Raiden's Realm: Security - It's Not Just For Geeks

Security - It's Not Just For Geeks (Page 1 of 1)

Written by Steve Lake
Posted on: May 15, 2009 at 12:35pm
Section: Editorials
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Ars Technica has an excellent series of articles about user security and why it's important for you to take security seriously, and why it's not just one of those "silly little things" that you leave for the geeks to worry about.

One of the most recent articles is about an incident with a major botnet. Apparently, the creators of the botnet decided to hit the "big red button" which brought roughly 100,000 Windows machines to their knees in bluescreen madness.

Now it's likely that they did this to allow themselves time to exploit the stolen banking information of their victims. Then again, there may be other reasons as well. Either way, a lot of people will soon be out of a lot of money, and that is before taking into account the cost rebuilding all of computers. There is also the matter of any data lost due to lack of backups.

The fact that all these machines were running Windows is irrelevant. Admittedly, every single botnet out there, save for a few that are deployed in specialized environments (E.g., botnets on internet routers) and a few recent appearances on the Mac OS platform, are written for Windows.

But that's really not the point here. The point is, you're only as vulnerable as you allow yourself to be. Security isn't just something for geeks. It's for EVERYONE. Yes, EVERYONE. That includes you, your grandma, your neighbor, your kids, etc. Just because you are not some uber computer geek (most likely some of you who come here are anything but computer geeks, and a few are lucky enough to even know how to turn on your computer) does not mean you are not responsible for the security of your own computer.

It is becoming increasingly more important that security be observed and maintained constantly. I'm not going to sit here and give you a great big speech on everything you need to do. There is literally gigabytes of information out there on things you can do to prevent someone from hacking or compromising your PC. most of it is just simple common sense anyway. This is especially important since most botnets, viruses, Trojans and PC hacks these days no longer rely on vulnerabilities in computer systems. Most use the good old human trait known as gullibility. It's social engineering in action.

"But it say I should click it!", "But I only went there once!", "But it sounded like such a great deal!", "But they asked me for my password!", "But I don't need a firewall!", "But I don't understand it!", "But I only use it to play games!, etc.

Really, the excuses used by people for why they don't bother to apply even a simple level of security is just atrocious. The simple fact of the matter is this: Your failure to practice proper security makes life difficult for everyone. In fact, it's making life downright miserable.

So if you refuse to practice simple security, then just disconnect from the internet, don't use your computer anymore, or at the very least do something that no longer makes your computer vulnerable. If you're going to remain on the web, you need to practice proper security.

Now, I'm not saying you have to switch to the miracle of Linux to avoid all your issues, although that would be a great step. I'm simply asking that you use and employ good security practices on your PC, or don't use it at all. At the very least don't use it on the web. The government won't let you drive a car without a drivers license, so why do you think it's alright to be online without proper security?

Now I've ranted enough about this. So I'll stop here. But please, oh please, go out on the web, learn all you can about proper system security (it's really not that hard, despite what you might think), be willing to learn (that's a big step for a lot of people) and then be willing to possibly make some sacrifices in order to ensure that your machine is properly secured.

The alternatives (emptied bank accounts, uber bad credit, theft of identity, or worse) are certainly not anything you want to deal with. Trust me.

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