Modern Internet browsers offer the ability to install extra functionality to make surfing easier, faster and safer. This functionality is enabled through browser extensions (Chrome, Opera), also known as addons (Microsoft Edge) or plugins (Firefox For example, LastPass lets you generate complex passwords and use them across browsers and devices securely. But they can also make browsing less secure.
Extensions Make Browsing Less Secure
Internet browser extensions can make browsing less secure in several ways:
Extensions may require access to your Internet activity and private information.
Extensions increase the uniqueness of your browser fingerprint, which makes you easier to identify to advertisers, governments and hackers.
But extensions can also be installed behind the scenes when installing other software. The Adobe Acrobat reader is commonly installed by other apps. Invasive search extensions and home page and search engine replacements are also installed deceptively when installing unrelated software.
What should I do?
Remove unused extensions. Disabled extensions remain visible in your browser fingerprint and offer hacking opportunities.
Limit access to the extension to read and change all your data on websites you visit. In some browsers, you can allow it only when clicked, only on specific websites, or all the time (e.g. password managers).
Update your extensions regularly, but also check for ownership changes. The Qualsys BrowserCheck shows if you need updates.
Posted by: kguske on Sunday, October 03, 2021 @ 09:18:20 CDT
A Domain Name System (DNS) Server translates the an Internet address from a domain name to an IP address, which allows your browser or other Internet client find what you're looking for on the Internet. When a domain name is registered or set to be hosted on a web server, the domain registrar notifies the DNS, triggering updates to DNS servers around the world. A phone book is a common analogy because it performs the same function as a DNS server, but with people's names and their phone numbers. But these days, who uses a phone book?
What's wrong with whatever DNS server I'm using now?
1. Privacy
Many Internet users have no idea what a DNS server is, much less why they should probably change it to use a secure alternative. By default, computers, smart phones and other devices on a network use the DNS server provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your ISP or mobile carrier is happy to provide a DNS service, because they can track your Internet activity and even use that information to limit your service. If you visit unapproved or illegal websites or use bandwidth on certain services, your ISP can limit or terminate your service. The ISP can sell your DNS activity to advertisers for added revenue. Some ISPs aggregate this information to make it harder to link the traffic to you, but advertisers have many ways to get around aggregation (a topic for another day). Naturally, advertising providers like Google offer DNS servers with wide availability and great performance, all for the "free" price of getting access to your DNS usage.
2. Speed
Making DNS servers available around the world costs money. ISPs and other DNS providers may cut corners by reducing the number and / or limiting hardware of their DNS servers, which can slow the response provided by the DNS server.
3. Security
Since ISPs have a captive audience with default DNS servers, security may not be a primary concern. Unencrypted traffic (which is much easier and less expensive to provide) and poorly maintained DNS servers have increased security risks, including (according to Security Trails writer Sara Jelen):
Domain hijacking, which involves changes in your DNS servers and domain registrar that can direct traffic away from your original servers to different destinations.
DNS flood attack, a type of DDoS attack in which the attacker hits your DNS server in order to overload it, so it can’t continue serving DNS requests.
DNS spoofing, or DNS cache poisoning, which is one of the most common DNS attacks around. By exploiting system vulnerabilities, attackers will try to inject malicious data into your DNS resolvers’ cache. You would then be redirected to another remote server.
DNS hijacking, which involves malware infections used to hijack DNS. Malware hosted on the local computer can alter TCP/IP configurations so they can point to a malicious DNS server, redirecting traffic to a phishing website.
Some DNS servers offer additional security by filtering ads and malicious websites, and / or redirecting mistyped web addresses to the correct website. Filtering at the DNS server makes your browser fingerprint less unique since you won't need to add plugins that can be used to identify you.
Use a Secure DNS Server
To address these issues, Jelen recommends using a secure DNS server. This can be configured on your router so all devices on your network use the secure DNS server, instead of your ISP's. She recommends these free, secure DNS servers, several of which offer filtering and other features:
During October, SwampGeek.com will provide tips and guides across the spectrum of areas with cybersecurity risks.
The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) along with the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCSA) are promoting Cybersecurity Awareness Month with its COVID-inspired theme and suggested hashtag:
Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart.
CISA offers the public resources to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. NCSA also offers resources to help you stay safe online.
So check it out and #BeCyberSmart.
Posted by: kguske on Thursday, September 30, 2021 @ 22:49:19 CDT
As of June 1, 2021, Google users will be paying to be the product when Google ends free unlimited Google Photos storage. After that date, Google combines storage of new photos with Gmail and Google Drive, currently limited to 15GB for free. To ease the (pain) transition, the company estimates when your current storage will run out, based on historical usage. Gee, thanks! Even worse, the company will purge inactive accounts. Free Google Workspace, formerly Google Apps, accounts suffered a similar fate.
This update breaks the terms of the original contract with users: give us access to sell the private info we collect from your photos, and we'll let you store and search them for free. But Google expects you to keep your part of the original bargain: it will continue to collect and market your personal information from those photos, even if you pay for storage. To make matters worse, Google makes deleting photos difficult for those who want to continue using Google's storage within free limits. For now, you can still add photos while they're free. But those who don't agree to the new terms have alternatives to the impacted services: Gmail, Google Photos and Google Drive.
