With recent hacking into mainstream social-networking services Facebook and Twitter – as well as the Gumblar virus, which targets Google users – on the loose, network and IT security should be a top priority for both business owners and individuals. You may have basic anti-virus and spam-blocking software on your computer or network, but keeping up-to-date on the latest security threats, hacker incidents and so on is key.
The RSA Security Blog, and its accompanying podcasts, is really aimed at the security professional, but don’t just leave it up to the CIO or IT department where you work to be kept up to speed on emerging security issues.
This blog is by no means general or light reading and this is exactly what I like about it – it tackles serious
issues, including data-loss prevention, encryption, compliance and software security – everything that affects the modern small to medium-sized enterprise.
Chances are you and your company are using McAfee or similar a similar anti-virus and internet security package. McAfee’s Blog
Central hosts a collection of blog postings. One of the latest posts which is of interest is about the rising amount of online swine flu scams: “About 5pc of global spam volume now mentions ‘swine flu’ to trick people into opening the email message. That could amount to billions of messages each day,” states blogger Joris Evers.
If you’ve ever read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, you’ll know that it’s not just about blood and guts war, but actually quite applicable to life itself.
“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
Once you have your anti-virus installed and spam filters grinding away, you may say that you know yourself, but how do you get to know the enemy? Through ethical hacking. Pre-empt security risks: get inside the mind of your enemy.
IT security firm F-Secure has its own blog, maintained by staff whose job is to analyse the spam, viruses and hack attacks it encounters on a daily basis, so the news is quite fresh and relevant.
One of the latest posts concerns the recent spate of Facebook phishing attacks, complete with a screenshot of the fake log-in noting the spelling mistakes and subtle difference in design.
By Marie Boran
