Major Web Browsers Fail Password Protection Tests – ZDNet

Posted on December 16, 2008 by wjimenez275

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2305

That nifty password management feature in your favorite Web browser could be helping identity thieves pilfer your personal data.

That’s the biggest takeaway from the results of this test which shows that all the major Web browsers — including IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome — are vulnerable to a total of 20 vulnerabilities that could expose password-related information.  Among the problems are three in particular that, when combined, allow password thieves to take passwords without the user’s knowledge.  They are:

  1. The destination where passwords are sent is not checked.
  2. The location where passwords are requested is not checked.
  3. Invisible form elements can trigger password management.

Google’s shiny new Chrome browser was among the worst offenders.   According to the study,  Chrome’s password manager contains multiple unpatched issues that “form a toxic soup of potential vulnerabilities that can coalesce into broad insecurity.”

Read the entire article here

See my blog article on Password Programs here

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A Little On Software Firewalls

Posted on November 6, 2008 by wjimenez275

As part of your online security you need to have a software firewall. I recommended a couple in an earlier post about Internet Security. First, what exactly is a firewall? Firewalls provide protection against outside attackers by shielding your computer or network from malicious or unnecessary Internet traffic.  In a nutshell, a firewall examines the traffic/data coming into and going out of a computer, and then makes a decision to permit or deny this traffic, based on pre-set rules or rules that users have set.

If you’ve been using a software firewall, even one that’s built into your antivirus program, you’ve probably noticed that at times it pops up and asks to allow or deny a program that wants to do something at that time. If you see an access request from the firewall when you first run a program that you know is okay, it’s probably safe to grant access. However, if you get an unexpected access request — one that pops up when you didn’t just start a program — then it’s safer to deny access.

To see if your computer is an open door to the bad guys, or to see if your firewall is doing what it’s supposed to do, check your ports at GRC (https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2). Make sure to check the Windows File Sharing and the Common Ports to see if you’re vulnerable to attack.

Filed under: Internet Items, PC Security, PC Tips and Tools, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Great Tool for Sending Notes to Yourself

Posted on October 31, 2008 by wjimenez275

Here’s a tool I use when I’m out-and-about and need to remind myself of something or if I want to send a reminder to someone else. For example, someone tells me something and I have nothing to write on but I don’t want to forget what I was told. I’ll call an 866 number and call a service called Jott (http://jott.com).

Jott makes sure you stay on top of everything. With a simple phone call to 866-JOTT-123, you can capture notes, set reminders and calendar appointments, depending on which plan you choose. There is a free version that works fine for most needs but the other options are pretty reasonable as well. You can read the differences here: http://jott.com/jott/get-started.html.

Simply call Jott and tell it where or to whom you want your message to go. Jott captures your voice, turns it into text, and sends it to the destination you chose. You’ll get a notice in your e-mail and can read the transcribed message or click on the attached sound file to hear the message that was left. You can log onto the Jott site and view all of the messages you’ve left for yourself.

I’ve setup a speed dial on my cell phone so it’s easy to call Jott whenever I hear or think of something I need to remember when I’m driving or nowhere near a pen or paper. Give it a try.

Filed under: Internet Items, PC Tips and Tools, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Holidays are Coming

Posted on October 27, 2008 by wjimenez275

With the holidays right around the corner, it’s time to start looking at what’s out there for specials. The following are a few websites I frequent this time of year, and those that offer email subscriptions, I sign up for so I get updates on deals as they come up. These sites are pretty safe to sign up on but when I do subscribe to a site I’m not sure of, I may use a temporary or disposable email addresses. That way, if I start getting a lot of spam from one of them, I just delete that email address. I use the service by GishPuppy (http://www.gishpuppy.com).

With Black Friday coming, here are a few deal sites: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/, http://bfads.net/, and http://dealnews.com/ – Where Every Day is Black Friday

http://slickdeals.net/ is a site where you’ll find every day discounts as is http://www.techbargains.com/

http://www.woot.com/ is a site I watch daily because they only sell one item per day until it is sold out or until 11:59pm central time when it is replaced. Sometimes you get some great deals here.

