Don't Get Owned

Hello everyone and welcome back. I can finally say i am all caught up with school work from the weeks i was out from surgery. We are in week 12 and if you have not paid your bill for next semester you have until the end of the week. I personally have to go and do that on Wednesday. Today's blog is taking a different approach to what i normally write. I figured that since i am an Information Systems Management major that i should do some posts regarding my field. This will also help me practice communicating technical things into easier to understand language.

Today's blog is about some vulnerabilities that have come out recently. some of you may have heard that Google, along with approximately 33 high tech industries were hacked sometime last year. The blame is being put on China but I am not here to tell you who did what. What i am trying to focus in on here is this concept, if Google can be hacked what about me? We all know of viruses, spyware and malware that infect our personal systems but never do we think about being hacked or as the industry calls it "owned."

This threat has become so important they now have training on how to test your network and how to ethically hack it. You can actually receive a certification in Ethical Hacking. A lot of this information is very technical in nature, in fact I personally am doing my own work at home with a test network. The average user is usually unaware of any attempts to gain access to your computer from the outside. There are simple things the average user can do at home that can help minimize the risk. The first thing is that if you have a wireless router please put a passcode to lock it and also change the default password to the admin menu. The other day i was testing a wireless card at my house and it joined me to an unlock router. I decided to see if i can get access to the admin menu since i knew the standard username and password for Linksys routers. Low and behold i got into the admin menu. From their i could have easily changed all passwords and locked the router out and when they try to connect they will be out of luck.

The next tip is to not always click on things that are sent by people you know. This week i got three emails from my business partner. I clicked on one because i recognized the website the others i did not. I sent him an email because i knew his email address had been compromised. This is probably because of weak passwords. Many people have simple passwords that can eventually be broken, using complex passwords can minimize the likelihood of your email address being compromised. Make sure the sites you go to are legit sites and if you question anything do not open just delete it. These are just some of the ways you can help protect yourself, is it absolutely fool proof, probably not but it will help minimize any attacks that can occur. Well that is all for now see you guys next time when i interview the editor to a new blog that is all about NYC and written by college students for college students.