Malware and Fraud

If you are an IT pro, more than likely you end up supporting many of your relatives and friends PCs and networks. I have my stable of software that I like to use to protect them. I can't just move them to Ubuntu. That's just not realistic right now. So I install Adaware from Lavasoft, Spybot Search and Destroy from safer-networking.org, Rootkit revealer, and Microsoft Defender. After installing these and running all the scans I patch their OS and their IE. I download the latest version of Firefox. Then I make a restore point and back up their data directories to my USB drive.

Then I sit with them and discuss a bit about what they do with their PC. I'll surf a bit with them watching so that I can show them the different types of messages that they will get during a browser session. I will show them the dialogs and explain some of the different ways that attacks can come. I discuss the potential for them to move up to the paid version of the above software. This allows them to get some of the extra features that might help automate the protection of their PC.

Then if they have been compromised I will discuss with them how to use the free credit report from the three credit reporting agencys to monitor their credit. Most people think that you only get one credit report per year. The law states that you get 1 per year from 'each' reporting agency. This means that you can pull a credit report 3 times per year. The other thing I have them look into is freezing their credit. This is available in most states. A person can place a lock on their credit and the agencies will deny any attempts to get credit in that name. This of course can be removed by the person if they need to apply for some credit. There is usually a charge to do this.

Here is a great website that usually has the latest info on breaches of security http://datalossdb.org/

If there are any other suggestions or techniques that can help manage identity risk please feel free to comment.