer from a number of threats rather than installing things one by one.

There are alot of these kinds of products on the market by I have chosen two that I am going to tell you a wee bit about.

One is called Panda and the other is Steganos 7.0.4

• Panda
• detection of more than a million viruses and other threats, offering protection far higher than traditional antiviruses
• anti spyware, anit phishing , firewall, identity protection backups anti spam and parental control.

• Steganos 7..04
• easy to use encrypton software
• encryt and stores upto 256GB of data in a safe and real time securing large data and picture files
• internet trace destructor
• secure data transport free
• shedder and deep cleaning eliminate unwanted files

PROXY SERVERS

we have serves that we use at work and they are in our main office at church road and also at the counicl headquarters in Barrhead and Eastwood park. These servers are updated and backed up every night by our IT departments.

A proxy server sits between a computer and the websites it acesses it strips the IP address this is address can be used to identify you or your computer. And replaces it with a fake address so that they cannot see your real address. Anonymous surfing this redirects you through secure servers and protects you against phising and pharming sites by displaying warnings.

CONTENT FILTERING

Content filtering we is the library have content filtering on our machines, what this enables as to do is to block sites that have information or pictures that we think is unsuitable for our users to use in the library. We have had situations thik this in the past actually where the website that the person wishes to be used has been blocked and there is nothing wrong with the site and we have had to phone up IT to get it unblocked. This would come under the heading keyword

filtering.

Net Nanny

This is a great thing to have on your computer, as we are all aware kids are very ahead of use when it comes to going on to the internet, they get taught it at school and they are the ones that end up teaching us how to work the thing that sits in the corner at home that we can't work unless they are their to show us, so there are loads of kids out there logging on to their computers, looking up websites and going into chat rooms and talking to God knows how and the only time that we hear or aware that this is something that we should be worried about is when there is an incident in the news about a young girl going away with a man 3 times her age, after talking to her on the internet. So this software allows the parent to be in control of the situation at all times and also allows then to check up on what sites they have been going into even when they are out of the room or busy elsewhere in the house.

CONTENT RATING

The Internet Content Rating Assocation allows web master and content creators to label their contents by language, violence and other potentially harmful materials, This helps parents and teachers to control what children acces on the internet.

June's 6th Blog 22nd June 2009

Ransomware,

Just as it states in it's name it tries to hold the user to ransom, saying that if you don't send money through to them then the information that you have on your computer will be wiped off and that you will lose everything. They include backdoors and keyloggers and read only files.

Key loggers

Key loggers are designed to capture text from computers such as passwords and credit card details that the user is unaware that they are giving away.

Adware

Pop up bloggers can appear on your computer and these can be very off putting as they can be adverts of lots of things that they are wishing for you to buy. you can block these from coming on to your computer.


Anti - Virus Software


Explaining two different times

Norton Anitvirus and McAfee


Norton

• blocks spyware
• removes worms automatically
• prevents virus - infected emails from spreading
• removes spyware and viruses

McAfee

• stops hackers so that you can use the internet with safely
• stops viruses and blocks, cleans and removes viruses
• blocks spyware and removes existing spyware

Most antivirus software have the basic protections as you can see from above but they can also differ as some will have more protection or different proctection to offer.

as for the two that I have chosen to talk about they differ in a big way Norton includes Internet worm proctection, anti spyware and rootkit detection, where McAfee I feel has so much more to offer such as firewall, hackers and spyware protection and warnes you about sites that send spam and installs adware. Just a wee insight to different types of antivirus software. While I was reading through all this information I also looked up the Which magazine and found out the best providers that were out there for Broadband and also the problems that people were having with their providers and anti virus packages that they have, and what the different prices for these packages and a wee bit of inside knowledge for yourselve before you go and buy it for your computer. www.which.co.uk or get it insulted.

June's 5th Blog 8th June 2009

Spam

Spam: there are different types of spam, spam advertising which has mostly gambling sites , phamacies, share deals and porn.

The lottery Scam, saying that you have won the lottery and that the only way that you can claim your prize is to send money to release your winnings.

Spamfilters: you can buy these software packages which will enable you to buy to allow you to detect spam before it reaches your mail box.

Spamfighter: if you have spamfighter on your computer as soon as you receive a spam mail that is not detected the user can report the mail with one click and it removed.


Adware

Adware is the name given to any software that displays advertisements. Adware is generally regarded as a type of spyware because it selects the adverts to be displayed on the basis of the users browsing habits.

Rootkits

A rootkit normally attacks componenets on your operating system . It allows the intruder to hide his or hers activity on the system and is able to access the system again in the future, so often known as backdoors.

Rogue diallers

Rogue diallers are programs which take over modems causing it to dial by itself to premium numbers and run up a huge phone bill for you without you even knowing that it is happening until your next phone bill hit's your doormat. this can happen while you are surfing the net or if you have just stepped away ffrom the computer and gone for a short break.

Hackers

Hackers are people who gain access to computer systems that they shouldn't be in and steal information or try to unset the computer systems of big companies, or goverment information.
Wargames was a film that I saw when I was in mt teens, it was about a young guy who breaks into a US Military computer and starts a countdown to World War 2. There are many famouse hackers and once they have served their time in jail, companies employ them and they are called white hat hackers. Some have even started their own companies.

Phishing

Phishing is an email technique which is used to get people to give away information to steal their financial information such as bank account numbers and pins. They send you a letter that looks very like the bank has sent it and if you weren't clued up on this stuff you may fall into the trap.

Pharming

Pharming is the name given to attemps to redirect a website's traffic to another bogus website. Pharming websites can look and feel the same as the real website. Unlike phishing sites they are usually display the URL of the desired site in the http bar. The real sites use padlocks and the hppts ( Secure Hypertext Transport protocal)

Firewalls

Firewalls are normally a computer program which restricts access to a computer or network. Firewalls block certain sites coming through on your computer it checks the site so that there is nothing sexual, porn etc and also protects you from hackers taking advantage.

ID Theft

Identity Theft /fraud is when someone hacks into your computer and steals your Identity such as passports and driving licences in your name. Worse still they can try and take out credit cards and loans and mortgages in your name. This is why people are advised to shred important information rather than just putting it in your bin as people have beening going through peoples bins. In America this is called Dumpster diving.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is happening all over the world to school children, it is a terrible thing and sadly this has happened in my on work place and I have seen it first hand and the upset that it can cause to the child and the family. They can be bullied through email blogs and mobile phone texting, Cyberbulling is sadly a difficult thing to detect, but I was lucky that theychild involved in my cause felt able to tell me and we contacted her mother and the police were involved and the matter was sorted out straight away.

Grooming

Grooming is given to the actions taken by an adult to form a trusting relationship with young people with the attention of encouraging them to take part in some kind of sexual activity. People who carry out grooming are known as groomers.