September 2007 General Security Basics Your Responsibilities for Safe Computing

September 2007 Agenda 1. Change Your Mindset 2. Patch Frequently 3. Antivirus, Firewall and Spyware Protection 4. Passwords, Laptops and Backup Data

September 2007 Change your Mindset “Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” — James Thurber “The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time.” — Bruce Schneier

September 2007 Why Should You Care?  What does the audience think?  Quite simply, you should care about computer security because it will save you time in the long run.  In addition, your home computer is a popular target for intruders.

September 2007 What They are Looking For  The average Internet miscreant doesn’t care about your research or  Looking for credit card numbers, social security number and more personal information  Loves new operating systems that are behind on security patches

September 2007 Security Patches  Operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) have patching tools that automatically request vendor-supplied patches  Up to the user to tell how frequently you want to check for updates and have them installed  At CVM we approve these on your behave (yellow shield in the System Tray)

September 2007 Antivirus software and firewall  CITES offers free antivirus and spyware protection  Keep it up to date and turned on  Antivirus software available for personal use  Latest OS comes with built-in basic firewall

September 2007 Spyware  What is spyware?  Spyware is malicious software that can track your computer's Web usage, slow your system to a halt, and in some cases even report personal information like passwords and credit card numbers to unauthorized sites.  Spyware is different than viruses, and is spread differently. However, like viruses, spyware most frequently targets the Windows family of operating systems.

September 2007 Passwords Safety  Guard your passwords. Choose a password that's hard to guess but easy to remember and memorize it.  If you absolutely must have a written copy of your password, do not leave it anywhere near your computer and do not include your NetID or what application it is for on the same piece of paper.

September 2007 Laptops  Laptops = Convenient mobile devices and large security risk  Try not to keep important or personal data stored of the laptop’s physical hard drive.  Save it to external hard drive to isn’t mobile or on a secured network.  Wireless communication and internet sharing

September 2007 Backup your data  Backing up your system data regularly is an important part of overall security strategy.  Provides you with peace of mind if anything were to happen to your computer  Do you have a “spare tire”? A way to continue computing when you have a “blowout” caused by a malfunction or an intruder

September 2007 Questions Any Questions???