Mobile Security

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Tiffany

Everyone knows how important keeping your home or work computer secure online is. But did you know that it’s just as important, if not more so, to keep your mobile phone secure online?

Why Should I Worry About Mobile Security?

Many, many people are going online with their phones or tablets these days. In fact, you may be reading this on your phone or tablet right now! Whether you are searching for something on the web, downloading an app, or just making a post to Facebook, you are connected to the internet.

With all of the things people are doing on their mobile phones and tablets, it becomes more and more important to make sure you keep it, and yourself, safe. How many of you keep all your passwords stored on your phone or tablet so you don’t have to type them in every time you check a website? What would happen if someone you didn’t want to know that information were to get a hold of your phone or tablet?

Keeping Your Phone or Tablet Physically Safe

Use a Password or Security Pattern to Lock Your Device

When you use something other than the generic down-swipe to unlock your phone, that is one extra security step that someone has to figure out to get to your data. The more complicated, but easy for you to remember, the unlocking password or security pattern is, the harder it is for someone else to crack it.

If You Give Your Device Away, Do a Factory Reset

When you upgrade your phone, or replace your tablet with a new one, your information is still stored on your old device. Do a factory reset on the old device to remove all traces of your information from the device. Not only are you letting the person you gave your device to start with a clean slate, but you are also keeping them from being tempted to snoop through your contacts or online accounts.

If Your Device Goes Missing, Report It Promptly

If your phone or tablet is stolen or lost, you should report it to your wireless provider and/or law enforcement as soon as you can. Between these two options, they can either locate or deactivate your device remotely. Regardless of what they do, you should change the passwords for all online accounts that can be accessed by that device.

Keeping Your Phone or Tablet Software Safe

Never Store Personal Details on Your Mobile Device

Things like your bank account pin number, account passwords, or security codes should never be stored under your contact list for any reason, even under a code name. These things can be used to access your accounts if your phone or tablet is lost or stolen.

Only Install Apps from Known Sources

If something comes up to install an application and you’re not sure who they are or what the application does, you should not install that application. Those found outside of the Android Market or Apple iStore may contain malicious code that can, at best, keep track of what you’re doing on your mobile device, or at worst, monitor things such as your phone calls or passwords typed into your device.

You can also check the source of the app you’re downloading by looking at the URL (web address) it comes from. For instance, an app from www.goog.le.com is completely different from www.google.com!

When Installing an App, Check What Permissions It Requires

While many data plans offer unlimited data transfer, if yours does not and your application requires constant access to the internet, you could quickly and easily go over your allotted data, causing you to pay a lot of money for something you probably didn’t even need.

If an app requires something that puts a tax on your battery life, like your GPS, to be turned on all the time, that can cause you to go through your battery much faster than you would like.

Only Allow Automatic Updates from Apps That You Trust

This should go without saying, but when you update an app, it always seems to add more and more features that it wants access to. Unless you really trust an app, you run the risk of them gaining access to something you don’t want them to have access to with automatic updating.

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What about you? Do you worry about mobile security?

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What is an IP address?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Tiffany

Think of your computer’s IP address as your computer’s street address. Your IP address is made up of a group of numbers that represents your internet service provider (ISP) and your general location to roughly your city level (similar to a mailing zip code).

What does an IP address look like?

As stated above, your IP address is a group of numbers (for IPv4) or numbers and letters (IPv6). Some examples of IP addresses are:

IPv4 – 192.168.255.255
IPv6 – FE80::0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329

What is an IP address used for?

Using an IP address, websites can guess roughly where your computer is located. This gives them the ability to display things, like search results, in the local language or display content, such as weather, relevant to that location.

IP addresses can also be used by law enforcement to track down internet criminals who are using stolen credit cards to make purchases or individuals who are downloading illegal material. For this reason alone, Computer Works recommends securing your wireless internet connection with a password.

Finally, IP addresses can be used by internet companies to block or allow certain users access to their web content. Some video game companies will use IP blocking to block an IP address from someone who was accused of cheating or other actions against the End User License Agreement (EULA). Some big companies will also use IP addresses to allow only a select group of outside users to access their content, such as logging into a company network from a home computer.

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Connecting to Wireless Networks Safely

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Tiffany

When you are out and about, it’s a good idea to be extra safe when connecting to a wireless network that you don’t know. Whether it’s at the local coffee shop or down the street at your neighbor’s house, being careful can help keep your information out of the wrong hands.

The person or business providing the internet can monitor all the traffic that goes across their network, which could include your personal information like log-ins, passwords, and financial information. While most businesses and individuals wouldn’t do that, it is better to be safe than sorry!

When connecting on an unencrypted wireless network – one that doesn’t require a password to connect to it – anyone with sufficient hardware and software can drop in on the information travelling between your computer and the wireless router. This can be especially important for your wireless network at your home or business, as many people think their wireless connection is completely safe being open for anyone to use.

