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...

What's in Your Home Computer Security Toolkit?

   It's always great to get questions and comments from readers.  I received this question recently:

My home recipe is Windows Defender, Malwarebytes and KeePass. Is that a good approach or should I be thinking about adding something to my security toolkit in 2016?

   Thanks for the great question!  You’ve got some good bases covered:

• Anti-malware (I also use defender)
• Malware removal (I also use malwarebytes), and
• A password vault (I use LastPass)

   That’s a great start. To round out the core toolkit, I’d add 2 things:

1. Backups – you’ve got irreplacable pictures, tax returns, music and info of all sorts. There are many of good online products available that encrypt your data before cloud storage. I use CrashPlan, but there are many others.  For extra bonus points, you can both backup one computer to another computer and to the cloud.  That way you have more than one way to recover.


2. Next, 2-factor authentication should be added for any sites and accounts where available.  This nicely complements your password vault so that even if an attacker stole individual or multiple passwords, they still couldn't log in to your accounts without your phone or other second authentication device.  I wrote about this recently.

   There are also a few things to do: