That Computer Guy

I wrote recently about protecting your security on the internet, unfortunately, this is only one of the many ways you can be targeted by scammers and other low-lifes. One of the downsides of having your business details listed across the internet is that you can be easily contacted by these types, and some of them aren’t always that obvious.

Take for instance a “special offer” a client of mine recently received. Completely unsolicited, a Melbourne based domain name registrar (who’ll remain nameless) mailed the client a letter offering the ‘.com’ of their Australian domain name for $249 inc GST for 2 years. With a sweetener of a free iPod Shuffle, the MD of the company asked me if it was worth buying. My reply was to send him a screenshot of the same domain name over at Namecheap.com for the Australian dollar equivalent of some $24. Not a bad markup by the domain registrar and it left me wondering just how ‘free’ that iPod really was. Unsurprisingly the MD didn’t go forward with that one.

What concerned me was that it was obviously a tactic that worked for this company, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. I shudder to think how many companies may have fallen for this.

The lesson here is to shop around – domain names are available from hundreds of sites across the web, and prices can vary wildly. Educate yourself on a median price and what extras may be included (things like URL forwarding, where you can forward one domain name to a site at another you own. This can be useful if you have a strong brand or want to catch all important traffic to variations of your domain name).

From my own experience I’ve found the above mentioned Namecheap is a good source for .com and .net based names; while Netregistry here in Australia is a good source for .com.au and .net.au names. If you have any you’d like to tell others about, or if you’ve been caught out a similar way and would like to warn others, please let us know in the comments below.

Image: A Million To One

Did you catch Four Corners on ABC this week? It featured a report on the growth of cybercrime in Australia, indicating it’s a problem likely to get bigger with the advent of a national broadband network. I had been looking forward to the piece – sadly though it turned out to be little more than an exercise in fear mongering, complete with over the top soundbites:

“I expect at some stage in the future there will be a real debate on the benefit of the internet. Should we turn it off?”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that the subject is exposed to the masses (I’ve had many enquiries regarding computer security since the show aired), and I’m not going to say that cybercrime isn’t a growing issue; but you can certainly inform people in ways that don’t involve scaring the living bejesus out of them!

Obviously this sort of journalism sells, but getting people running around like a headless chook ain’t going to solve the problem. That’s down to education. So, in the spirit of getting things done, let’s get educated shall we? Here’s 5 things you can do to help protect yourself against cybercrime.

(By the way, these tips aren’t new and they certainly aren’t definitive, but obviously they seem to be one of those things that people still need to be told)

1. Think before you click.

No genuine financial institution will send you an email saying they need to verify your details. The best course of action for anything suspect is to phone the institution direct (and either shift+delete to permanently remove the mail from your computer, or follow the procedure the institution advises to send the mail to them if they want to investigate further.)

2. Keep your computer updated.

Installing the latest manufacturuer patches and anti-virus signatures kind of goes without saying, but I’ll bet many of you don’t do it!

3. Install an Anti Spyware product.

Most of the brand name security manufacturers such as Symantec / Norton & McAfee will have an “Internet Security” product that bundles this with Anti Virus software. If you don’t have one of these products already or have just standard AV software, I recommend “Spybot S&D” which you can download for free, or Windows Defender, also free.

4. Ensure your user account doesn’t have administrator rights.

Hackers like to install software that does their bidding on your PC, but they usually need administrator rights to do it. By only giving the account you log on to your computer with the minimum of privileges, it makes it all that much harder. Microsoft Vista introduced a feature called UAC (User Account Control) to try and fix this problem; sadly it was so poorly implemented that many people turned it off altogether. Happily though, the version in Windows 7 works.

5. Protect your wireless network.

There are many things you can do to aid your protection if you’re running a wireless network in your home or office. First, check the type of security you’re using. If you have a setting for WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) or WPA2 and higher, make sure you’re using it. If your router is slightly older and only has a setting for WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol), please go and drop some cash on a new one – WEP was cracked a few years ago, so you could be leaving yourself wide open.

Also, make sure your firewall is turned on; change and then turn off the broadcast of your network’s name (known as the SSID) and use a pass phrase (including upper case letters and numbers), rather than a password for the wireless authentication.

Hopefully you found these tips on protecting yourself against cybercrime useful. If you have any more, or if you want to add your own opinion on this topic, please leave a comment below.