Your Responsibilities

Introduction

The vast majority of computer users don't have the time or inclination to learn the deep inner workings of their computer. Keeping up with the latest security problems is a full time job and is complicated by the fact that most security advisories are very technically oriented—a daunting prospect for someone who just needs to get some work done.

Even if you don't consider yourself a technical person, there are some easy things you should do to protect yourself.

Your Responsibilities

• Change your mindset:
  It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your computer wouldn't be an inviting target for an attack, but that's usually not the case. The average Internet miscreant doesn't care about your research or your email. He does care about having a new platform from which he can launch more attacks. He may also care about your credit card number and personal information.
• Patch frequently:
  This is your single biggest defense against security problems. It's also fairly easy. Most modern operating systems include a patching tool that automatically requests vendor-supplied patches. All you have to do is tell the operating system how frequently you want to check for updates (twice a week is fairly standard).
• Install antivirus software:
  CITES offers free antivirus software to everyone on campus. It's easy to install, can (and should) be configured to update its list of known viruses automatically, and will save you endless time and trouble in the long run.
• Be careful with passwords:
  Just as you don't give away the key to your house or leave the door unlocked, you should guard your passwords as well. Choose a password that's hard to guess but easy to remember (song lyrics tend to be good sources of passwords) and memorize it. If you absolutely must have a written copy of your password, do not leave it anywhere near your computer and do not include your NetID or the computer's hostname on the same piece of paper.
• Use SSH:
  Telnet is still one of the most commonly used tools for connecting to a remote machine. Unfortunately, all telnet traffic is unencrypted, including your login and password, which means it is surprisingly easy to intercept and use that information. SSH provides a much better alternative, encrypting every piece of data that it sends. Free SSH clients are available for Windows, Mac OS, and all versions of Unix.
• Use encryption:
  While SSH is important enough to warrant its own entry, encryption is an important component of many other applications. Look for SSL (Secure Socket Layer) support in any software that will be transporting passwords or sensitive information.

Why You Should Care

Quite simply, you should care about computer security because it will save you time in the long run. While time and productivity are intangible benefits, they become much more relevant when you look at the sort of problems you will have to address in the event of a break in.

The first step you must take when you learn your computer has been compromised is to take it off the network. This is done to protect other computers on the same network. It is common practice for intruders to install keystroke monitors, password sniffers, hidden FTP sites, and other undesired software on any computer they gain access to. Because these programs are usually very well hidden, you should always reinstall your computer after a break in.

Even if the intruder didn't actually change anything on your system, if you had anything sensitive stored on your computer (such as a password to another system, a credit card number, or any sort of confidential files), there's a chance the intruder now has that information.

If you're lucky, you won't have lost any data during the break in. Even some relatively benign viruses can cause unintended consequences such as file corruption. Since you'll have to reinstall anyway, you're still dependent on your backups. After you restore your files from backup, you must make another thorough search of all restored files to ensure that no compromised files were backed up before the break-in was caught—you would essentially be putting things back the way they were before you reinstalled.

In short, it's much easier to keep your system secure than to have to scramble to get things fixed.