Greetings and Happy End to the Tax Season!
Now that the tax season is over, individuals and businesses can focus their attention on other important areas, like computer security.
This time, the topic of the Grundig IT Newsletter is computer and network security. As with many areas of computing, focusing on prevention of problems now can save a lot of time, money and frustration in the future. Security is no exception.
As usual, feel free to suggest topics which you would like to see covered in an upcoming newsletter or on the Grundig IT news page, which can be found at under the News tab at www.GrundigIT.com
As Always, Happy Computing!
— Tom Grundig
Computer and Network Security
Major Security Breaches Continue:
If you have been following the news lately, it is evident that large businesses, government departments and other organizations continue to be hacked, sometimes disclosing personal information of millions of customers.
Recent major breaches include the Sony Pictures hack (which was purportedly carried out by the North Korean government) and the Anthem breach, which affected millions of customers. In the Anthem case, Anthem created a site, Anthem Facts, which outlines what you can do to mitigate any potential damage.
Small businesses and individuals, however, remain big targets, so it is important to understand what steps you can take to prevent security breaches or other malicious activity.
Install a router with a firewall:
On any computer network, it is important to install a router. All routers, from the $50 devices to the more expensive ones, contain a built-in firewall. The first line of defense is the firewall. It is enabled by default on all routers and blocks most types of web traffic that can cause damage. Individual ports on the firewall can be opened to allow certain types of traffic, as needed.
Microsoft Security Essentials:
Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus download that can be applied to any Windows computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows 7. It performs just as well as the pay anti-virus applications from Norton and McAfee. I install it on all systems that I maintain. Security Essentials offer real-time protection again viruses and some other types of malware.
NOTE: If you are still running Windows XP, upgrade now to a newer version of Windows. Windows XP support from Microsoft ended in April of 2014. Newer Windows versions have much better security features built-in and are supported by all security vendors.
Windows Defender:
On Windows 8 and 8.1 systems, Windows Defender is built-in to the operating systems. Defender is essentially the same as Microsoft Security Essentials.
If your Windows 8 desktop or laptop came pre-installed with a 30 or 60-day trial of Norton or McAfee, I recommend unistalling the Norton or McAfee product and enabling Windows Defender, which can be done in the Windows Action Center.
Malwarebytes:
Malwarebytes should also be installed on all Windows Systems. It works alongside the antivirus to catch many type of malware which the antivirus program may not detect. A pay version is available which offers real-time protection for $25/year. The free version is adequate in most cases, though, but be sure to run the free version at least once per month to update definitions and run a full scan of the PC.
Passwords:
Obviously, passwords are important.
I recommend not using the same password for your system as for online sites. Also, do not use the same password everywhere, especially on financial sites.
NOTE: A good, strong password should contain at least 8 characters and should be a combination of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers and punctuation. If remembering passwords is a problem for you, as there are so many of them, I recommend using a password manager such as LastPass.
Cryptolocker and Cryptolocker ransomware variants are still alive and doing damage. This type of malware installs itself on your computer, encrypting files on the PC (making them inaccessible) and ones on network shares accessible from the PC.
Recovering backups of encrypted files can take days and bring business to a halt. I recommend installing CryptoPrevent, which hardens your system through a number of Group Policy settings which prevent Cryptolocker or other type of ransomware from executing. The free version of CryptoPrevent can be downloaded here.
