Information Security Tips from Westfield Insurance

Gotta Wear Shades

Spring is in bloom and the sun is shining. If you’re like me, you’ve got your sunglasses out and are ready for summer.

Did you know that researchers have developed a compound called hexaarylbiimidazole (HABI) which almost instantaneously changes from clear to dark blue when exposed to ultraviolet light? Well it’s true. Chemical engineers at Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan have been working with light-sensitive properties of photo chromic materials like HABI.

 If added to Plexiglas or other lens materials it allows sunglasses to instantaneously darken in sunlight and turn clear equally rapidly whenever the wearer moves indoors.

An alternative application for this technology is for a new generation of optical data-storage devices.  The on/off ability of HABI could replace the magnetic on/off used in today’s storage devices. With its stability and quick transition, this material is thought of as being a significant step for use in data processing and storage.

Now you might be wondering how this applies to security. Well, the introduction of new technology lends to the possibility of new vulnerabilities for someone to exploit.

Until that happens, enjoy your summer.

Jeff Gibson

A/S/L/P - Bridging the Internet Generation Gap

April 23, 2009 is national “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work” day.  This day was founded in 1993 as a way to introduce children and young adults to career opportunities as well as demonstrate how skills learned at school will be applied later in life.

As much as our daughters and sons can learn about our careers; there is much that they can teach us about the Internet and Internet safety.  I propose as an extension to “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work” day, that parents spend an extra hour or two at home with their children to learn about their world. 

If you have never watched your child, niece or nephew navigate a computer and the Internet; you will be shocked the first time you sit down with them.   Ironically, they may be able to identify ways to optimize and/or automate your daily activities.  Thank goodness for child labor laws; otherwise, your next boss would probably be twelve!  Our children are light years ahead of us when it comes to finding information on the Internet.  Unfortunately, many still lack the practical experience to determine when they encounter a dangerous or unhealthy situation.

Remember how excited you were when you received that letter from half way around the globe as your pen pal reached out to you?  Today’s children communicate daily with friends and relatives around the world.  Through social networking sites such as Facebook and My Space, long lost friends or new ones are only a few keyboard and mouse clicks away.  Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce are a few other places where kids are sharing information about their daily lives.  Using cell phones, these posts can happen anytime, anywhere giving the world up-to-the-minute updates. Celebrities like Erika Badu have gone as far as blogging their childbirth experience.

While this information is harmless when shared among friends and family; it may have serious consequences when obtained by the wrong person.  Cyberbullying and cyberstalking are examples of overt Internet crimes.  Online predators are manipulating our children to engage in dangerous and sometimes deadly situations.  Despite the popularity of news programs like NBC Dateline’s, “To Catch a Predator;” there continues to be increases in online predation.

This leads us all the way back to what started this blog; Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.  This is a great opportunity to reach out to your children and learn what they have encountered on the Internet.  Find out what sites they visit regularly.  If they have a Facebook or My Space account, it might not hurt to set up one of your own to monitor their online activities.  Ensure they are not posting private information such as their address and/or phone numbers online.  Be aware when they are blogging their whereabouts.

Finally, a kilobit of prevention is worth a gigabyte of cure.  If you don’t have an Internet filter installed on your home computer(s)…get one.  There are many free ones available.  You can download a couple of them here and here.  Get involved with your children’s social networks. Besides ensuring they are not disclosing sensitive information, you may find yourself catching up with old friends and making new ones.  Keep the computers in an open location as opposed to the children’s rooms.  There is no reason to wait until somebody comes up with “Take Your Parents to the Internet” day, to start protecting our children today.

ICYC (In case you're curious), if you don't understand what the title of this post means; it wouldn't hurt to know the lingo your children use to communicate over IM (instant messenger) and txt (text messaging).  You can find a list of text lingo here.  What you find there may surprise you.  Especially when you find yourself the AITR.

Beware of Easy Money

    With the current economic conditions, there have been an ever increasing number of online promotions promising easy money by luring people into cash gifting programs or clubs.  In fact, the BBB warns …”cash gifting is not a legitimate way to make a few extra dollars, and in fact, is nothing more than a pyramid scheme...” or better known as “Ponzi schemes”.

     Schemers have gone digital by moving their operations to the Internet and are marketing their programs as a way to make some easy money. Web sites, Google ads, and YouTube are used to lure they’re victims into the schemes.

     According to the BBB, there are almost 23,000 cash gifting videos on YouTube with nearly 60 million views. The creators of these videos typically boast about a new program they discovered to help people make money through either cash leveraging or cash gifting.

     Some schemes are portrayed as fundraisers or programs to help people help themselves. They ask for an initial participation fee of up to $5,000 and have the participant convince additional people into the scheme in order to make money. The fee is then used to pay people further up the pyramid.

     The BBB advises people to ask themselves three questions in order to evaluate dubious money-making opportunities:

• Do I have to make an “investment” or give money to obtain the right to recruit others into the program?

• When I recruit another person into the program, will I receive what the law calls “consideration” (that usually means money) as a result?
• Will the person I recruit have to make an “investment” or give money to obtain the right to recruit and receive “consideration” for getting other people to join?

     If you answered “yes”, then you’re looking at a scheme. Don’t be surprised though if the person tempting you is a friend, co-worker, or neighbor. Just because you trust that person, beware, they may have fallen victim to the scheme.

 Good Luck!

 Jeff Gibson

When in doubt ask a search engine.

This weekend went pretty smooth, decent weather, a birthday party, and nobody I know got hit by conficker. Well... maybe I was wrong ... a friend called yesterday asking if I would have time to stop by on Monday and take a look at their computer. Thinking it was probably a corrupt application or something simple I started asking questions...

What is the computer doing?

Every time I turn on the computer a window pops open and runs a scan on my computer, and then it tells me that I have 27 viruses, spyware, and other areas of concern.

Does it do anything else?

It runs really fast and even opens an internet page where I was able to download this tool to fix the problems.

Did you download that tool?

I tried the tool but it said I need to register and pay before it would fix my problems. I know you always tell me not to use my credit card on the internet unless I'm sure of the source, so I thought I'd call and ask.

Turns out this is a scam many people see over and over, in many cases the "tool" is a hoax or a scheme to trick the individual into sharing personal information, or even something as harmless as spending 20 dollars.

So what should you do if something pops up on your computer and takes you to a website. Well a good first practice is to open a search engine like yahoo, google, askjeeves, or your favorite. Go ahead and type the name of the tool that opened on your computer into the search area and read a few articles about what the tool really does. If you don't find anything about it, you may be ok to use the tool, but always do a little research.

If you have something like this installed on your computer, I would suggest calling a professional computer repair person. Although it is possible some antivirus programs and anti-spyware tools could clean up the problem, many of these pop ups bring additional viruses, and spyware plugins which could leak your personal information.

For anyone who really wants to dig into fixing these issues, I came across a good website which lists many of these malware/adware/spyware applications, and how to clean them:

http://www.cexx.org/adware.htm.

Please be careful out there and always do your research when your downloading and installing "tools".