As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, social engineering is the weapon of choice for online criminals these days. Attacks can take all sorts of forms,

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5 secrets every PC and Mac Stay safe online, owner should know
By battery
Dated: Jul 08, 2011
“How do I protect myself online?” These days I’m getting that question in equal numbers from PC and
Mac owners who are concerned about the best way to avoid being sucker-punched by social engineering
attacks.
5 secrets every PC and Mac Stay safe online, owner should know (I)
“How do I protect myself online?”
These days I’m getting that question in equal numbers from PC and Mac owners who are concerned about
the best way to avoid being sucker-punched by social engineering attacks.
Many people think that security begins and ends with antivirus software. I disagree. Should you run
antivirus software? As I’ve said before, if you don’t know the answer to that question, then the answer is
yes.
So let’s stipulate that you’re running a well-supported, up-to-date security program—whether you use a PC
or a Mac. What else do you need to do? In this post, I share the five steps I teach to friends, family
members, and clients who want to avoid malware, scareware, phishing sites, and other online scams.
If you’ve been paying attention to the current threat landscape, much of the advice in this post will be
familiar, even obvious. A lot of it is just common sense, but some is unconventional wisdom. Yes, of
course you should expect to be attacked if you download porn or pirated software. But just staying out of
bad online neighborhoods isn’t sufficient anymore.
These days, threats can come from unexpected places: Google (and Bing) search results, compromised
websites, deceptive ads, seemingly innocent downloads. You don’t have to be doing anything out of the
ordinary to inadvertently stumble across one of these potential threats.
If I had to summarize my guidance in a single sound bite, it would go something like this: Pay attention to
your surroundings, and don’t be stupid.
Let’s break that down.
Step 1: Don’t panic.
To borrow from a classic Monty Python sketch, the two … no, three chief weapons of online criminals are
“fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency.”Their goal is to appear when you don’t expect them and
convince you to act hastily. Online criminals often play on fear (your PC or Mac is infected with malware!)
or simple social engineering (try these smileys! oh, and you need this codec—fake, of course—to play an
enticing video clip).
The antidote to Monty Python, of course, is Douglas Adams, for whom “Don’t panic” was the secret of
successful intergalactic hitchhiking.
When in doubt, stop. Think. Ask for help. If you’re truly worried, pull the plug on your Internet connection
temporarily until you can call a knowledgeable friend or drag the machine in to a specialist for a thorough
diagnosis.
You should, of course, have a regular backup routine. Mechanical failures (a crashed hard drive or a
dropped notebook) can be even more devastating than a malware attack. With Windows 7, you can use the
built-in backup program to save an image backup on an external hard drive; you can do the same thing on a
Mac using Time Machine. Restoring a full backup is easy, especially if the alternative is spending hours
trying to track down a well-hidden infection.
And don’t be paranoid. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard from otherwise smart people who
break out all sorts of terrible tools—registry cleaners and system optimizers being the worst offenders—at
the first sign of trouble. Those snake-oil programs, in my experience, tend to make the problem worse.
Step 2: Stay up to date.
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Drive-by downloads and other sneak attacks are, fortunately, extremely rare. Yes, they happen, but the
overwhelming majority of attacks aim at vulnerabilities that have been patched months or even years
earlier.
Bad guys prey on the weak, technically unsophisticated, and ill-informed who don’t update regularly. You
really, really want to avoid being a part of that group. It’s easy:
If you use Windows, turn on Windows Update and set it to automatically download and install updates.
Those updates include Windows components like Internet Explorer. If you use other Microsoft software
(Office, Silverlight, Windows Live Essentials, and so on) enable Microsoft Update, which is available from
the Windows Update configuration screen.
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