Dale Penn

Massive data spill leaves thousands of students out in the cold.

The combined number of people victimized in two separate incidents at the Universities of Virginia and Miami totals over 50,000.

Nearly every imaginable piece of private information was stolen; including names, addresses, credit card data and highly- prized social security numbers.

These giant leaks aren’t supposed to occur, but the fact is that the portability of laptops and backup tapes makes the crime more common than casual observers may notice.

In the Florida case, the records were being shipped off to a private off site storage facility. This practice is usually designed to safeguard the data off campus, but this time the stagecoach was robbed.

This isn’t the first time the University of Virginia has dealt with this crime. Last year the F.B.I. was called in to investigate the theft of data belonging to 5735 University faculty members.

Techweb Media reported this story last week and also disclosed new research from analysts at AMI Partners. The research indicates that a staggering 86 percent of mid-sized U.S. business reported some sort of security breach or data loss in the last 12 months!

What can you do to ward off the grim IDENTITY GRIM REAPER?

1. Back up your data. A backup allows you to restore missing, corrupted or stolen files quickly. A backup will also allow you to continue your work while your computer is being located, repaired or restored.

2. Download updates to your OS and software regularly. Security patches and “bug fixes” can help you keep your privacy armor polished.

3. Be on guard for viruses and worms. Fight these cyber-security threats by installing a good anti-virus software program.

4. Fight off malicious Ad-ware and Spy-ware. Everyone using the web, instant messaging or file-sharing is vulnerable. Install protective software to fight off malicious mal-ware and update it regularly.

5. What do you mean you don’t have a firewall? Install one immediately to protect your computer from intrusion. Purchase a firewall “box” or get the software version from a company like Norton or McAfee.

6. Use stronger-longer passwords. The longer and stranger looking they are, the better. Recent studies indicate that most computer users utilize the same password for everything. Create long and unusual alpha-numeric passwords that don’t contain easy clues like your dog’s name or the street you grew up on.

7. Lock your computer down! The trunk of your car doesn’t count. Visit a local retailer to purchase a computer locking cable device. Turning your back on your computer for even a moment at home, at the library or at Starbucks is just asking for trouble with a capital T.

If the gatekeepers are concerned, we should be too!

If you haven’t seen reports of  the latest Identity Theft attacks plaguing our country, you haven’t been reading much news lately. Where have you been?

Even the U.S. Air Force has waged an ad campaign designed to capture the imagination of a new crop of tech savvy young recruits to help fight the current “cyber-war”. This war is not imagined or “virtual”, it is very real indeed.  

The battle is raging on many fronts. In addition to the constant daily threat from foreign governments, bored adolescent hackers and low level organized criminals, there is a new enemy emerging.

Symantec Corporation is losing sleep due to concerns about the next virulent strain of Trojan horse programs.  According to the April 2008 issue of PC Magazine, the Trojan.Silentbanker program can perform “man in the middle” attacks between users and more than 400 banks.

This Trojan monitors usage patterns on the web, while looking for bank data that it can manipulate. This program can actually re-route the account destination of banking customer transfers. Apparently, the Trojan.Silentbanker can even overcome the “safeguard” of two -factor authentication.

The article correctly distinguishes between a single bank target like those that are cloned by realistic looking “phishing” sites and the multiple bank sites susceptible to this Trojan program.

Symantec’s well known suite of anti-virus and personal firewall products are designed to protect from these threats. If you are not in the habit of updating yours, you are headed for a hard fall someday. PC Magazine also reminds never to run executables we get from strangers.

Thank goodness for warriors like our Air Force and Symantec who “sit on the wall” for us and fight evil at every turn, keeping us from losing more than just our shirts.