My war on Logic

Internet Security helper list :

I am not sure if this will help a lot but in one of my class recently we had a guy from a group called "team cymru" which specialize in Internet security.

I figured based on that I should post a list of things that I learned to a small level for the general public.

1. run tools like anti-virus, spybot, and ad-aware regularly.
2. Check your bank and credit card account for any transaction that you are not sure about. Especially where a small amount of money was deposited in your account and then withdrawn a few days later. You account could be compromised and is being used as a money laundering system.
3. close credit card accounts your not using. Credit Card companies and merchant online providers do get hacked. A company in Texas got hacked for 8 million cards. For over one years non of those cards showed transactions on the Internet. Also the credit card company did not close any of the original accounts or issue new cards. Only keep open what you need and pay attention to that.
4. If you can handle it on your computer, turn off cookies. Obviously this is a huge pain but essentially by allowing them openly your are already being hacked by these major websites which want to store information on your computers. If you are willing to deal with the pop ups to let you decide which to allow and which to not then I would recommend that.
5. If you computer savy enough check your network with Wireshark(old Ethereal) for what your different pc's are outputting in traffic.
6. Make sure you are at least behind a router on your home network. Due not hook your pc directly up to your cable modem.
7. Read your online banking legal statement. It may say if your own pc is compromised then your account will not be refunded.


I am not saying that we should all be running scared. But I will say some of these were even things I never thought about before. I always thought that banks or any of these online companies would be that really good at protecting us. Just be careful out there.