Information Security Tips from Westfield Insurance

Cover up your documents

How many people have access to your desk when you're not around?

I assume that your co-workers are basically good people. If they weren't, you wouldn't have hired them in the first place. Does that mean you know everything about them? Or would you be like so many on the news commenting after the fact that he/she "seemed like such a nice person"? It would be a wonderful world if we could trust every person we met. Unfortunately, even good people can fall prey to temptation.

You also need to worry about the people you didn't hire. If you're like most small offices, the landlord's cleaning staff, contractors, visitors and many other outsiders have some degree of access to your space. And you generally have few assurances about who they are, what background checks were run or what supervision they receive.

You have to assume that people you can't know have access to your space when you're not around. Most of them are good people. Do what you can to help those honest people stay honest.

• Always turn off your computer at night. Don't just lock the screen. If your IT team has set it up properly, extra protections will kick in when you shut the computer all the way down.
• If you have a laptop, lock up it in a desk drawer at night. Laptops, PDAs and mobile phones are high-theft devices. Don't make it easy for the thief.
• If you have enough space, put away your paper files at night. Lock them in a desk drawer or filing cabinet. Even if the cabinet doesn't lock, it will at least be more obvious when an unauthorized person is snooping though the files. It's harder to tell when someone is snooping through the papers on top of your desk as they are "cleaning" it.
• If you can't lock the papers up, at least put a cover sheet or blank page on the top of the pile to protect the confidential information from casual oversight.
• Make sure you collect papers off faxes and printers as soon as possible. Don't leave them exposed to guests and others walking the halls.
• If you see something suspicious, call for help. If you have an internal security team, make sure everyone in the office knows how to contact them both during and after normal business hours. If your office's immediate action drill is "call the police", make sure they know how to do that, too.

Rootkits - defined

Every once in a while, security geeks talk about "rootkits" in tones of fear or loathing. Here's what we're talking about and why we worry about them (and why you should, too).

A rootkit is a particular type of malicious software. It is different from an ordinary virus in that it is specifically designed to seize control of your computer at the highest possible level. (In the old unix terms, this was called 'root' access - the equivalent level of authority in Windows is 'administrator'.) Once the hacker has a rootkit on your computer, he/she has full access to everything on the computer. More than that, the hacker can usurp control of the computer and make it run other malicious programs (perhaps as part of a botnet) or can use it as a jumping-off point to attack other data on your network. The hacker can do anything on the computer that you can do – and many things that most of us can't.

Rootkits are also different in that they generally limit themselves to seizing and holding control of one system - a virus, on the other hand, is will try to spread itself to other computers. Rootkits are also often kits, that is, combinations of multiple malicious programs that work together. Ordinary viruses are usually single programs. That said, an ordinary virus can be sent out to infect your computer and can, as its first act, load a rootkit onto your computer. Using a virus as a component of a rootkit is a fairly common attack now. According to some researchers, as many as one in five PCs are infected with a rootkit.

Rootkits frequently masquerade themselves as other files and/or deliberately hide files from programs that are used by legitimate administrators to hunt for viruses. This makes them particularly difficult to clean out once your computer has become infected.

Not all rootkits are created by hackers. In 2005, Sony BMG included rootkit software on some music CDs in an attempt to prevent music piracy. Unfortunately, the rootkit exposed every one of their customers' computers to exploitation by anyone who knew to look for the backdoor the rootkit created.

To defend against rootkits:

• Practice safe surfing - don't go to virus-infected websites. Music-sharing, video, software, porn, hacker and other 'gray' websites are frequently loaded with virus-infected downloads. While there are some legitimate freeware sites, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". If they're not making money through sales or advertising, they're probably getting something else out of the deal – don't let that something be your computer.
• Keep your antivirus program on and up-to-date. But recognize that this is probably incomplete. Rootkits are specifically designed to defeat the major antivirus programs.
• Keep all the applications on your computer fully patched.
• Keep your firewall turned on and locked down as far as you can go. This won't necessarily stop you from picking up that first infection but it might prevent the virus from sending out the command to download the rest of the kit.
• Turn off your computer when you're not using it. First, restarting the computer each day triggers a number of cleanup activities. More importantly, the computer isn't exposed to exploit while it's turned off.
• If you are infected, take your computer to an IT specialist. Rootkits are especially difficult to clean out and will often reinstall themselves if part is missed. The usual practice is to wipe and rebuild the machine – they're that hard to get rid of.

based in part upon content from Wikipedia

How not to look like spam

Spam filters are getting better every year. They have to so they can keep up with the ever-increasing flood of spam. But no matter how good the filters get, some spam will always leak through. More worrying, some fraction of good messages will be inappropriately tagged as spam and lost. And depending on how your respective spam filters are set, your reader may never even know that the message was attempted nor you that the message was rejected.

A while back, we wrote a tip about "how not to look like a phish". I've wanted to write the companion article about not accidentally tripping the spam filters for several years now. I resisted because the rapid change in spammer tactics makes any list obsolete even before it hits the page. It will also never be a definitive list - the anti-spam vendors are justifiably worried about giving the spammers a roadmap showing how to bypass their filters. Nevertheless, there are some general rules worth discussing.

