For the second entry in our General Security series, we are going to talk about web security basics. If you have any tips of your own, comment below or tweet us @Send_Anywhere.
Web Security #1: If something appears off about a website, it probably is.
One of the most interesting yet terrifying things on the web is the fact that certain hackers have become very adept at replicating websites–especially those in which you share personal information. What they do is replicate these websites and change just a character or two on the URL so that it is nearly unnoticeable. For instance, instead of “www.bankofamerica.com” they will have “www.bnkofamerica.com”. People will then log onto these websites, not notice the URL, and give away their personal information.
Recommendation: To best protect against this, we highly recommend the services provided by OpenDNS.
Web Security #2: Just because your friend sends you a link via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. does not mean they are safe to click.
Once hackers are able to break into an email account, they will send out emails to everyone on that account’s contact list with a catchy title and a URL or two in the body of the email that they want you to click. If you’re lucky, these URLs are just links that will fill your computer with crippling spam. If you’re unlucky, they’re backdoor Trojans that give whoever sent them complete access to your computer. The same applies to URLs sent over Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Recommendation: Always check the URL of the link you are about to click and, if it looks fishy, don’t click it and ask whomever sent it if they meant to send this. Also, have an anti-virus software running on your computer at all times. We highly recommend Avira.
Check in tomorrow when we discuss how to safely secure and send files.