By Sean Slattery, Technical Director & McAfee Instructor at Caribbean Solutions Lab, Cayman Islands
Follow @SeanCSLHackers, Hacking and Should You Care?
For those who follow IT security news, not a day goes by where we do not learn of yet another security breach, virus outbreak or some other attack. Several high profile cases come to mind. There is the U.S. Army soldier who copied confidential data off of a server and gave the information to Wikileaks. The Sony PlayStation network, earlier this year, had to be taken offline after hackers stole user information. RSA Security, best known for their security tokens, suffered a breach of highly sensitive data and set in motion a chain of events that would later lead to the subsequent breach of U.S. defense contractor Lockheed-Martin.
Should the average person take notice or even care of such events? The reality is yes, you should care. Having been in the industry since the dark ages (pre-Windows), I have seen all manner of problems related to computer security. I know people who have had their identity stolen, had to replace credit cards due to security issues with merchants in other countries or had their email accounts stolen and used to request money. A simple computer virus can shut down entire corporate networks, disrupting financial transactions and customer services.
Fake antivirus software, FakeAV, is a growing problem for consumers. FakeAV tricks users into giving credit card details to purchase software which will not actually do anything but cause more problems, potentially stealing passwords and personal data. These have become particularly good at pretending to be real programs. Some even provide the ability to chat with a representative. Analysis of these sessions has shown that there are real people on the other end of the connection who probably believe that they are helping to sell a legitimate product. This is a very lucrative business. Small, short-term operations can net $250,000 in one week, while three large operations earned combined revenue of more than $130 million! With all this money also comes the need to obtain in a usable form, which leads to money laundering. This is obviously important for Cayman’s financial services to avoid enabling.
These are just some of the tools and techniques used by the bad guys, who I will generically call hackers, to gain money, notoriety or both. Many hacker groups are even politically motivated. Some believe that there are government backed hackers out there targeting intellectual property or secrets of other nations.
In today’s very connected world, we need more than just an antivirus, antispam and firewall. I can easily talk for hours about the benefits of integrated system, data, network, mobile, email and web security, but will save that for another day. But from a consumer perspective, the best thing we can do is to educate ourselves. Just as we educate our children about personal safety, we must also educate them about online safety. After all, they are the next generation of Internet consumers. One of the best things you can do is arrange some informational sessions on Internet and social networking safety through your church, school or parent teacher guild. A number of qualified people are here in Cayman and are willing to help. I know several that will work for a good cappuccino!
I will leave you with a few simple tips to help you stay safe online:
- Use different passwords for your online banking, social networking and email.
- If something seems too good to be true or suspicious, it probably is. When in doubt, ask. For example, if you receive an email from a bank asking to reset your password, take a minute to call them and verify.
- Avoid using public wireless Internet connections e.g. airports, hotels and cafes for sensitive transactions such as online banking.
Sean Slattery is Sr. Engineer and McAfee Instructor at Caribbean Solutions Lab and will be presenting at the McAfee FOCUS Security Conference in October.