The Security Mentor

You probably don't display your most expensive jewelry when you're walking down the street in the city, and you certainly don't flash big rolls of cash. Basic street smarts means you don't advertise yourself as a target.

Apply the same precautions online. High-profile targets like whitehouse.gov or microsoft.com may get personal attention from very smart attackers. A random small business will get attacked by dumb automatic programs instead, which are much cheaper and easier to defend against.

Wired magazine says that there's been a wave of breakins at computers belonging to highly publicized security workers. They got targeted because they're well known.

I recommend against bragging about your security in public, or making disparaging remarks about people in the computer underground. A few years ago one site got forced off the net by a flood of attack traffic when an underground member simply thought the site owner had insulted him.