Weaponizing Web 2.0

There are so many people out there trying to do malicious things on the web that you need to protect yourself as much as possible. With all the personal information on social networking websites, it’s important to keep up to date with the latest techniques being used to exploit users. The scenario that scares me the most is someone getting my login information to my online banking websites. Imagine waking up one day and all your money has been transferred to a Swedish bank account. The worst thing is…it looks like you made the transfer. Below are a few tips for staying protected on the web.

Make sure you have up to date virus protection on your home and business computers.

Norton or AVG. McAfee sucks. You get what you pay for with free programs.

Use different passwords for all you important accounts.

Try and use a combination of numerals and characters when creating a password. Keep a list online using an online document program such as Google Docs. That way you can check your password from any computer that is connected the the Internet.

Make sure you fully understand what links you are clicking on.

Look at the link URL in the browser when you hover over it. Make sure the website name matches the context the link is presented in. If you aren’t sure, avoid clicking. If anything pops up when you do click over to the web page, make sure to close the window by clicking the corner right x or from the task bar. Never click on a “Close” button in the window. This could be a way to trick you into forcing a download of a malicious virus on your computer.

Don’t disclose any sensitive information in emails or chat programs.

Emails can get intercepted and online chat programs can get spied on. You should never email anyone your social security number.

Log out after you’re done

If you are in your banking website or on a social network, make sure to click the “Log Out” link once you are finished. This will kill the session so someone can’t hit the back button or click on a link in your history and access personal information.

Here is a great article that talks about real world hacking scenarios: Weaponizing Web 2.0

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.