Password Vault- Yes you need one!

Where do you keep your passwords?

On a post-it note next to your monitor? Or on the bottom of your middle desk drawer? Or in your wallet?

How many different passwords do you have? Do they have words in them (like rose or flower)? Do they have numbers in them?

Do you know what a secure password is?

Passwords are a necessary way of keeping our accounts secure and yet they are the most insecure way to keep those accounts secure. They are the easiest to break or convince people to give up. Yet they are the handiest way to access your accounts from everywhere. So how do you protect yourself? Have a secure password.

What is a secure password? A password is considered strong when it contains 15 characters including at least 2 lowercase letters, 2 uppercase letters, 2 numbers and 2 other characters (like * or &) plus has no recognizable words or keyboard patterns. So something that looks like this:

zB4%mY0z8>jJkQw

Pretty easy to remember? Yes? No? You don't think so? Well this is a pretty secure password that hackers would have a hard time cracking.

Passwords need to be strong to avoid letting hackers guess them. And hackers don't sit around and say to themselves, "Hmmm, I wonder if Cathie uses her dog's name as a password. A lot of people name their dog Chance. I wonder if her dog's name is Chance. I bet she doesn't even capitalize it." No, they use simple and/or sophisticated programs that do the guessing for them.

So that password up there, the one not easily guessed, once it's memorized you can use it on all your accounts--right? NO! No, no no. What happens if someone gets a hold of the Netflix account files. (Netflix is not careless with their data, I am just using them as an example.) Not a traumatic thing in the long run, after all, is it going to bring down the nation knowing you like the movie Big? Probably not. But the bad guys take your email address and password and go to places like the banks and try them out there. This is why you need different passwords for all your accounts.

So do we make a spreadsheet with all the accounts and passwords so we can keep track of them? And name it 'passwords'? Save it on our desktops? Yeah...no. But is keeping all your passwords in one place a good idea? Oh yes!! But let's put them in a password vault.

A password vault is a program that stores and organizes your passwords for you. It makes it easy to access the places you need to go as most vaults allow you to drag and drop your username and password to the login fields. Most vaults also create passwords for you. The vault keeps all the passwords locked down under one main password. This one, and the one to log onto your computer, is the one to remember.

But that password up there? How can you possibly remember something like that? Let's look at Cathie again. Her dog's name is Chance. And he was the second pet named Chance. She decided on the name Chance by saying 'eenie meenie minie moe catch a tiger by the toe'. So a perfect password would be:

caTbtt(hAnc3#2

What? you say! How is that perfect? Well, we use the first letters for 'catch a Tiger by the toe (eenie meenie minie moe uses too many repeated letters), use a left parathesis for the C in Chance, then capitalize the A, use a 3 for a backward e, and #2 for second pet.

So one tough password that is easy to remember. And although that hacker may know Cathie's dog's name, and the alternate characters to use for letters, he can't know the name AND that Chance was the second pet AND how she chose his name.

There are a lot of password vaults out there. Some cost, some are free. My recommendation? I use KeePass which is free. It is stored on your computer and you can put it on a flash drive. There are others, I have looked into but have not tried. LastPass**** is a password vault that is stored in the 'cloud' so you can get to it from any device. It's free too. Keeper is for mobile, found on Google apps and there are links to others. Your anti-virus program may have a form of a password manager. I know that avast! does, I just don't use it. Do a little research.

Here are some other blogs discussing the need for password vaults: ZD Net's A password vault is as mandatory as anti-virus, Lifehacker's Which Password Manager is the Most Secure?, and ITS Technology Tips' Password Vaults: Keep your Passwords Safe!.

Happy Valentines Day

I love you! ♥ ♥ ♥
You make my heart beat out of my chest! ♥ ♥ ♥
You are the most sexy person I know, let's get together.  ♥ ♥ ♥
I have this awesome present for you. ♥ ♥ ♥
You make me happy! ♥ ♥ ♥
We are destined to be together! ♥ ♥ ♥
Now let me have all the money in your bank account and leave me alone!

Of course they don't quite say that now do they? But boils down to the same thing. There are people getting scammed every day, every where.

We all shake our head and say, "How do they get away with it?" How can anyone be so stupid to fall for a criminal intent on getting your money. This criminal works on our emotions and they know which emotions are the best to work!

There are all kinds of viruses....Trojans, worms, root-kits, exploits, stacks, and there is social engineering. This form of virus is not a program, it is a person. And this type of person is out to get your information and they have learned the best ways to do it.

How do social engineers get their information? They convince you to give it to them. They make you feel like you are not fulfilled as a person unless you are giving them the information they need to rip you off. And they are very, very good at it.

There is a scam going around where a fraudster calls someone, usually an older person and claims to be their grandchild who is threatened with jail in Mexico, or at least another state. They need cash in a hurry to be able to get home and clear things up. Now, not something you would fall for, so we think. But what if you got the call in the middle of the night? Would you really be able to pin it as a scam?

These social engineers do not just pick up the phone and start dialing. They do their homework. They find out basic information. Information that we let people have. One gold mine for that information is your computer. Ok, not necessarily your computer, but your social sites. They watch your profiles and target the ones that they feel comfortable stepping into. We all have something that they can use.

The create the perfect psychological environment to deploy their attack. They are the nicest people you will ever talk to, or chat with, or exchange emails with. They are confident, know what is best for you and how to take care of that problem you never knew existed. How awesome is that?