• Your subject line is important. A blank subject line (or, worse, a subject line that is ambiguous and generic like "Hi" or "I love you") will almost certainly get your message tagged as spam. A good subject line is also a courtesy to your readers, helping them to more quickly prioritize their inboxes and give your email the attention it deserves.
• Mailing to lots of people at once will increase the odds of being tagged as spam. (This is a problem for the publishers of legitimate email newsletters with large distribution lists like, say, these tips.)
• Use a company-issued email address. Sending from a free email account like yahoo.com or gmail will increase the odds of getting tagged.
• Avoid common spam words like "cheap" and the V- word (rhymes with the famous waterfall). That sometimes means completely avoiding certain topics (which can be quite difficult, especially in a newsletter like this one where we are discussing spammer tactics) but more often means avoiding flowery, inflammatory or overly-promotional language. In particular, avoid all caps and multiple exclamation marks.
• Avoid images, fancy graphics and html code in your email. Hackers and spammers hide things in those glossy "enhancements". The simpler your message, the more likely it is to get through unmolested.
• SPELL-CHECK! Spammers are getting much better at the use of grammatically correct English but bad spelling is still a surprisingly good filter for spam.
• If you are sending a newsletter, always include your real contact information and a working set of "unsubscribe" instructions at the bottom of the message. This won't actually help you get past the spam filters – too many spammers just include fraudulent unsubscribe options in their messages – but it is the law.
• Try to keep your message under two megabytes including embedded pictures and attachments. This isn't strictly a spam-filtering rule but many mail servers use a 2 meg/message limit to keep any one message from tying up the lines.

Finally, if you don't get an answer in a reasonable amount of time, follow up on your message. No matter what you do or how good the filters get, some false positives will always exists. The person might be ignoring you but it's more likely that they never got the message.

Spam, phish or secure mail?

For several years now, we've been telling everyone that email is a postcard – everything in the message is exposed to anyone who wants to read the message as it flashes by. A couple of companies have figured out how to solve this problem and their solutions are finally hitting critical mass. If you have a secure mail solution, you can finally put your message in an 'envelope' and keep outsiders from reading it.

The problem is that we've also told you as a reader to delete any message that appears suspicious or that asks you to click through some "convenient" link. The 'envelope' around a secured message looks a lot like a phish. (See "How it works" below.)

Here are some tips on telling the difference between a secure mail message and a spam or phish.

• In a legitimate message, you will still be able to read the subject line and the sender. If you are not expecting a message from that sender, be suspicious.
• Once you start working with a business partner who uses a secure mail system, all secure messages from that company should look basically the same. If the logo, the layout or the text look different, be suspicious.
• A legitimate message will take you to the sender's website to verify your login. A phish will try to take you someplace else to steal your password. If the message alleges to come from someone at redcross.org but the link is trying to take you to yahoo.com, be suspicious.
  Reminder: The only part of the domain that matters is the part immediately before the top-level domain (.com, .org, etc). Ignore everything to the left or right of the dots. In the link voltage-pp-0000.westfieldgrp.com/mail/32/, only 'westfieldgrp' matters for verifying the legitimacy of the message. The rest is set up by the company's IT department to point to specific places within the company's domain.
• Legitimate messages are written by professionals. Scam messages want to panic you into acting without thinking and often use phrases like "URGENT" and "log in now or your account will be closed". If the language seems inflammatory, be suspicious.

If you are suspicious, call the sender and confirm the message. Please do not just delete these messages, though. There's a fair chance they are legitimate and you wouldn't want to lose good messages.

How it works
There are several ways to put your message in the secure 'envelope'.
One technique doesn't actually put the content in email at all. What you really send is a placeholder saying "You have a message waiting. Please sign in at my website to read it." The message content stays on the sender's webserver and never actually travels by email. Some large financial and medical institutions use this kind of secure messaging.
The other way is to pull the content off the message, encrypt it and reattach it to the message. The content travels by email and but can't be read except by someone who knows the password. (If you don't already have a password set up, you will be asked to verify your identity and create one.)
A third technique is Transport Layer Security (TLS), a method that protects the message from one email server to another. This requires some setup between the two companies but is otherwise invisible to both the sender and the reader. These messages can't be easily mistaken for a phish so we won't discuss them in this tip.
An example of that second kind of 'envelope' – the encrypted attachment solution - is attached below.

Gustav scams

We wrote several years ago about Hurricane Katrina scams - people trying to exploit our sympathy for the victims of the tragedy by setting up fraudulent websites and fake charities. The FBI and FTC have recently announced a number of similar scams related to Hurricane Gustav. More than 300 Gustav-related internet addresses were registered in the hours immediately before and after Gustav hit the Gulf Coast. Many of them include keywords such as "help", "victims", "survivors" and "aid". There might be a few legitimate sites mixed in among these but the vast majority are scams. They are sites set up to con good people out of their contributions - or perhaps just trying to bait you into visiting their virus-laden website. Either way, if you're going to give to the victims of a disaster like Hurricane Gustav, you need to do your homework before sending in that check.

• Never respond directly to an email request for money. If you think the request might be legitimate, ask for written information about the charity including their official name, physical address and telephone number.
• Contact the charity directly and be sure that they know about the solicitation and have authorized the use of their name. (You'd be amazed how many people claim to be collecting for the Red Cross but just pocket the cash - or pass on some miniscule percentage of the contribution.)
• Be especially cautious about suspiciously similar names. Many of these scam sites will attempt to mimic the legitimate charities.
• If you don't remember making a pledge, you probably didn't. Don't let yourself be pressured into sending anyone money.
• Avoid cash donations. Don't give out your credit card number either. Checks are best because they leave a paper trail - better for the FBI if it's a scam and better for you if it's legit so you can claim the tax deduction with the IRS.
• If you've already made a donation to a "charity" that you now believe was fraudulent, contact your local FBI office so they can investigate it.

For more, go the the FTC's Consumer Protection website.