The Security Mentor

There's an AARP survey of computer security awareness in Washington State which says that even people in the country's second most cmoputer-literate state are missing key information to protect themselves.

Do follow the link, I'm only going to hit the high points.

Half the respondents didn't know that banks (sane ones anyway) are not going to send you email asking you to click a link to confirm your account information. That's the signature of a phishing scam. If you get email like that and think it might be legitimate, phone the bank.

Three quarters didn't know that Web site owners can share information about you even though they have a privacy policy. First, a lot of those policies simply describe how little privacy you have. Second, companies violate their own policies all the time. Third, once the company goes bankrupt, your personal information is a company asset that goes wherever the bankruptcy judge says it should go.

The Seattle Times article about this mentioned a computer user who got an unexpected popup warning her that her computer was infected with spyware (scam!) but that it could be fixed if she'd download a free program from a strange site and run it (deadly scam!). Of course her computer stopped running, except to display one popup after another offering to disinfect it for $20/month (extortion scam!). Not even the blindest, greediest legitimate antispyware vendors do business this way.

She did the right thing: she took the computer to a local repair shop. It works now. It cost her $100: removing spyware is as much fun as clearing clogged drains and the people who do it charge accordingly. If she'd send money to the scammers the problems would never have ended: she'd simply have gotten herself on a sucker list.