Stay Informed.. Educate yourself and don't be a victim.

This week in my class, we are discussing many security issues, one of them being Security Awareness.  We were asked to design flyers that would be used in a business or even a school that would make a poignant point about some type of security that we all should deal with.  So, I made a few, one about the importance of computer security and not letting your “Stuff” get compromised and another about the need to be almost street smart and not being fooled by the wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Both of these themes are very important to me because they both deal with educating yourself before you put yourself out there.  It is so important that you have a secure and safe network so you can do what you need to in today’s online world. It seems that a week doesn’t go by when I don’t get a scam e-mail or now even a scam text on my cell phone about some “ACCOUNT ISSUE... Please call us at…” and “Oh a rich uncle in Nigeria that I never knew about….” And it is only going to get worse as troubles in our economy continue to escalate. The sad thing is that people actually fall for this garbage.   

A few years back, I went to a nieces apartment down in SoCal (BOO Dodgers!!) and saw that she had a nice Linksys router set up for her network and I asked her how she was securing it? She tilted her head a bit and said wha??? Huh? I then said “Did you change the default password and SSID?” again, a glazed unappreciated glaze… A friend hooked it up and left it totally unsecure and get this…. She does her online banking on a PC on that network.  I almost lost it, so, the good uncle I am, I scolded her, lovingly of course, and spent the next few hours setting up her network.  I tried to explain to her how important it is to stay secure and even used the comparison of locking your house; you don’t just leave your door open all the time so anyone can come in do you? Especially in greasy sleazy L.A.

Laker losers….

Parting shot:

My point to my rant is, we all need to get up to speed, stay up to speed and do what we have to do in order to stay safe offline as well as online.  Educating yourself is the best defense a person can have.  The Internet has so many resources to look at and use in order to get off on the right foot. Stay informed.

“Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.” Claus Moser.