Posted by: secureitfoundation on: January 19, 2011
Version 2.0 of the Secure Computer Standard has been published on the Standards and Documents pages. The Secure Computer Standard is a document published by the Secure IT Foundation, to give computer manufacturers, repairers and sellers guidance as to what steps they should be taking to provide a computer ‘secure out the box’ or a [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: July 1, 2010
While there is no magic solution to protect your financial information when banking online, there is a service offered for free called Trusteer Rapport. Mainly provided for US and UK banks to supply to their own customers as an added service, its protection works on other bank sites as well. Windows users can download it [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: May 11, 2010
From experience we can safely say the biggest cause of hard drive failure is… YOU, the computer user! Do you shut your computer off completely before you move it? Do you turn it off by using your operating system shutdown option? If you answered no to either question and your hard drive fails then you [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: March 25, 2010
‘Defence in depth’. That is what the commercial security world calls having multiple layers of security to protect you in case one fails. Simply put, your home computer needs to have multiple layers of defences including an up to date browser like Firefox, have Anti Virus software that works, run Windows Update every month and [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: February 25, 2010
For those of you who do not use Secunia’s Personal Security Inspector software already (it is free for personal use!), make sure you have done your updates. Adobe has become the new Microsoft for releasing insecure software and their Flash, Shockwave and Reader products all need urgent updating. Sun’s Java is not far behind in [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: January 7, 2010
A common question we get asked a lot, why have a firewall on each computer when the network is protected by the firewall in my router? Simple answer, it is a question of trust. If you follow secure computing advice like the Secure IT Foundation’s Home Computer Policy, then you will know that safe computing [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: December 18, 2009
If you are not aware, Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader (now just called Adobe Reader) software is prone to serious security risks. The software was originally just a way to standardise document exchange and printing with the PDF file format, but now has had additional functionality over the years. The biggest two risks are the JavaScript [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: December 3, 2009
By strong password, we don’t mean how much can it support if printed out in 3D lettering! We mean a password that cannot be easily guessed, is not found in a dictionary of any language, is made up of lower and upper case letters, includes those funny symbols from the number row on your keyboard [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: November 20, 2009
Unlike the default settings in Windows, Linux users have to enter the administrative password before they can install new software. Recently a popular variant of Linux called Fedora introduced a change to alter the security model of Fedora to no longer require the administrative password before installing new software. On paper it seems sensible, Fedora [...]
Posted by: secureitfoundation on: November 5, 2009
Not much of a surprise this one, given the similarity to XP / Vista under the hood, but Windows 7 is just as vulnerable to viruses and this has now confirmed by Sophos. Then again if they said otherwise who would use their product. Next week they will tell us the sky is blue and [...]
