On personally defending yourself against spammers/hackers

[Chuck]

Last week, Russian hackers may have broken into 6.5 LinkedIn passwords...you can check to see if your were affected > https://lastpass.com/linkedin/ (Note: this is from LastPass, a secure cloud site to safely store passwords. They are rated as a trusted site by WOT)

If you were affected, your LinkedIn is safe, BUT if you use that same password elsewhere, you could get hacked.

Passwords

Use a password of eight characters or longer - that's a strong password defined.

Make it phrases you remember easily like a loved one + "June2012" ... something like that.

Change it periodically or when you are concerned.



Antivirus

If you don't full scan overnight at least weekly - you are playing with fire. Many good products, but MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials), AVG, and Avast are free and don't drag your computer down. Malwarebytes is also an excellent product.

Be Very careful checking emails - very careful

Hover and check the email to see if the address is strange and from a country like .ru (many Russian spammers) Also check for stranges names, subjects or no subject.

If you click anyway - is there any content to go with the link? If the verbage does not address you or suggest they actually know you or they are urging you to click the link - DON'T - that's how you get malware.

[ALS]

I've been using TrendMicro for the last four ot five years and zero virus and malware problems.

When I had Norton's ask how many times I had to go into Windows and manually remove the virus and malware myself. Believe it or not I got really good at it after a while. I realized after a year or two by just doing a roll back using Windows System Recovery would clear up 99% the problems.

[Mendel Leisk]

Originally Posted by Chuck

...Make it phrases you remember easily like a loved one + "June2012" ... something like that....

Don't "they" say the password should illogical/improbable, mixed case, and different for every site. I think in practice no one does that, too tough.

I shudder when I see the garbage going directly into my spam folder: these jokers are a scourge

[Chuck]

On a related topic, Hacked companies fight back with controversial steps

Some are attacking hackers sites, possibly breaking laws.

While this is offtopic, one effect is ontopic: the insecurity of cyberspace has some to fly halfway across the globe for a one hour business meeting to guarantee it's secure.

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by Mendel Leisk

Don't "they" say the password should illogical/improbable, mixed case, and different for every site. I think in practice no one does that, too tough.

I shudder when I see the garbage going directly into my spam folder: these jokers are a scourge

More imagination can be used. But there are a lot passwords like: "123456", "9999999", others that are absolutely easy to crack.

[PaleMelanesian]

http://xkcd.com/936/