It’s a new year and you need to make some changes.

You’ve started back at the gym, started eating like a rabbit and quit ________________ (fill in the blank as you see fit), but you haven’t made any changes to your computer habits.  The folks at Defence Intelligence have put together a simple set of resolutions that you can begin using today.

There isn’t really much need for explanation here – just read, rinse and repeat!

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A recent study by the National Cyber Security Alliance titled 2010 State of Cyberethics, Cybersafety, and Cybersecurity Curriculum in the U.S. indicated that less than 25% of our students are being taught about safety on the internet (social networks, scams, fraud, safe passwords) and more than 75% of teachers reported receiving less than 6 hours of professional development on these topics.  This basically means that one quarter of the children of America are being taught by untrained professionals about the dangers of computers and the internet.  Very scary numbers.  I think that a similar poll of American adults would reveal the same lack of understanding, so who is going to educate these young minds?

Like riding a bike, learning to tie shoe-laces and proper manners, “internet education” might have to be a lesson taught at home.  This means that parents must take an active role in what children are doing on the computer, what web sites they are visiting and how they are doing these things.  To do this properly, parents must educate themselves first.  This is easily said, but parents must have the proper resources and be willing to put in the time.

Tools and Resources

JumpstartMyPC.com Blog

JumpstartMyPC.com was created to help PC users get the most out of their computer and the articles we have written in our blog often deal with security, safe surfing, recent malware attack warnings and social networking.

Link: http://www.jumpstartmypc.com/blog

There are over 100 articles on getting the most out of your computer that can be accessed at the link above.  You can search by keyword or category to find articles on a certain subject.

Recent Articles of Interest:

• My Web of Trust – You Cannot Afford to Surf Without It
• Seriously! – Your Password is What? Are you kidding?
• Social Media Credit Score – a series of articles dealing with what people post on social networking sites.

NCSA – The Stay Safe Online Blog

The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) has designed some educational tools, including this blog, based on three key pillars Cyber Security, Cyber Safety and Cyber Ethics.

Link: http://www.staysafeonline.org/blog

“The Second Nature Blog explores a varierty of cybersecure issues including how to stay safe and secure online, emerging trends in security, the integration of cybersecuirty, cybersafety, and cybersecurity into K-12 education, and our emrging digital lives.” - as taken from their web site

Recent Articles of Interest:

• What will we teach our children?
• Managing your online reputation is a good idea
• Stalking and cybersecurity

USA Today Education – Technology Web Site

NCSA teamed up with USA Today Education Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security to develop seven lessons during the 2009-2010 school year targeted at 8th-12th graders. Lesson plans use recent news stories about cyber security issues.

Link: http://www.usatodayeducate.com/wordpress/index.php/technology-cyber-security

Most of the “lessons” shared on this site were written within the last 2 years and are available as PDF’s.  There are also a number of “Resources for Elementary Teachers” and helpful links to other web sites.

Recent Articles of Interest:

• Hackers Want to Be Your (Malicious) Friend (PDF)
• How to Avoid Cyberscams (PDF)

Scams like these are becoming more and more common.  As PC and internet users we have just a few choices.  We can avoid using the internet completely (not likely) or arm ourselves with the right tools to prevent malware attacks, spyware trickery, phishing scams, etc.  In the case of the Hotmail passwords, a simple anti-virus or spyware program would NOT have prevented the crime.  No software was installed and these programs would not have sent up any flares to warn us of the potential danger.  That’s why we need a program like My Web of Trust (WOT).

WOT is s a FREE Internet security add-on for your browser (Firefox and Internet Explorer). It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites. WOT warns you before you interact with a risky website.  The WOT add-on investigates the links you see on your web browser and checks their trustworthiness, vendor liability, privacy and child safety. With the sum of all these, WOT assigns a rating of green (trustworthy), yellow (proceed with caution) or red (warning).  The rating is indicated by a tiny, color-coded icon that is displayed next to each of the links in your browser.

WOT uses both the users’ ratings and the trusted lists, such as phishing website links to assign ratings.  This user-based rating system is what really gives strength to the Web of Trust.  With over 5 million users and ratings for over 24 million websites, WOT serves as an exceptional second-layer of security for your web browsing experience.

In addition to the ratings posted within the most trusted sites on the web (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, Wikipedia, digg, …), WOT also warns you about dangerous links in Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail.  Had the users affected by the Hotmail password scam yesterday been running WOT, they would have been greeted with two warnings and would not have unknowingly provided their email address and passwords.

1) A red WOT rating icon would have been displayed

Notice the red circle, indicating an untrustworthy site

2) If the user did click on the link, they would have been warned again, with this full screen image

WOT Full Screen Warning

Get WOT today and add a new level of security to your web browsing experience.  Visit http://www.mywot.com for more information and download links.  Remember, it is FREE.  What do you have to lose?

Identity theft and fraud are very real and, given the current economic climate, are on the rise.  There are many precautions you can take to protect yourself from identity theft and all of them focus on protecting your personal data.  Protection means securing your information behind something, whether it is a wall, a guard or some sort of digital security, like a password.  Due to the nature of our business, we are going to focus on an area we can help you with, passwords.

Honestly, who wants to deal with passwords?  They are an obstacle.  They stand between you and your ability to get something accomplished and they can just be a real pain.  You’ve got ten passwords to remember, different rules for each, and every time you turn around, there is another company or web site asking you to create a new password.  Your first instinct is to “make it easy” and use the same password for everything.  Who hasn’t done that at some point?  Well, today is the day you need to make a change.  Simple, easy to remember passwords are an open door to criminals and they are counting on people to be lazy when it comes to their password security.  You wouldn’t leave your front door secured by a piece of scotch tape, so why do that to your bank account, personal computer or email?

If you had the chance, you would secure your house and family behind a deadbolt and a security system, so now you just need to apply that same thought process to your digital security.  You need a strong password.  A strong password will follow these rules, which we found on Microsoft.com:

• Length – 8 or more characters are the minimum.  14 or more are ideal.
• Complexity – The greater the variety of characters, the better.  Use the entire keyboard.
• Easy to remember, hard to guess – Make it something personal, but change it up with special characters and a little creativity.

Here is an example of how you can change your existing, weak password into something stronger.  Let’s start with something that most people use, the word “password”, and work from there.  That’s right, we know you are doing it!

ORIGINAL: password
LENGTHEN IT: passwordpassword
MAKE IT MORE COMPLEX: pa$$wordPa**w0rd

All we did there was add in 1 capital P, a number in place of a letter and a few special characters.  You just have to remember that it is the word “password” twice, with a few tweaks.  If you can visualize it, you can type it.  After you have typed it a few times, you’ll be surprised that you ever fought the change.   Try it today with something simple and work on changing all of your passwords to something stronger and more secure.

There are a couple additional words of warning that you should know about before making this “global” change to your passwords:

1. Try not to use the same password for everything.  Have a few variations of your password, just in case someone does figure it out.  Then they won’t be able to get into everything.
2. Different web sites/programs have different password rules.  Some don’t allow certain special characters, some don’t allow repeating numbers “111,” some don’t…. There are too many to list.  This is another reason to have several variations.
3. Don’t write your passwords down.  It is difficult to do, but if you store them all on a piece of paper in your wallet or purse and someone steals it, you are in trouble.  If you do have to write it down, just use the paper until you can remember the password(s) then shred that paper and move on.

If you can make these small adjustments today, it could save you and your credit a huge hassle down the road.  Make the switch today and don’t look back.

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