Easy as 1-2-3

   It's US Cyber Security Month and the key themes I've been discussing here for years are very bit as relevant today.  In honor of Cyber Security Month I'm re-running a post from 2016.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Happy Cyber Security Month!

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   Well, I was trying for something catchy like Stop, Drop and Roll.  That's a saying we learned in school, back in the day, for what you should do if your clothes catch on fire.

   Fortunately, it seems like everyone has heard that saying and it rolls off the tongue.

   Unfortunately, my three word phrase Patch, Vault and Fob, is not nearly as catchy.

   Fortunately, the odds of your clothes catching on fire is low.

   Unfortunately, the odds of your software, browsers or accounts being compromised is very high.

   A couple of weeks ago the internet was hit with the highly impact-full and publicized distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a DNS provider.  I won't go into the details here but I think I will cover DDoS in a future post.  Anyway, shortly after that I was chatting with someone at a dinner who asked me about this attack, internet safety in general and what they could do.  To keep it simple and because, as a math person I like things in 3's!, I provided these 3 simple (well, maybe straight-forward is more accurate) things that absolutely everyone should do at home...

Patch, Vault 'n Fob

   Well, I was trying for something catchy like Stop, Drop and Roll.  That's a saying we learned in school, back in the day, for what you should do if your clothes catch on fire.

   Fortunately, it seems like everyone has heard that saying and it rolls off the tongue.

   Unfortunately, my three word phrase Patch, Vault and Fob, is not nearly as catchy.

   Fortunately, the odds of your clothes catching on fire is low.

   Unfortunately, the odds of your software, browsers or accounts being compromised is very high.

   A couple of weeks ago the internet was hit with the highly impact-full and publicized distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a DNS provider.  I won't go into the details here but I think I will cover DDoS in a future post.  Anyway, shortly after that I was chatting with someone at a dinner who asked me about this attack, internet safety in general and what they could do.  To keep it simple and because, as a math person I like things in 3's!, I provided these 3 simple (well, maybe straight-forward is more accurate) things that absolutely everyone should do at home...

News you Need Now (NNN)

    I recently received a letter from the SSA (Social Security Administration).  It provided instructions for me to finish setting up my online account.  As I've written in the past you can, and need to, create personal accounts on the SSA and IRS websites.  The key issue is that you need to reserve and establish your identity on these critical government websites before someone else does it for you!  This is ID Fraud is still a big issue.

   These accounts are straightforward to set up.  One thing you will need to do is go through an Identity Proofing process.  That process asks you for some personal information that, in theory, only you should know.  I list info about the irs.gov account creation process in this post.

   Here is some info from the ssa.gov website:

You can create a my Social Security account if you’re age 18 or older, have a Social Security number, a valid email, a U.S. mailing address, and a cell phone that can receive text messages. You’ll need to provide some personal information to confirm your identity; you’ll be asked to choose a username and password; and then provide your cell phone number. You’ll then receive a security code via text that you will be required to enter when you first create an account. We’ll send your cell phone a new security code each time you log in with your username and password. The security code is part of our enhanced security feature to protect your personal information. Keep in mind that your cell phone provider's text message and data rates may apply.

   Now SSA has increased their security by offering two-factor authentication (2FA) on their site.  We've written about 2FA a number of times in the past.  SSA had said this was coming and now it's available.

   I highly recommend that you create accounts on these sites and use 2FA where available.  Here are the instructions for SSA.  Here for the IRS.  You can enable 2-factor authentication on the SSA site when you create your account.  Here's a link to a previous post looking at other sites where 2FA is available.  Double up wherever you can!

How To Vault (part 2)

   A few posts ago I wrote an overview of why you may want to use a password vault.  This was in answer to reader question to provide more specifics about vaults.

   We've talked about passwords and password vaults a number of times in the past including here, here and here.

   If you haven't read part 1 of this discussion, it's here.

   Hopefully you are now convinced that you should be using a password vault, also called a password manager.  Now what...?

Products & Costs.

   A few years ago there were just a few key players in this field, but the list of products has grown and there are a number of good choices.  I'll briefly mention four of the best known and provide some links where you can get more info.

• LastPass - the basic product is free.  It has most of the features you'd want, but the free version only supports use in a web browser.  If you want a mobile app and to support password fills in mobile apps then you need to get LastPass Premium, $1/month or $12/year.
• DashLane - this is another very popular product.  It's free to download and use on any device.  However to have your passwords synced across devices, a very important feature, you need to use the Premium product which costs $40/year.
• KeePass - this is well known and solid product.  It always has been free and is open source.  It was designed to support an exportable vault.  That means the primary way to use this tool is to keep it on a thumb drive and plug it in to the computer you use it on.  That can be either handy or inconvenient depending upon how many computers you have and how you do your work.  With KeePassX you can store the vault in free cloud storage like GoogleDrive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. and can connect with apps on mobile devices.
• 1Password - many people like this product and consider it easy to use.  It's design is similar to KeePass in that it's basic use is on a single system and you can share your vault using free online cloud storage services.  It's free to download and there is a one-time license fee.  There is also mobile support and that requires a valid license.

   Here are a few review articles that go into more detail about the features of these, and some other, products.

Say It Ain't So LastPass!

   There are so many data breaches happening each week that it's easy to become numb to all the announcements.  Sometimes one or two dominate the news because of the size or importance of the breach.  Sometimes there is confusion in the media about the breach or the significance.  Sometimes the experts don't agree.

   I think most people have heard about the OPM - Federal (US) Office of Personnel Management - breach in which personal information on over 4 million people, including security clearance information, possibly dating back to 1985 was stolen in attack on federal computers.  Everyone agrees that this one was big and bad.  But also in the news was the breach of information at LastPass, and there is far less consensus on the impact.

   LastPass is a password vault - a program that lets you store all your passwords in an encrypted "safe".  I've talked about password vaults many times in the past.  I have always recommended the use of a password vault and I still do.

   First, let's discuss what happened.