Category: Security

Accounts and Passwords, Security, Tips

Use Your Swarthmore Credentials Only at Swarthmore

Nick

Your Swarthmore “credentials”, the combination of your Swarthmore email address and password, should only be used with Swarthmore College on-line services.  These credentials should never be used for personal accounts at non-Swarthmore websites. Websites are regularly compromised and users email addresses, along with passwords, are subsequently stolen.  A short list of popular websites that were recently compromised follows: eHarmony LinkedIn Last.fm Yahoo Voices The Student Room Formspring Android Forum techradar Philips Sony Entertainment etc… If you use your Swarthmore credentials for a non-Swarthmore account and that website gets hacked, your Swarthmore on-line services would then be readily available to the … Continue reading Use Your Swarthmore Credentials Only at Swarthmore

People, Security

Think you’re not being stalked on the Internet?

Nick

Do you accept a lack of privacy as the price for being on the Internet? For being connected to everything, everywhere? Think you have a good idea of what sites are tracking your browsing behavior? You might want to check out the recent TED talk by Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla (developers of Firefox).  The video is only six minutes long and Gary succinctly describes the privacy infringements we all face daily. Continue reading Think you’re not being stalked on the Internet?

Security, Software, Tips

Update EVERYTHING!

Nick

… please!! Besides running up to date Anti-virus, one of the best ways to keep your computer from becoming infected (and then losing access to it while it gets re-imaged, etc.) is to keep your Operating System and applications up to date.  Over the past few weeks, most major vendors have updated their software.  If you run applications from any of the following vendors, you should upgrade that software as soon as you possibly can: Microsoft Windows Mac OS/X and iOS Adobe Reader, Flash, Shockwave, etc. Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird Google Chrome Oracle Java Apple Quicktime & Safari Below are … Continue reading Update EVERYTHING!

Accounts and Passwords, Email, Security, Tips

How Do You Like Your Phish?

Nick

Phishing remains an ever popular way to get computer users to install malicious code or visit sites that they didn’t choose.  Many of the phishing attempts here at Swarthmore seem to fall into one of two categories: –          Email account and/or password related –          Government related (i.e., IRS, Federal Reserve, ACH, etc.) It should be pretty easy to recognize the first category since Swarthmore ITS will never ask for your password in an email and will never disable your email account while actively enrolled at or employed by the college. As for emails that appear to come from the U.S. … Continue reading How Do You Like Your Phish?

Security, Software

Critical Security Updates for Adobe Products

Nick

Adobe has released software fixes for a number of “critical” security holes in the following products: Adobe Shockwave Player Flash Media Server Adobe Flash Player Photoshop Robohelp At a minimum, many of us use the Flash and Shockwave players.  If you use any of the Adobe products listed above, at home or at work, you should update them as soon as you can.  This includes Windows, Mac and even Android platforms. For a quick glimpse of Adobe products on your computer that may need updating (along with other applications) and the easiest way to update them, you can go to … Continue reading Critical Security Updates for Adobe Products