If you have any deal sites that you like, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

With finances the way they are, you’ll find some wonderful deals at these sites. As always, when ordering online, be careful that you are on a secure site before entering any credit card information. Take a look at the address bar at the top of the screen and look for an “https://” instead of the normal “http://” Also, look for the “lock” icon. It’s at a different place for different browsers but it should always be there. Click (or double-click) on it to see details of the site’s security.  This is important to know because some fraudulent web sites are built with a bar at the bottom of the web page to imitate the lock icon of your browser!  Therefore it is necessary to test the functionality built into this lock icon.

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Search Engines and Other Thoughts

Posted on October 15, 2008 by wjimenez275

Since Google became a household name for search engines, most people automatically go there for their internet searching. In fact, almost 60% of all searches are done on Google. Yahoo pulls in second with almost 17%. Big difference. Did you know that Yahoo and McAfee teamed up a while back and all of Yahoo’s searches are filtered through McAfee’s SiteAdviser software so when you use Yahoo to search for an item, you may see warnings on links to suspect sites which will tell you to proceed at your own risk of getting malicious programs or giving your email address to be shared with spammers and phishers. Google doesn’t offer anything like that. However, McAfee allows you to download the free SiteAdvisor for Internet Explorer (http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/ie.html) or for Firefox (http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/ff.html) which will warn you about sites regardless of which search engine you use.

Did you know that there are sites called “MetaSearch Engines”? These sites will search the most popular search engines for your item, so instead of doing multiple searches for that hard to find item, you can go to a site like DogPile (http://www.dogpile.com/), enter your search item and it will search and return hits from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. Those are four of the top search engines on the internet, all accessed with one search.

On just about every new computer, Microsoft puts a trial version of Office, which gives you Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Very useful programs, until the time limit for using them runs out. Then, in order to continue using, you need to put out a few hundred dollars to purchase the license. Is it worth it? Maybe for some, but for others, there is a free program named OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) which will give you a word processor, a spread sheet program, a database program similar to Access, and a presentation software similar to PowerPoint. What’s nice about this suite of programs, besides the fact that it is free, is that you can save your files so that they can be opened in Microsoft Office products. I have it installed on a USB drive so when I’m on a computer that isn’t my own, or one that doesn’t have Office installed, I can still use the Suite and save it to use in Office when I get back home or to the office. And, it’s been around a while so it’s tried and true and did I mention that it’s free?

There are other “replacement” programs that are free that I’ll cover at another time. By the way, one of my favorite graphic viewing programs is Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/). It’s also free. Check it out.

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Social Networking: What is it?

Posted on October 6, 2008 by wjimenez275

You may or may not have heard of the term “Social Networking”. I’m sure you’ve heard of the sites: MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.  These sites, and sites like them, are the entry points to Social Networking.

Wikipedia defines “a social network service as focusing on building on-line communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

Social networking has created powerful new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it now seems that social networking will be an enduring part of everyday life. Popular methods now combine many of these, with MySpace and Facebook being the most widely used in North America…”

From Steve O’Hear’s article Facebook and MySpace are like chalk ‘n’ cheese – “A teenager’s bedroom, plastered with posters (and brands) and with continuous background music, sounds a lot like a MySpace profile. Add into the room a teenager or two who are always on the phone or text messaging friends about gossip or the hottest new band — and very generally speaking, you’ve nailed much of the appeal of MySpace. The fact that teenagers are increasingly using the site’s internal messaging system over email says it all. Additionally, those posters on the wall can be other user’s profiles, which include bands and brands vying for wall space.

In contrast, Facebook is much more popular amongst college students and graduates/professionals (due to it’s University roots). The site’s design is far less customizable — you can’t decorate your room. Instead, any customization is about deciding what functionality to include. This is even more so now that third parties can set-up-shop on the site and add new features which fulfill every possible need. I logged into Facebook today to accept a few friend requests, and noticed a professional networking event, that one of my contacts was looking to hire, and another had a rather nice laptop for sale. Getting that info took seconds due to Facebook’s controlled and efficient interface. Completely different to MySpace.”

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site and is mainly used for professional networking. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

There are security concerns for each of these sites, especially since teenagers are opening up their lives on them. The sites are trying to protect minors from on-line bullying and sexual predators and for the most part are doing a fairly good job. It is important to be educated on the risks and have your teenagers, if you have any,  educated on the risks. You can find some good information at OnGuardOnline.gov.

Social networking will only grow over time. It’s now being fed to smart phones and is definitely something you should look into.

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Now, what was that password again?

