Security Awareness For Everyone - SAFE
Identity Theft
Identity theft is the largest growing crime in the UK today and it is remarkably easy to commit. 1 in 10 in the UK has suffered some kind of identity theft. Dumpster divers are people who go through your rubbish hoping to find information of value such as a credit/debit card receipts, addresses or bank account details. They may go through your rubbish more than once with the hope of finding other useful information. The more information they have about you the easier it will be for them to commit identy theft.
To protect yourself from becoming a victim make sure you securely dispose of your personal and financial records if they are no longer required. Get yourself a shredder - they are affordable and will deter the majority of dumpster divers. Cross cut shredders are best. Not all financial institutions will write the money off if you become a victim so it really is up to you to securely dispose of your personal information..
Spoofing & Phishing
Spoofing is where an email is received that appears to have come from someone you may or may not know. Viruses sometimes spoof emails after they have infected a computer. The virus can create and send emails using whatever email addresses it finds on the computer it has infected.
More sophisticated spoof emails may appear to have come from financial organisations you may deal with. They are designed to entice the recipient to click on links within the email message body. They can be very convincing and may contain a message such as "We just need to verify your account details. Please click here to verify". The rule of thumb is to never click on any links in emails that you receive from financial organisations. Always type the web site address into your web browser.
Viruses & Malware
Viruses have been around for years and will probably be around for years to come. The collective name of malicious software is Malware. Malware includes viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, adware, greyware and more recently rootkits.
Malware is being generated all the time so it's important you keep your anti-virus and spyware programs up-to-date with the latest pattern files. Anti-virus vendors are now starting to include spyware detection capabilities as standard with their anti-virus and firewall products. For computer users this is good news as it's one less thing to worry about.
Check out the Free Stuff section for details of free anti-virus and other useful tools.
Passwords
Since the start of the IT industry passwords have been used to provide security. Passwords allow a computer system to confirm you are who you say you are. Passwords are a means of authentication.
If you bank online you are usually asked for more than your password or at least you should be. If you access a computer where you work you are most likely asked for a user ID and a password. In either case the computer system requesting the password checks or authenticates your user ID and password. Most computer systems are configured to prompt you to change your password regularly such as every 90 days.
We all know that passwords should be difficult to guess and easy to remember. Anything you find in a dictionary is generally not good for using as a password. The easiest way to choose a good password is to use a passphrase e.g. ilikechinesefood. The previous passphrase example is not something that you are likely to find in a dictionary and would take a considerable amount of time to compromise. Taking this one step further try substituting letters with numbers and special characters instead e.g. 1likech!nesef00d. This makes for a very good password and will be easy to remember.