Who's to blame?

Who's to blame?
Kelly Martin, 2005-07-05

If there's one thing the security industry is really good at, it's pointing fingers. We all like to say that, "security starts with you," so that everyone can share a piece of the mud pie. While we're pointing fingers, let's look at a few groups and individuals and see how they can share the blame for their own insecurity - and prevent the spread of viruses, Trojans and worms.

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Who's to blame? 2005-07-05
Anonymous (1 replies)

"I signed up at the YMCA gym the other day, and noticed that they store my credit card information in their computers. I glanced over and saw a DOS-like screen, and gave out a huge sigh of relief. The technology they use predates the Web by about ten years, so the odds of them having Internet access...

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Not to mention off-site backups 2005-07-07
Anonymous

Most of the huge compromises getting attention lately haven't been network compromises, but theft or loss of backup tapes. To quote Dan Greer, "What does a backup do? It reliably violates file permissions at a distance."...

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Who's to blame? 2005-07-06
Anonymous

Funny. I boot my home computer (Windows XP SP2) up once every week or two, download all of the myriads of security updates for Windows, Office, antivirus, etc., etc., then visit a few "fun" web sites I can't justify doing at work. Then I turn the machine off. (In the summer, it also saves a bundl...

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Who's to blame? 2005-07-06
vinicius

To identify who to blame first you need to know who is responsible. Nobody is responsible? So don't blame anyone.

I see two approaches to security:

1) PAY THE PRICE to understand it
2) DO ANY OTHER THING (commonly blame many things and say Internet is just not trustworthy)...

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Who's to blame? Extremists vs. Fundamentalists 2005-07-07
rhartley@ics.com (1 replies)

Sorry to be so pedantic here:
We need to be sure that we do not equate "fundamentalists" with "extremists" or "radicals".

The problems seems to be when radical extremists go beyond the fundamentals, religous, security or otherwise....

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Re: Who's to blame? Extremists vs. Fundamentalists 2005-07-27
Anonymous

"Fundamentalist" and "Extremist" are words that invoke the same motif. Although "fundamentalist" is a politically incorrect term, such as the word "retarded", a majority of the population would agree that both terms imply imbalance....

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Outbound SMTP port 25 2005-07-07
Anonymous

Blocking this port DOES help reduce spam. ISP's block this not the SRC port of 25....

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Who's to blame? 2005-07-09
Anonymous

Scary article. I'm glad I stumbled on that almost throwaway line "Or buy a Mac or Linux desktop and slip under the radar".
I'm a converted Mac buyer. I tell anybody who asks that Mac is the way to go. Why stress out everytime you get online? Is that the way the internet was conceived for?
I us...

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Who's to blame? 2005-07-09
Alexey Vesnin

Yes, yes, yes... All of them to blame, but first of all - let's think! You've adviced to leave workstations on - and you're right! I'm not turning off my pc too. And even Windows OS can be secured if you just not to : display your messages as HTML with all the scripting stuff, use your PC without fi...

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Old OS versions. 2005-07-11
Roger

"Odds are pretty good that the corporation is still standardized on Windows 2000, which is almost at its end-of-life. There's also a good chance of finding many machines in the enterprise still running Windows 98 or 95. Trust me, they're everywhere. Having spent many years in software sales, I can s...

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Who's to blame? 2005-07-13
Anonymous

Good article. Excellent advice about turning off a personal computer when it's not being used. I don't think that suggestion gets mentioned enough when discussing how to secure a PC. Turn it on, check for software updates/patches, do what you need to do that requires Web access, and turn it off and ...

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