Advice

Bruce Schneier, in his blog Schneier on Security http://www.schneier.com/ drew attention to this great interview with an ex-Nigerian-419 scammer on the Scam-Detective site. It’s a fairly long piece and gives a pretty good view of the Nigerian scam industry run by organized crime, how it sucks in young people who have good computer and English skills and pays them a huge amount of money ($75,000 per year in this case) to scam victims they view as white, greedy and rich. ...

Putting laptop in sleep mode is a common thing that we do to save power and perform our work at a later stage without much delay. But for some users there is a problem while they try to resume from sleep mode. As the resuming begins, a blank screen appears with a mouse pointer and stays until you press any key or click the mouse. This problem may be fixed by a HotFix named KB958685 released by Microsoft for Vista and Windows7 users and should be only used if you are facing this problem. ...

Last week I revealed troubling transmissions by the Google Toolbar: Even when a user specifically “disable[s]” the Google Toolbar, and even when the Toolbar disappears from view, the Toolbar continues tracking users online behavior—including specific web pages visited and specific searches run on other search engines. To Google’s credit, after I posted my article Google promptly fixed these nonconsensual transmissions—but big questions remain. How did this bug slip through Google’s internal testing? What happens to the data Google collected without user consent? And why was Google collecting this data in the first place? ...

With the latest release of their browser, v.4.0, Google has published a long expected feature: Browser Extensions. Now Chrome features what other browsers like Firefox, IE, Opera and so on offer for a long time already. But, being able to compete with the others better doesn’t mean that they have solved all problems. Actually, their problems just start to appear – because adding extensions in the browser is just the same as opening Pandora’s box. ...

Ben Edelman, Harvard privacy researcher and guru has revisited the features of Google Toolbar and was appalled to discover that disabling it doesn’t really disable it. He is recommending that all users uninstall it. In a long, thorough and well-written piece on his blog Edelman discusses how he monitored the Toolbar’s behavior with a network sniffer and documented the transmission of data back to Google (to toolbarqueries.google.com). Not only does it track a user’s Google searches, but it also phones home information about searches done in other search engines. ...

Security firm Imperva of Redwood Shores, Calif., found a unique way to gage the quality of the passwords that Web users select: they analyzed the 32 million passwords in the unencrypted file of passwords that miscreants stole from the servers of RockYou.com in December and posted on the Internet. RockYou creates and distributes entertainment widgets that work with social networking networks. What they found wasn’t good, according to their report. ...

Jerome Segura, a Security Analyst at ParetoLogic of Victoria, B.C., Canada, just posted a nice piece on computer security practices with a different perspective in his “Malware Diaries” Blog. He begins his list of security tips by considering four classes of users: the pre-baby boomers: These folks rarely touched a computer in their lives and if they did, kudos! Typical use: Work, Solitaire, Printing stuff. the early and late baby boomers: They have been interacting with computers pre-Internet and have good notions but lack the ‘modern day stuff’. Typical use: Work, e-mail, Online searches. the 70’s – 80’s users: These guys are definitely into computers, maybe a bit more gaming and such. They possess quite a good sense of computing. Typical use: Games, Work, E-mail, Online Dating, Forums 90’s to present: Some of them were born with a computer or handheld device. Their lives would not be possible without the MSN, Skype and more recently all the social engineering glitter. Typical use: Twittering, Facebooking, Online shopping. then makes further distinctions by level of security knowledge and awareness: ...

The holidays are nearly here! If you’re still searching for the final perfect present, and are thinking of buying online, here’s a few practical tips to help keep your last-minute purchases secure: Keep your Internet Security solution updated, not just to the day but to the hour! They release frequent updates to make sure you’re protected from the very newest malware. Scan your system before you start shopping. ...