Protecting Your Information Valuables in “Cyberspace” Charlie Russell Rappahannock Rotary Club May 30, 2012

Today’s Headlines Cellphone Spamming can be curtailed... Stolen Laptop Exposes Boston Hospital Patient Data

 What’s the Most Important Information you hold?  Banking Data? (account numbers)  Mortgage information? (balance)  Healthcare and medical data? (prescriptions)  Other Financial information? (401k, loans, insurance)  How to Determine Value  What information do you use each day?  What data could you least do without?  Could it be replicated from another source? What’s an Information Asset

 People make money from other’s people’s data (Credit, healthcare, financial)  The Web is worldwide and wild – it was not designed to be secure  Some terms you should understand:  “Phishing” – form of social engineering  s with attachments -.exe files  “Cookies” – ‘welcome back, Mr. Jones’  “Spam” – uneeded s  “Virus” – malware or spurious code  Criminal s (e.g. Nigerian newsletters)  Who can you trust? (Hint: it’s you)  Social Media Use  Linked In  Facebook  Instant Messaging (Google Talk, etc.) The “CyberSpace” Problem

 Use Personal firewalls:  Inside your provider’s environment (e.g. Verizon, Comcast, etc.)  Within your home network  Use Antivirus, antispam, anti ‘adware’ tools  Wireless protection at home and ‘on the go’  Password Protection  Use natural, easy to recall and use, but unique  Use versions (e.g )  Employ some reasoning behind your selection Some Protection Methods

 Computer runs slow, seems to take hours to load simple software or messages  Increase in numbers of unknown messages from unfamiliar accounts  Your ‘junk’ mail file seems to fill up rapidly  Friends say they’ve received mail from your account that you didn’t originate  A password that worked last week no longer works  Requests for account updates arrive from previously unnamed sources Problem Symptoms

 Don’ts: - Host critical data on computers used by students or ‘gamers’ in the family - Visit unknown or unsecure websites (gambling, pornography)  Do: - Make backup copies each month of your complete data files (memory is cheap) - Store a copy of Operating System startup files (MS Windows, Vista, MS Version 7 or XP) on another media (USB or ‘flash’ drives) then lock it up - Protect your wireless: use only WPA2 encryption or better - Employ encryption for key critical files that you transfer to others (e.g. PGP or MS) Some “Cyber” Do’s & Don’ts

Otherwise You’ll Be Fine!