Computer Crimes

Keeping online onlookers out of your life

By Dr. Steve O'Neil, N'Fusion, Inc.

One area that most surfers take for granted is that of personal computer security. Tales of woe from Microsoft, eBay, Amazon and the likes are a million miles from the daily scenarios of most Internet users. Nevertheless, there are increasing instances of identity theft, fraudulent transactions, and denial of service attacks that are filtering their way into the work-a-day world. The Computer Security Institute and the FBI, in fact, have identified information theft as the costliest computer crime going [The Industry Standard, 12-11-2000]. With the increasing use of broadband Internet connections, we can only expect to see both mischievous and criminal computer trespass increase. This is especially the case with cable and DSL access where the typical connection is always on and the computer connected to it typically uses the same IP address every time it logs on to the system.

Find the types and frequency of security threats in an online white paper on the subject.

An increasingly popular way of dealing with personal computer security threats is by using personal firewall technology. Firewalls fall into two broad categories: software-based and hardware-based. Sophisticated protection systems use both types of safeguards, but at a cost of from $500 to $4,000+, most hardware firewall solutions are beyond the budget of individual users. Instead, the individual user relies in most cases on software solutions. Although the software solution is adequate in a majority of cases, users should be aware of the fact that break-ins can still occur due to the increasing sophistication in the world of hacking and the fundamental security flaws which exist in most operating systems. A good white paper on the types and frequency of security threats is Improving the Security of Networked Systems, available at http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/oct/allen.asp.Current advisory alerts are available from The CERT Coordination Center at the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded R&D center located at Carnegie Mellon University. Find it at http://www.cert.org.

For individual users, security software ranges from free to about $100. Among the most popular are the Norton Personal Firewall and their Internet Security 2000 products that can be purchased at http://www.symantic.com.Another popular package is the McAfee Firewall and McAfee Guard Dog available at http://www.mcafee.com . One that I have had good luck with is Zonealarm. This is a free firewall product (for personal and non-profit use) designed especially for incorporation into broadband access systems such as the cable-based Roadrunner system and DSL lines. Check it out at the Zone Labs site at http://www.zonelabs.com/.This product can be used with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, and Windows 2000. After downloading, get some good installation and configuration instructions from ZDNet at http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2610364,00.html . This article covers the five main configuration tools: the security panel, the lock panel, the programs panel, the alerts panel, and the configure panel. Regardless of what software solution you try, be mindful that if you do not configure it properly, you may be allowing open access into your computer as some of these products have very poor default installation options. "Automatic permission" defaults should be avoided.

While the solutions discussed here will keep most outsiders out of your life, there are also internal matters to deal with. When you use another person's machine or an "Internet Cafe" PC, most of the tracks you leave will stay on those machines unless you remove them. This includes surfing histories, automatic file backups, e-mail copies, etc. If you do sensitive research, patent disclosures, or proprietary methodologies on your termina, you may want these to disappear in order to avoid prying eyes. One neat tool to cover your tracks is Eraser (currently in v. 4.11), which can be downloaded for free from http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/. It has three security levels, performs multiple overwrites, and makes it virtually impossible to recover any data wiped from your hard disk. Similar, but enhanced, procedures can be performed with Evidence Eliminator v5.053 available from the same download URL. This is shareware ($74.95) which you can try for free. It wipes swap files, recent documents, run histories, find histories, and other designated files.

If you are using Atari, Mac, or UNIX systems, you can find useful anti-virus and security tools at ftp://ciac.llnl.gov/pub/ciac/sectools/. Other useful Web resources for security information and tools are the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team at http://www.auscert.org.au/information/tools.html, and the University of Texas at http://www.net.tamu.edu/network/public.html#Security. If you have an interest in security issues on an ongoing basis, sign up for a weekly e-newsletter from Security Alert Consensus at http://networkcomputing.com/concensus/ .

Steve O'Neil, Ph.D. is President of N'Fusion, Inc., an editorial and Internet consultancy which aids technology companies in integrating their print and online strategies, improving advertising and branding accountability, and building end-to-end e-commerce solutions. The company is headquartered in the Tampa Bay, FL area with offices and affiliates throughout the US, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Steve can be reached at stephenjo@earthlink.net or 727-742-9169.