One of the big technology news stories this week was that more than 20,000 email accounts belonging to users of various webmail providers, including Hotmail, Yahoo! and Gmail, had been compromised. The email addresses and passwords of these accounts were published online, leaving their users open to security risks. This raises the question: are we practising good online security? Here are a few security blogs worthy of your time.
This blog post should be titled: ‘Everything you wanted to know about email but were afraid to ask’.
The 99 tips on email security and productivity should keep you occupied for a while. What always amazes me is how many people fail to BCC (blind carbon copy) on emails, thus exposing an entire database!
If you’re unsure about your email practices, this is essential reading.
F-Secure is an anti-spyware and antivirus software firm and its weblog is top notch as regards tracking any security holes, ranging from mobile to desktop applications to general online phishing attacks or the like.
You might think the endless stream of security updates for operating systems are a pain, but the F-Secure Weblog will often post examples and drill downs of what can happen in their absence.
This blog is a good source of general tips for software, the internet and online security, but I found the post ‘How to keep your identity safe on the web’ the most interesting.
Inevitably, when you’re reading a particular site or online service, many of them require sign-up details. This post details how to keep your identity completely safe by using a disposable email account like Mint Email or a disposable name and address generator – FakenameGenerator.com – for those afraid of identity theft.
If you head to the security or privacy categories within the Irish Internet Association’s (IIA) Blog you will find a discussion on Irish-centric web security issues.
In general, this blog is a great jumping-off point for all things web-related, especially for Irish businesses. With advice on topics from marketing to personal branding and social media, you are pretty much guaranteed to find something of use.
The biggest category by far here is on the topic of blogging.
By Marie Boran
Photo: The ITSecurity.com blog.