Good habits to get into when using your phone/tablet/computer
* In the wake of one of the most serious flaws that could lead to malware on your computer, I thought it would be smart to review some good habits of using your technology.
* Apple takes great pains to restrict things users can do with their iPhone or iPad. Some of these restrictions make the device easier to use and some are there to make it more secure. Don’t be fooled though, iOS can be hacked. One of the best ways to keep your iOS device secure is to not jailbreak it. You have a lot more freedom with a jailbreak iOS device but you also have a lot less security.
* A jailbreak on iOS uses flaws in the OS security to open it up even more. Apple patches these flaws as it learns about them, which brings me to the second point. Always apply the updates to your devices. This goes for all phones, tablets, computers, routers, light bulbs and anything else you own that can be updated. When a manufacturer issues an update, there’s a good chance the update contains security patches (or the entire reason for the update is security).
* Apple’s treatment of iOS makes it one of the more secure OSes but Android owners need not panic. Android is the most popular operating system in the world. This means that hackers are going to target it more than anything else. Making matters worse is the slowness in which updates are pushed out to Android devices (aside from the ones made by Google). Google will issue an update but then Samsung/LG/Motorola/etc. have to update their specific version of Android and then those updates have to get pushed out by Verizon/Sprint/etc. Updates for Android can take weeks to reach the user. But like I said, don’t panic. The way to keep an Android device secure is to follow the same good habits that a person using a computer would.
* The first and most important habit for everyone is to never install things you didn’t go looking for. This means that if you get a popup stating you need to install Flash or Java or a toolbar or something, that you always say “no” to whatever the popup is offering to give you to install. The popup might be telling you that you need Flash and hey, here it is for you to download and install. Decline this offer and seriously think about whether you really need the software. If you decide “yes,” go and find the installer from the company that makes it (in this case Adobe). You have no idea what is in the installer from a random popup and you should never trust it.
* Another good habit is to use an ad blocker (you can install add-ons on all major browsers including most on Android). A lot of people get viruses from malicious ads. Major sites like CNN, Forbes, Fox, Yahoo and others have had incidences of ads shown that try to infect visitors’ machines. The majority of sites show ads from an ad network and don’t know what the content of the ads are. Bad actors put malicious scripts in ads and then buy space on ad networks. I use an ad blocker that lets me whitelist sites and the only sites I whitelist are ones that I use often and don’t use ad networks.
* I’ll leave you with this last habit. Do not run as the admin user. You should make an admin user and then demote your user to a normal user. This only takes a few minutes to set up and it’s only inconvenient when you need to install new software or something that requires similar permissions. Malware running on your computer or your browser is going to try to do things that require admin rights. If it doesn’t have admin rights, it might do nothing or it might ask you to put in the admin credentials. Obviously, if you’re not doing something that you expect to require admin rights you should decline to provide them and immediately run a scan of your computer for malware — I use the built-in Windows Defender.
* In the wake of one of the most serious flaws that could lead to malware on your computer, I thought it would be smart to review some good habits of using your technology.
* Apple takes great pains to restrict things users can do with their iPhone or iPad. Some of these restrictions make the device easier to use and some are there to make it more secure. Don’t be fooled though, iOS can be hacked. One of the best ways to keep your iOS device secure is to not jailbreak it. You have a lot more freedom with a jailbreak iOS device but you also have a lot less security.
* A jailbreak on iOS uses flaws in the OS security to open it up even more. Apple patches these flaws as it learns about them, which brings me to the second point. Always apply the updates to your devices. This goes for all phones, tablets, computers, routers, light bulbs and anything else you own that can be updated. When a manufacturer issues an update, there’s a good chance the update contains security patches (or the entire reason for the update is security).
* Apple’s treatment of iOS makes it one of the more secure OSes but Android owners need not panic. Android is the most popular operating system in the world. This means that hackers are going to target it more than anything else. Making matters worse is the slowness in which updates are pushed out to Android devices (aside from the ones made by Google). Google will issue an update but then Samsung/LG/Motorola/etc. have to update their specific version of Android and then those updates have to get pushed out by Verizon/Sprint/etc. Updates for Android can take weeks to reach the user. But like I said, don’t panic. The way to keep an Android device secure is to follow the same good habits that a person using a computer would.
* The first and most important habit for everyone is to never install things you didn’t go looking for. This means that if you get a popup stating you need to install Flash or Java or a toolbar or something, that you always say “no” to whatever the popup is offering to give you to install. The popup might be telling you that you need Flash and hey, here it is for you to download and install. Decline this offer and seriously think about whether you really need the software. If you decide “yes,” go and find the installer from the company that makes it (in this case Adobe). You have no idea what is in the installer from a random popup and you should never trust it.
* Another good habit is to use an ad blocker (you can install add-ons on all major browsers including most on Android). A lot of people get viruses from malicious ads. Major sites like CNN, Forbes, Fox, Yahoo and others have had incidences of ads shown that try to infect visitors’ machines. The majority of sites show ads from an ad network and don’t know what the content of the ads are. Bad actors put malicious scripts in ads and then buy space on ad networks. I use an ad blocker that lets me whitelist sites and the only sites I whitelist are ones that I use often and don’t use ad networks.
* I’ll leave you with this last habit. Do not run as the admin user. You should make an admin user and then demote your user to a normal user. This only takes a few minutes to set up and it’s only inconvenient when you need to install new software or something that requires similar permissions. Malware running on your computer or your browser is going to try to do things that require admin rights. If it doesn’t have admin rights, it might do nothing or it might ask you to put in the admin credentials. Obviously, if you’re not doing something that you expect to require admin rights you should decline to provide them and immediately run a scan of your computer for malware — I use the built-in Windows Defender.
0 comments: