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Cyber Security Awareness Month

These tips are part of a month long effort to distribute useful computer security information to the SLAC community.

Day 1 - Yes, This Applies to You

SLAC's computer security is only as good as its weakest link. If you let your password get stolen then you are the weakest link. It can get stolen in any number of ways: writing it on a piece of paper; allowing shoulder surfing; letting your anti-virus software get out of date; or worse of all, removing the anti-virus software; typing passwords while using an unencrypted session; leaving passwords in files on your computer and not protecting those files appropriately; etc.  This NY Daily News article shows how important it is to protect our mobile devices: laptops, PDAs, Smart Phones, USB sticks, etc. Even if he was making backup copies of the laptop data, was he encrypting the data to prevent unauthorized viewing? Imagine if he had a file on the laptop where he kept all his passwords? Scary for him... We don't want you to be in that position! Protecting SLAC's computers from unauthorized access is a big part of what SLAC Computer Security does, or tries to do. We cannot control everything people do and we must rely on the computer knowledge, common sense, and good healthy skepticism of the SLAC computer user community to keep SLAC's computers and all the data on them safe. A couple stories from SANS Internet Storm Center: “One user at an Internet service provider (ISP) had uninstalled the antivirus software on their computer. This user decided that as the computer was not an "important" computer, they did not need antivirus software. However the computer was, like most computers, part of a network and a hacker managed to take control of it and was using it to attack and corrupt all the websites at the ISP. Morals of this story: Don't blindly trust "professionals": they are human and can be careless, tired or (in this case) stupid. All computers are on networks and everything you do on your computer can affect all the computers on the network.” Norman Y. asks his users: “Today's malware can not only destroy data and files on your PC, but it can steal your personal information such as passwords, income tax, credit card or banking information and also let intruders use your PC for illegal or criminal activities.   Experts (SANS Internet Storm Center) tell us that on average an unprotected Windows PC will not survive 20 minutes on the Internet before it gets infected.  So what should you do to keep your PC secure?” Please do your part and use good computer common sense daily. Over the course of October we'll have lots more hints to help you raise your computer security awareness.