Posted on October 1, 2008 by wjimenez275

Have you ever brought up a website, be it your bank, insurance company, credit card, etc., only to not remember what you used for the username and password? Or worse, do you use the same username and password for every site you need to log on to? There is a solution, and I’m not talking about the web browser’s “remember this password” prompt.

I use a program call RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com/). RoboForm installs as an add-in to your browser. When you open a website that requires a username and password, RoboForm offers to save what you enter in it’s database. The next time you go to that site, you just click on the site link on the menu bar and it fills in the username and password for you. You can even have RoboForm generate a password for you so you don’t end up using the same password for every site. You can also set it up with your personal information so that when you come to a site where you need to fill in name, address, etc., you click the item on the menu bar and it fills in the blanks for you.

There is a free version that is limited to 10 passwords and 2 identities. The paid version allows unlimited passwords and identities, so you and your family members can each record their own passwords. You can password protect your password list so it is protected from others. Compare the two versions here – http://www.roboform.com/why-pro.html

There is also a version that installs on a USB Flash Drive so you can use it in multiple computers and once you remove the flash drive, no trace of your passwords remains. This is a great version for people who have multiple computers or tend to use public computers since with RoboForm, you don’t need to type in personal data or passwords; it’s all done by clicking on the menu bar item. This defeats any keylogging software that might be on a computer.

So, with RoboForm, you’ll never forget a password again. I recommend it.

Filed under: Internet Items, PC Security, PC Tips and Tools, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

How valuable is your data?

Posted on September 24, 2008 by wjimenez275

I know, deep question…Some of it is critical, those digital pictures you’ve always intended to print but never got around to. Those emails from family and friends that you’ve saved forever (a topic for another day). Those documents you created and saved. Let’s think worst case. What would happen if disaster struck? Your hard drive dies, or your computer gets stolen, or a natural disaster strikes. How would you feel if all of that data were to go away and never come back? If that strikes a little fear to the heart, you need to consider a backup solution.

There are several ways of going about backing up your data. One way is to get an external hard drive and use the backup software that came with your drive or operating system. That’s a step in the right direction, but isn’t always the best solution. What if there was a fire or flooding. That hard drive would go down with the computer.

What else is there? There’s on-line backup and storage. The benefits of this is that the backup is off-site and secure. It’s accessible from any internet connection so you can restore your data from anyplace, and some programs allow you to share files with others. There is a difference between on-line backups and on-line storage. On-line backup programs like Mozy and Carbonite do a great job of backing up in realtime, meaning they wait for the computer to go idle and then they look for any files that have been added or changed and back them up for you, automatically.  The downside is that they’ll only keep a deleted file for 30 days, so if you accidentally delete a file and don’t notice it, after 30 days, it’ll no longer be available to you offsite.  These programs run about $50-$60 a year. A storage site, such as Dropbox allows you to upload files to online folders and pretty much keep them online forever. Some of these programs will have you install some desktop software to your computer so you can drag and drop files or folders in a nice Explorer type environment and schedule automatic and regular backups.

Most online backup/storage sites will give you free storage space and/or allow you to try their services for a limited time for free. Realize also that the first full backup to any of these programs will take some time, even days to complete. Future backup will be much quicker as it will only be backing up new or changed files.

If you are the type of person who would like to setup automatic, background backups, or if you would like some storage to save files to and that allows you to share certain files with others, there is a solution for you. Regardless, the need for backup is critical, so check one of these out, sign up and use it.

Filed under: Internet Items, PC Tips and Tools | 1 Comment »

More Chrome, or should I say Less Chrome?

Posted on September 12, 2008 by wjimenez275

Just wanted to send an update on Google Chrome. It’s okay, it’s lightweight, it’s quick, but it’s not ready to replace the established browsers. Since it’s still in beta, I can understand some of the limitations, but it’s not compatible with several websites and doesn’t have the add-ins that will make it so. For now, I’ll stick with Firefox and keep checking Chrome as it matures. The more I use the new Firefox, the more I really like it. Check it out.

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Firefox Bookmark Links

Posted on September 8, 2008 by wjimenez275

Someone asked me how to create links to frequently used websites in Firefox. Firefox has the search engine links to the right of the address bar, and though you can add additional links, you are somewhat limited to what they offer. However, you can create icons to frequently used sites on the menu bar and this video will show you how.

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