Winn Schwartau
Winn Schwartau is the president of Interpact, Inc., a security awareness consulting firm, and the author of many books including " Information Warfare," " CyberShock," " Time Based Security" and " Internet and Computer Ethics for Kids." His popular speeches entertain government and commercial audiences on three continents.
Make security personal
A significant percentage of cybercrime is actually the fault of the very companies that want to protect themselves. Many companies make timid, awkward and ineffective attempts at teaching their staff about company security policies....
Spam cure: Nail the vendors
Get the phone numbers of the vendors of Viagra, penis enlargers and other multilevel marketers. Distribute the numbers and have all 10,000 of your close personal friends call the vendors' toll-free numbers every hour for a few days....
A tale of stupidity and liability
While viruses and worms relentlessly pound away at our perimeters, the latest challenge to corporate and small office/home office users is phishing. This is where you, the user, are the fish, susceptible to the enticements of the...
Let's end pass-the-buck security
None of us have it all right. None of us have it all wrong. But we all have to take and teach the same responsibility we were taught as children: It's your own damn fault if you touch a hot stove again and again.
MyDoom makes it past execs
Too many corporate executives set down edicts, contract out the security awareness services and then ignore their own advice. They expect everyone else to do the dirty work. This is a patently unacceptable approach to security and...
Another case of security by denial
Large consultancies are paid a lot of money to provide companies with information to help them run their businesses. But sometimes the statements issuing forth from these consultancies has me questioning their value to users.
Achieving secure unwired bliss
I am a really happy camper. I submitted this article to Network World from a high-speed train somewhere in the nether-reaches of the Carolinas. I had uninterrupted video streaming and consistent e-mail. The truly unwired experience is...
DefCon: All in good fun
The lack of rules at DefCon includes massive violations of dozens of federal felonies: password theft, telecom interception, system penetration. If you go to DefCon, caveat emptor: Your mere presence makes you a target - all in good...
Get smart about intelligence
What information on your corporate home page, while nice for marketing and image, has the potential to damage your firm if used by the wrong people? Can technical staff use their work e-mail addresses when conducting Internet...
Plugging corporate data leaks
Have you ever forwarded an e-mail to someone, then realized you left in original comments that the recipient wasn't supposed to see? Or maybe you accidentally forwarded a private company memo to a journalist or client? Company...
Who's in charge of crypto backup?
My friend Stan was evaluating how to add security at the desktop with crypto, add crypto to his consultant's laptops to protect data from subway hackers, and crypto-protect his servers. Smart move, or not?
What's happened to availability?
A new security triad, CPP, redefines the three main areas of security: Cyber (computer, network and information security), Physical (the wires, silicon, glass and structures) and People (employees, consultants, suppliers, partners and...
Becoming safer by spreading out
Temporal dispersion is an attempt to balance a business' risk by spreading critical hardware assets over a greater physical distance than heretofore thought necessary.