Security Information for the Concerned

Security is not just a concern for IT professionals, it is a concern for all.

Over the years many have unknowingly fallen victum to the malicious hacker or cracker. For that reason we devote this section of our site to presenting some information concerning the security of your system, information, and identity.

According to the statistics at CERT/CC the number of reported computer security incidents and vulnerabilites has dramatically increased from 9,859 and 417 in 1999 to 82,094 and 4129 in 2002 respectivly. ₁

In the current time, these statistics are especially important for the following reasons:

1. There number of computers in use have risen substantially
2. Bug reporting and security awareness has been bolstered since 1999
3. The number of applications, operating systems and operating systems versions has increased
4. The number of computer scientists (whether formally educated or not) has grown since then

You are not powerless against such attacks. There are some fairly simple steps that can be taken to insure that your systems are not succeptible. Probably the most important of these tatics would be to UPDATE, and UPDATE OFTEN. Most security vulnerabilites are not caused by crackers, but are found by them because most code written for applications and operating systems contains bugs and "open doors" for hackers. Typically any significant programming project can consist of thousands to millions of lines of code, and it is very difficult to think of the infinite number of scenarios in which a malicious individual may attack your system.

Though updating your system frequently will reduce the likelihood of being attacked, it cannot guard against the most potentially dangerous threat-- the computer virus. To harden your systems against potential viruses, you should have a good quality antivirus program installed. There is a great free antivirus program available called AVG AntiVirus. This is a good product, and I use it on any M$ Windoze machine I may (reluctently) use.

1. http://www.cert.org/stats/cert_stats.html