Mid-Week Security

It’s raining bad news for the security conscious all of a sudden. What is going on?

First of all, a recent study discovered phishing sites fool even experienced Internet users. This is why I always recommend users stop phishing attempts at the e-mail inbox, not the Web site. You can smell a phishy e-mail better than you can smell the stink of a phishy Web site, as the researchers proved. Your bank will not e-mail you asking for your password, I promise.

Next, people are starting to realize that keeping indexes of everything you have on your desktop on someone else’s computer can become a problem. Duh. Google offers some great advantages, but researchers finally figured out that desktop search tools can raise a red flag. You know that old joke about three people can keep a secret if two are dead? Update that for modern search tools.

Finally, small businesses can really benefit by keeping employees happy and productive, and working from home does that. But that also opens a new can of security worms, and big companies are having trouble as Telecommuting Security Concerns Grow. Low cost home office and small business routers often include VPN (Virtual Private Network) support which works pretty well, if you follow instructions. But what small companies tend to forget is that when an employee connects from home, everything on their home network suddenly has access to your company network. Homes with teenagers, spyware magnets supreme, must be particularly careful. Do a quick audit of three of your employees working from home, and see if you can sleep soundly. If not (and I bet not), dig in and fix the problem.