encryption, how important is it? This was the topic of lesson 13 of the internet specialist 101 course. I’m trying to find the good papers I think we can discuss, and I think this one is going to be one. Your thoughts are welcome as usual.
Encryption has many benefits. The most important benefit is the protection of data including usernames, passwords, and credit card and banking information. Most web sites today are going to encryption due to the recent supposed hacks of data. While that can help, hackers are very sophistocated, and having an encrypted connection can help to a point. We still need to deal with the social engineering, and other attacks that plague the net today which could bypass the secure aspects which is how some of these hacks are made.
I do use paypal, and find it to be of use for payments. I also have a payment processor now for credit cards as well.
I do shopping online, and it doesn’t surprise me that the lesson indicates that it is safer than giving your credit card to a clerk for processing. Even today, most clerks are having you doing the swiping, and target and other hacks among the last few years prove that it is not as secure as we thought. I am not sure how these POS (payment operating systems) work, except they use a version of XP that is not patched and is open to the internet.
I have paid people for services using my bank. I’ve never stepped foot in to my bank, I’ve set up bill pay, and they have mailed a check. In one case, the check never made it, and I told the bank who just mailed another one and cancelled the check they sent. No money was taken until the check was deposited. Online sure makes this process a lot easier.
The board awaits you.
Interesting thoughts, and true, however, as we all know, most of everything is moving behind TLS, which was SSL which is encryption. I do agree that businesses need the encryption, because they receive credit card and other sensitive pieces of information. As a specialist, we need to understand what we’re telling people, and using a password manager such as lastpass is a good idea. While the last pass folks had a few issues, no data was taken, and that is what is important. There are other types of managers similar to lastpass. I do not think its a good idea to use a handful of passwords, only because if one is stolen somehow, it can be tried elsewhere.
Ransomeware is new and taking off well. Encryption can’t help against it because it starts at the E-mail level if i’m understanding what I’m reading. This is where you need to understand what you’re doing, and asking yourself if thats really something you’re looking for?
For example, I’ve gotten E-mails claiming to be resumes. Resumes are things you send to employers to look at to see if you qualify for the job you’ve applied for. My version of word just refused to open the file, saying access denied. This is one way that ransomware can get through according to what I’ve read on the Trend Micro blog.
For those who don’t read this stuff, it is quite interesting, and my twitter account has some of the stuff I’ve read as of late. I really think you should check it out so you can understand whats happening.
Shaun, I do respect your comments, and each person is going to be different. I appreciate you participating in the discussion, and others can chime in with their opinion. Thanks for posting!
I think its quite important for a business.
However you really need a password manager to handle passwords especially if you have more than 1.
Then you need a random generator and well you eventually need to store those somewhere.
Yes you can incript everything but it can work and it can be hell.
We have crypto blockers for example, you can’t say incription is that good.
And what about if you get corrupted files or out of date software which dissapears making your files useless?
I have not a password manager, most of my stuff runs with a range of 6 or so passwords.
Most of the free stuff has one password for everything bar mail, twitter, bank, paypal, internet and a few other things.
I have not got a manager but if I forget I just make another password for the site.
I have been hacked a few times, a couple times it was something I had done a couple times it was just things being stupid.
A few of us have security software on our phones, a few say it slows things down.
I have people saying that updating systems and securing them will just screw them up and cause trouble.
Incription is still good in the majority of cases, but in most cases it can work against you.
If you are a pirate, terrorist, etc you can hide behind it.
If you are the law it can be hard to get that handled.
If you forget your password then what, you need to note it down in a place in unincripted form oh wow so if someone finds it hmmm.
I mean we have things like capchas to stop spammers and scammers, if they want your info they will get it.
We will have to find ways to secure things and when they get bashed we will have to find new says.
Standard incription I am uncertain if it will survive, while a lot of us use it, so do our enemies.
To hide or against the users.
I mean if you are held to ransom, you will pay the chrim even if you don’t want to.
I would pay even if I had to steal the cash just so I could get my stuff back.
So they win.
I always act tough and so do the rest of us but when you are hit you will do anything to get back.
THe easiest way is to pay out the scammer and hope you get your stuff back.