Improving Internet Security

Improving Internet Security

Keeping your PC, laptop, tablet and smartphone safe is a huge part of Internet security. Without it, your devices could easily get infected with viruses or malware that can slow down or even ruin your operating system.

 

Another big risk are key loggers, which can be used to steal your credit card information, passwords, and even your identity.

 

Improving Internet Security -Need for a High-Quality Antivirus

 

While it’s always painful to pay for that antivirus program, given the real security threats online today, it’s a necessity. Even though there’s no guarantee you will ever actually need it, if you don’t have it and are the victim of a cyber-attack or infiltration, you will wish you spent the money.

 

Use your antivirus software to do a full scan — not a quick scan — a minimum of once per week. Most of the newer high-end antiviruses will automatically schedule these scans during the overnight hours, when they are least likely to interfere with your work.

 

Don’t Go ‘Phishing’

 

You can’t control all the emails you receive. But you can control the ones you open.

 

Many emails that seem legitimate are actually scams. Some can even contain aggressive software that launches when you open an attachment to the email.

 

Never open an email that comes from a source you don’t recognize. One common scam is to send an email that looks legitimate and claims to be from a pay site such as Amazon or PayPal.

 

Then at some point the email will ask you to click on a link that supposedly leads to PayPal or Amazon, but in reality goes somewhere else. Once you log into this fake website and give your password, it’s stolen.

 

To make sure an email is from a legitimate source, always check the URL by hovering your mouse over the link and checking the status bar at the bottom of your browser. This will tell you exactly where the link actually leads.

WordPress Discovers and Fixes Cyberhack

WordPress Discovers and Fixes Cyberhack

If you used WordPress to set up and maintain your website and you downloaded the JetPack plugin or the TwentyFifteen theme, you could be vulnerable to a newly-identified cyberattack.

 

According to the web security website Sucuri, any WordPress plugin or theme that uses the popular genericons package could be at risk of a DOM-based Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability.

 

Both the JetPack plugin (which has more than 1 million active users) and the TwentyFifteen theme (which is WordPress’s current default theme) use genericons. The threat has been identified in the example.html file that comes with the package.

 

Eliminating the Threat

 

The quick fix is to remove the example.html file from the genericons package, which you don’t need anyway.

 

This vulnerability was detected before it ever became active, so it hasn’t done any known damage so far. Due to the website’s wicked fast response time, the threat level to WordPress users isn’t considered serious. But the site warned that it would be easy for the vulnerability to be exploited.

 

WorPress already has reached out to the most popular web hosting services and notified them of this vulnerability and gave them the patch they needed to eliminate it. So if you use any of these services, you already have the virtual patch you need to protect yourself:

 

  •  GoDaddy
  • HostPapa
  • DreamHost
  • ClickHost
  • Inmotion
  • WPEngine
  • Pagely
  • Pressable
  • Websynthesis
  • Site5
  • SiteGround

 

But if your site is hosted by a different company, you may need to manually fix the issue yourself. All you have to do is go to the genericons directory and delete the example.html file and you will be completely protected.

 

Most Sites Probably Safe

 

Had this hack not been discovered, it could have had a devastating impact on unsuspecting website owners and businesses alike.

 

In any case, if you remove the example.html from the genericons directory, you should be okay for now.

How Data Gathering Helps Keep Us Safe

Formal

George Orwell’s book “1984” described a dystopian future in which the government – in the form of “Big Brother” – was constantly keeping tabs on everything its citizens did and said.

 

 

The leak of classified information by whistleblower Edward Snowden – a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) – made Orwell’s predictions eerily prescient.

 

 

‘Big Brother’

 

 

Many people now believe that we already live in a Big Brother state and that the government is spying on our phone calls, our emails, our texts, and even our Facebook status updates.

 

 

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US Department of Defense and the intelligence community sought out new ways to analyze and use data on a grander scale than ever before. There was a real and immediate threat to national security and a war on terror had been declared, so many of the built-in checks and balances of government were temporarily ignored.

 

 

Advantages of Big Data to National Security

 

 

Big data — such as using SEO to quickly search and index online content — offered fast, effective tools for searching vast data pools for indications of criminal and terrorist activity. They also made it possible to identify and record personal relationships between criminals and terrorists that otherwise might not be seen. Cutting edge data analysis could even predict – with stunning accuracy – rising nation aggressors and threats to our national security, even wars.

 

 

Big data tools suddenly were available that could identify and respond to in-progress cyber-attacks. They could even power artificial intelligence that could drive the tools of war – such as unmanned drones and “smart” bombs – that could attack faster and more precisely than humans ever could.

 

 

How Data Gathering Helps Keep Us Safe – How Big Data Is Used

 

 

The applications for big data in national defense are vast. Some of the ways it currently is being used include:

 

 

• Situational awareness and visualization

 

 

• Correlating information for problem-solving

 

 

• Searching vast amounts of data for relevant information

 

 

• Managing enterprise data for cyber security

 

 

• Organizing logistical data such as asset catalogs

 

 

• Improving the delivery and analysis of public health care

 

 

• Open source information including analysis and integration

 

 

• In-memory data modernization

 

 

• Optimizing enterprise data and operations

 

 

• Using big data tools to improve weaponry and war

 

Like it or not, the use of Big Data as a means of national defense will likely only continue to expand as technologies become more advanced in the future.