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Online Safety for the Family

31 May 2012 By Teresa Martinez

Online safety is one aspect of IT security that has to be taken seriously by all members of the family.  Children who are especially vulnerable to the threats associated with the online environment must be guided by parents and/or other responsible adults.  Adults, on the other hand, have to exercise due diligence and common sense in their online dealings since they are not exempted from threats as well. 

The first line of defense is keeping security software current to serve as protection against malware and viruses.  Protection should also extend to other devices besides the computer that will be connected to the Internet such as Smartphones and gaming systems.  Special attention should also be given to the protection features offered by the Internet service providers. 

There are some basic guidelines to observe to ensure the family’s safety online.  First and foremost is not giving out personal information including addresses and contact numbers.  Information about the company where the parents are connected with and the school where the children go to as well as other related information should not be given out indiscriminately to people met over the Internet.  This precaution is taken to avoid criminal elements from having a backgrounder that can allow them to form a realistic assessment of the daily and regular activities of a family and its individual members.  Providing pictures to people met only online is also considered very risky. 

Children should also be trained to tell their parents outright if something or someone is bothering them in the course of their online activities.   Rude and obscene messages should not be responded to and instead be reported to the proper authorities when they persist.  Lastly, respect should prevail even in the online environment so that respect in return can be reasonably expected

Filed Under: General Tagged With: family online safety, Online Safety

Opening Doors to Cybercrime

1 November 2011 By Teresa Martinez

 

Many people are not aware that they are making it very easy for cyber criminals to invade their privacy.  This typically happens when convenience is prioritized over the more critical matter of security.  People relax their guard as they choose the easiest path to go about their online transactions.  Let’s face it, the use of the Internet is a risk in itself but we multiply that risk when we fail to consider the factors that make us susceptible to fraud and theft.

Protecting our most basic online defenses is a primary concern.  User names and passwords are our first line of defense but they tend to be compromised by the tendency to use the same names and passwords for all online transactions.  The main problem here is that we make it easy for cyber criminals  to penetrate our transactions in the same manner as we give easy access to ourselves.  The practice can admittedly save time during the initial stage but the probable resulting loss requires more time and effort to correct.  Identity theft can be a traumatic experience both in the physical and emotional aspects.

Cyber criminals are at their work without people realizing it.  They are constantly trying to discover passwords by fishing for personal information such as names and dates related to family or work.  They can also try to steal passwords saved from memory. They can even be looking into various word and number permutations that will provide them the key to the doors of your private world.

A little effort towards making yourself less predictable to cyber thieves goes a long way.  It can be readily understood why some people persist on unsafe online practices especially if they don’t have prior bad experience in transacting online.  Due to the sheer amount of information we are encouraged not to put in writing for our own protection,  we try to help our memory by choosing letters and numbers that we can easily recall.  That is the very weakness which cyber criminals are looking out for.

Filed Under: General, Real-World Issues, Tips Tagged With: cybercrime prevention, Online Safety

DomainKeys, Protecting more Googler’s

22 June 2008 By Saran


The problem with spam and phishing has become so much of a problem that Google, has resorted to using Yahoo’s patented DomainKeys technology to protect their email users through Gmail with the security system. DomainKeys was patented and developed by Yahoo but was released under a dual license under the GNU General Public License which allowed the software technology to become a widely accepted internet standard. It uses encryption technology to verify that the domain from which mail comes from is in fact the true source of the sent mail blocking re-directed spam and other malware from taking flight. These types of technology have been vital in the protection of consumers who do online shopping, many of whom fall victim to fake and phishing scams resulting in financial losses.
Internet companies themselves get victimized in terms of the resources they have to allocate to resolve such incidents that start from eBay transactions gone bad that hackers use as phishing tools. Once these people get their hands on the account information of legit users, they go on expensive shopping sprees that costs the e-commerce industry a lot of lost revenue. It also causes a lot of misinformation on the security and reliability of online stores (some are truly legit but most are well…..). Hopefully more and more fake PayPal and eBay scams would be denied giving people more time to develop better protection systems. There are a lot of tips on the internet about online safety with regards to these email and other scams so you’d better brush up and stay informed of the latest news if you love online shopping and haggling over eBay. Safe online Shopping everyone!!

Filed Under: General, Network Security, News, Physical Security, Privacy & Anonymity, Real-World Issues, Security Policies Tagged With: eBay, eCommerce, Gmail, Online Safety, Online Shopping, phishing

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