The importance of Securing Your Home Computer

DigitalFray · 2006-05-31T14:25:13+00:00

White Paper I did on Computer Security and what you should do toprotect yourself:My recommendation as a computer security analyst and consultant is tolook at the 3 main security concerns that face the average homecomputer user:VirusesSpywareHackersI work with many computer users with a varying degree of securityknowledge and skill. The first thing I always check for when helpingsomeone troubleshoot is whether they have secured themselves from the 3basic threats listed above.If you are interested, you can see some of the solutions I have used,but generally I use a combination of tools to ensure multiple layers ofprotection - and better yet, some are free!-Knabber(The importance of Securing Your Home Computer White Paper here:

May 31, 2006 64 Replies

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B. Nice 20 years ago

I don't quite understand why You think those two in particular are good examples of failed education.

In my opinion examples of failures from lack of education would be something like users running e-mail attachments, users not being able to properly spot a phishing mail, users being victims of social engineering and stuff like that.

The blaster and Sasser worms were more caused by vulnerable services. Read: defective software rather than defective users.

Please explain why You see it as a result of failed education.

Or maybe what You are saying is that if users *today* still keep getting hit by these, it is an example of failed education. In that sense, I would agree.

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Sebastian Gottschalk 20 years ago

As long as you don't disable or block Automatic Updates, the patch for the relevant vulnerability had been installed a month before.

No, even back than getting hit by these was induced by the user doing something very stupid.

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B. Nice 20 years ago

Oh yes, of course. I had forgotten that.

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Ansgar -59cobalt- Wiechers 20 years ago

There is a major difference between "failure IN educating" and "failure OF educating".

59cobalt

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zzy 20 years ago

The author's objection to user education is the same one I have to building jails -- we should be fixing the social problems that spawn criminals rather than dumping all our money and other resources into cops and jails.

Where we differ, though, is that I believe we still need cops and jails until we fix the social problems -- we can't just lay off the cops and let out all the criminals until we get the social problems fixed. Likewise, it's dumb, to use the author's favorite word, to abandon user education until all the software out there gets secured as he would like.

All it'll take to fix all the "dumb" problems the author enumerates is a complete restructuring of the Internet, operating systems, and applications used by millions worldwide. That's very nice, but I need constructive things to do, imperfect or "dumb" as they might be, until he pulls off this utopia.

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