The safest wireless connection is one from your home or business that requires a password to log into the network. Never, ever just use the default router password for your wireless network, either. Those are easy to guess, and easy to crack if someone wanted to cause trouble!

If you’re looking to have a wireless network set up in your home or business, or if you want to have your current wireless network secured, Computer Works offers onsite service to fit your networking needs. Call us to schedule an appointment today!

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Cookies

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Tiffany

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file stored on your computer by your web browser. When a cookie is opened, it looks like a random string of numbers, letters and symbols.

What does a cookie do?

Cookies are used to record your preferences for websites. For example, if you were to go to UPS.com and enter that you were in the United States, the website would store a cookie on your computer that says – in computer code – that you said you were from the United States. The next time you visit the UPS website, it would look for that cookie, and rather than ask you where you were from again, it would take you directly to the United States version of the UPS website.

Without cookies, we would have to keep re-entering information on websites every time we visited them. We also would be unable to do online shopping, as our shopping cart would reset every time we clicked away from the purchase page.

What kind of information can be stored in a cookie?

There are four main things that can be stored in a cookie file.

  • A Name
    • This is the name of the cookie. A cookie cannot have the same name as another cookie, and one website’s cookie name cannot be the same as another’s.
  • Site Name
    • This is the name of the website or sub-website that made the cookie.
  • Expiration Date
    • This is just what it sounds like: the date the cookie is set to expire. When a cookie “expires,” it is automatically deleted by the system. Some cookies are set to expire as soon as you close your browser. These session cookies are only stored while you have your browser window open. Other cookies are have a specific time to expire, from a few hours to a few days to a few years. These persistent cookies are stored on your computer until you either manually remove them or they reach their expiration date.
  • A Value
    • This is the meat of the cookie. This is the information that tells the website how to react when it finds this cookie. This is what tells a website like UPS.com that you are from the United States after entering it on their website the first time.

How to Manage Cookies

All current browsers have tools that will help you remove or block cookies from even being set. Each browser has a different way to delete or block cookies, so what works in one may not work the same in the other.

Please remember, by deleting or blocking cookies, some websites won’t function properly. Blocking cookies will make you unable to put things into an online shopping cart, and clearing cookies will make it so you have to re-enter their stored information when you visit the website again.

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How often do you delete your cookies? Or do you just leave them be? Tell us!

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Phishing

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Tiffany

What Is Phishing?

Phishing (pronounced like fishing) is what online criminals do to try to trick you into giving them sensitive information to access your online banking or other financial website accounts.

They walk the walk and talk the talk to try to convince you that they are an actual, legitimate person trying to help you. They can try to look like your financial institution, a social network like Facebook or Twitter, or even Google or Microsoft.

What Do Phishing Websites Commonly Ask for?

It’s good to get into the habit of looking before you sign in on log-in screens online. Be wary of any message that asks for personal information or links to other websites that ask for personal information.

Commonly, phishing websites will as for at least two of the following items:

  • User names and passwords
  • Social Security numbers
  • Bank account numbers
  • Personal Identification Numbers (PIN)
  • Full credit card numbers, including expiration date and security code
  • Your mother’s maiden name (Commonly used to reset passwords)
  • Your birthday (Commonly used to reset passwords)

What Are Search Engines Doing to Protect Me from Phishing?

Google and other search providers scans for phishing websites at least 3 million times every day. They remove those fake internet sites and scams from showing up in your search results.

How Can I Protect Myself from Phishing?

  • Never reply to suspicious emails, tweets, posts to your Facebook feed, direct messages, or other similar items. These may be linked to even more malicious websites that will also infect your computer. If a link you clicked on takes you to a log-in screen, think twice about putting your information in there.
  • Never enter your password into a website after following a suspicious link. If you are unsure if the link you followed is good or not, go to the actual website you were trying to log into from your bookmark or by typing the website name into the address bar.
  • Never email your password or banking information to anyone, even yourself.
  • Only enter your account information if you are 110% certain you are on the real website. To be 110% certain, you can check the address at the top of your web browser. Fake website addresses can look a lot like real website addresses. Take, for example, this fake address: www.goog.le.com. Do you see the extra period in the address? That’s how you know it’s not real.
  • Make sure you install web browser updates as soon as possible. These updates allow your browser to warn you if you go to a website that is suspected of phishing. Google’s Safe Browsing API is used by Firefox, Safari and Chrome to help protect you from those pages.
  • Many email providers allow you to report suspicious email and phishing scams. Reporting those messages can prevent the individual from sending you further emails, and it also helps the email provider write better coding to stop similar messages from getting through to your email in the first place.

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Have you ever been caught in a phishing scam? What did you do to protect yourself in the future?

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