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Hi [FIRSTNAME]
I'll be sending two mails on Internet Security.
 I attended a talk by Karen Worstell on Internet Security for web developers. It was a frightening experience, this is a massive issue! I am going to highlight some of the problems we are facing and the potential they have of wrecking our businesses, our checking accounts and relationships.
But before I do that I'd like to highlight one point that has come up a few times since then and many times before.
How do you handle your own laptop / desktop security?
Well there are a number of ways but whatever you do don't wait until you give some of your cash toward the
US$ 560M annual revenue of cybercrime, fraud and ID theft.
Cybercrime revenues are now at the same level as that of the drug trade.
In 2009 there were 11.1 million US adult victims of identity fraud.
This affects everyone trying to earn an honest buck, but there are measures you can take. There is antivirus software, firewalls, and just some common sense surfing and info recording. There are also a few things that are easy to do that you may not know about, I'll share those in mailer 2.
Before we look at all that I need to mention one very simple measure that is a no-brainer, in my opinion, but which I think people just don't do because of all the hype and bad info out there.
Just get yourself a secure computer!
I'm not speaking about Microsoft vs Mac nonsense, I'm not interested in personal preferences or age old rivalries. We have a war on our hands and one common enemy, and whoever is writing bad software is an ally of that enemy.
The fact is that every Windows OS until Windows 7 was very poorly written (the jury is still out on 7). Windows has allowed hackers an unforgivable amount of leverage into Windows systems.
Here are 3 misconceptions put right:
- "Mac is just as vulnerable as Windows it's just that their market share is so small, Windows is a bigger target."
Not true. This article lists all the mac viruses written before Apple's UNIX based OSX, when Apple's market share was much smaller than it is now. Now there are hardly any viruses written for Mac, why? Simply because Mac OSX+ is not as vulnerable as Windows.
This article says it pretty well. Here's a quote: "No security researcher I spoke with could think of an instance of a Mac running Mac OS X that had been exploited in the wild. Not as part of a contest, or as part of a show-stopping demonstration, but through a malicious attack aimed at pwning a Mac. Few were even sure that any viruses or worms existed for the Mac; there was a Trojan horse type of exploit in the wild last year, but it was delivered through a porn site, and it required users to take several steps to infect themselves."
And this is just the Windows OS, I am speaking about. I'm not including the frightening vulnerabilities in Outlook, Internet Explorer and MS Office. The newest versions of Outlook are using a Word html engine from 5 years ago!
- "But when you look at number of vulnerabilities there just as many for Mac as there are for Windows."
This one is true (more or less). But the problem with it is that merely counting vulnerabilities has never been an accurate way of determining security risk. It's what you can and can't do with those vulnerabilities that counts.
- "Well I'd love to get a Mac, but they are so much more expensive than Windows machines."
Not true. When you add security software to the cost of a Window's machine, and then you add the built in software you get with a Mac and then you take the compatibility ease of use into account, a Mac is a whole bunch cheaper than a Windows machine.
You may want neither, you may be a Lynux or Ubuntu hardliner, that's great, good for you! The bottom line for the average user is this: If you want the risk and expense of virus issues, cybercrime and id theft, buy Windows. If you don't then buy a Mac.
That may very well change in the decades to come, but that is the situation now!
Regards
Alan
USA
O 253 549 2229
C 253 590 8163
SA - Dino Minuzzo
E - dino@accessdigital.co.za
C 082 446 8233
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