Big targets for social engineering is to getting information from large companies. But there are also those that target you, the individual sitting at the computer. A large target for criminals is the lonely. And they take full advantage of these people.

Dating sites can be dangerous places. A friend of mine decided to try one out. The responses were  fast and furious. She was bombarded with all these desperate men(?) wanting to talk to her. She said is was like standing in the middle of Walmart on black Friday, only it was in her office! Did she let anything slip? Did they get that jewel that will allow them to take advantage? I believe she is savvy enough to have not let anyone get that information.

I don't want to say that dating sites are all dangerous. The sites that are more reputable are the ones that take care to keep social engineers away. They are the ones that require you to register and have safety policies implemented. If you are going to consider a dating site, research it. I have seen ads where a one dating site bashes a second for not letting everyone on it. For me, that is an advertisement for the second. That means the second one is monitoring who they allow on.

So for all you lonely hearts out there find something you enjoy to do and find a way to volunteer doing it. But, even then, hold your personal information close.

So friends, I have to tell you I ♥ you! All I want from you is to see your computer secure!
Happy Valentines Day and
Keep the BugOff!

Anti-Virus Programs

"I have an Anti-virus program, why is my computer getting viruses?"

Let's take a look at anti-virus programs. Are they needed?. There are some people who don't have AV (anti-virus) and they say they are fine. There are also people who tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon without a net. Most of these guys who walk a tight rope do not fall. But....  I, personally, have an anti-virus program on my computer.

How do viruses get on computers? There are lots of ways. Sometimes you just have to be in the wrong place at the right time. Sometimes you click on something because it looks too good to be true (and 99.99% of the time, it is not true and now you have a virus.)

The biggest reason you end up with a virus on your computer is because your AV definitions are not up to date. What are AV definitions? AV definitions are snippets of code that you find in viruses. Let's step back and see how an AV program works.

Viruses are computer programs. They are made up of code. The code could possibly look like this:
-------------------------------
Hello world()
{ scan computer;
   find interesting files;
  copy those files;
  delete everything; }
------------------------------
Ok, so maybe a bit more complicated that this. What AV programs do is look for the code in the virus. The AV program scans your computer and finds programs that match the code snippets in their definition files. When they find one, the AV program takes that program and puts it in a quarantine area and then deletes it for you. And then it tells you that it did its job. (Good AV program. pat. pat. here's your treat)

Do AV programs catch all viruses? No. There will always be some not caught. Mostly because a virus has to be known about in order to be protected against. But once it is on the radar, the AV community gets that information shared.

So, if your virus definitions are not up to date.....well, then your AV program doesn't know that there are more viruses out there. Most AV programs automatically update the definitions as soon as you are connected to the Internet. Some ask you, and if they do~~say YES please!

Here is another concern with AV programs. Go back and look at that code. What does it say the virus does? Scan your computer, look for files, and delete them. Now, look at what an AV does. Oh, right....scan your computer, look for files, and delete them. Let's say that you have two AV programs on your computer. What do you think they will do when they see the other AV program scanning your computer. Right! They freak out. And then they start having a virtual boxing match. So what are real viruses doing? Walking right on by while the AV programs are duking it out and proceed to do their damage. The other thing happening here is that both those AV programs are taking up computer time. And when they are fighting, they take up more computer time.....times two. And now your computer is slow as well as not so protected.

If you have more than one AV program on your computer, you need to pick one and uninstall the others. Even if the other AV programs are not running, you still need to get rid of them. Here is how:

• Open your Control Panel.
• Click the drop down arrow in the upper right corner and choose one of the icon options (or find the link to switch to Classic view).
• Find the Programs and Features icon (or the Add and Remove Programs icon).
• Double click it to open. Sometimes this takes a minute for all the programs to show up. Be patient.
• Find the AV program that you want to get rid of and click on it once (or you can right-click on the program).
• Up on the top of the list you will see a Uninstall option. (If you don't, you will see a Change option).
• Click on Uninstall (or Change).
• Then follow the directions to uninstall the program. A note here. the Installer is used to Uninstall. Quite often, you will be asked if you want to install the program. Say yes. If it asks if you are sure. Say yes. If it asks you why you are leaving, you can answer. I usually don't. Keep going until it is finished. 
• Find the next, and uninstall it too.
• Close the Control Panel when you are finished.

Now I know you are going to ask me which is the best AV program out there.

There are tons. There are a few great free programs. Avast! is one, so is Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). Do you need to buy a program? No. If you want to, you can. Just make sure that whatever program you chose, is one that you understand how it works. I like to recommend MSE to people who don't want a lot of fuss when running the program. MSE runs quietly in the background and does a good job keeping your computer virus free. I will also say that TrendMicro, Panda, ESET, Sophos, and Kaspersky are all good programs. My personal onion (very personal and very vocal) is that if you have Norton 360, pick another one. I know that I make some people very angry that I said this, but, more than 80% of the computers I removed viruses from, had Norton 360. (Do you need to panic? no. Do you need to remove it before the subscription is up? probably not.)

If you need additional help. Feel free to comment. I will try to get back to you quickly. If you need even more help, I may suggest professional help (could be me, I can make some other recommendations depending on where you live) but know that you will be spending some money.

Keep the BugOff!