How can you reduce the spoofing of Facebook accounts? Asking for a friend...(actually, for all of them!)
"If you get a friend request or Facebook message from me, ignore it - I've been hacked." Technically, you've been "spoofed," not hacked. The spoofer merely created an account pretending to be yours for any number of nefarious reasons. And it turns out that a simple privacy setting may have prevented that, or at least limited the scope of the spoof.
Here's how to reduce spoofing by limiting access to your Facebook friends list.
A Wall Street Journal article "Why You Need a VPN - and How to Choose the Right One" prompted a discussion on the benefits of using virtual private networks, or VPNs. VPNs can be an important part of online security and also of online privacy. VPNs are absolutely necessary when connecting to a public network (hotel, coffee shops, airports, etc.). However, using a VPN can also cause problems, and there are other tools that can complete your toolbox for online security and privacy.
With the pending release of Wordpress 5.0 - including the Gutenberg editor / page builder, an evaluation of leading themes and page builders is in order. This detailed comparison will consider features, usability, performance and price.
And there are several other articles that discuss even more open source initiatives. Important questions remain. Are Open Source initiatives forcing commercial vendors to consolidate or disappear? Does the future belong to Open Source? (article in progress)
It's free, or not to be...
IBM released database (Cloudscape) technology as open source. Computer Associates released its Ingress database to the open source community. SAP gave it's MaxDB to MySQL as open source. These major software vendors hope to gain market share to increase services revenue, making these open source offerings loss-leaders, in a sense. But, without the mass development made possible through an open source model, these databases likely would not have been able to compete with more successful commercial competitors DB2, Oracle and SQLServer and their deep-pocketed vendors. Sun's release of Solaris as open source seems like an admission that it can't compete with Windows, but possibly with Linux...
Of course, most open source software is hardly recycled shelfware. Linux, Apache's HTTP server, MySQL's database and the PHP web scripting language have proven their superiority over commercial rivals for many applications - and it will be even more difficult for the commercial vendors to catch up.
High-quality open source applications have started to prove worthy in higher-end applications as well.SugarCRM (and others) offer full-function CRM applications via open source. Open source content management applications (too numerous to mention), customer service / help desk, compete more than favorably with their commercial counterparts.
Why is it free?
Is it secure?
Posted by: kguske on Monday, October 22, 2018 @ 20:37:30 CDT
The former CIO of Cardinal Health is developing an alternative to offshore IT outsourcing. Her company, Rural Sourcing, Inc. (RSI), operates in low-cost rural areas in the US to compete with offsource outsourcers, and the idea is catching on.Kathy Brittain White started RSI after working with several large companies like Mattel and Cardinal Health, where she worked with offshore outsourcers. Her approach is to create development centers near rural universities, combining rigorous high-quality development methodologies with local resources in a low-cost environment. RSI's first two development centers are in Arkansas. Other companies, like Aurora Consulting Group, Inc. near Buffalo, NY, have a similar approach. RSI is taking advantage of incentives from New Mexico and North Carolina to open development centers there in 2005.
Large companies and government providers are increasingly working with rural outsourcers because rural outsourcing addresses the problems of offshore outsourcing:
face-to-face communication, time-zone, language and cultural differences, and citizenship requirements for government work. But, possibly even more important, it can also provide evidence in an ongoing debate on whether the real benefits of offshore outsourcing outweigh the real costs. Many IT workers believe this issue is swept under the rug by company leaders seeking to protect their public company's stock price.
If so, rural outsourcing's competition may be a sleeping giant. In addition to lower costs, offshore outsourcers tout higher productivity and processes compliant with international quality standards. But they haven't provided much proof - not that US companies are asking. Instead, the ITAA defends offshoring with conflicting arguments, claiming there is a shortage of IT labor in the US and that the loss of 35,000 IT jobs per year is related to economic conditions and the burst of the Internet and telecom bubbles. The ITAA, referred to by some US IT professionals as a lobbyist for offshore outsourcers, doesn't include outsourcing in the list of IT issues on its website, even though 11 of the 25 headlines listed there are related to outsourcing issues, and disputes of its studies supporting offshoring have been presented as testimony to Congress.
But some big service providers with significant investments in offshore locations like CapGemini have noticed rural outsourcing and are developing rural centers themselves. However, they question whether smaller rural outsourcers can handle bigger projects. Ramping up for new projects hasn't been an issue for RSI, notes White.
Others question the positive impact of rural outsourcing on IT employment. In a Computerworld editorial, Frank Hayes described the "Farmshore Future." He argues that this won't be good for the corporate IT worker because it provides more incentives for companies to replace employees with outsourced workers, even if they are still in the US.
Rural outsourcing employees may earn less than their urban counterparts. They may live in less popular and less expensive areas, but they have jobs and pay taxes, and for many, that is the point.
Posted by: kguske on Monday, October 22, 2018 @ 20:32:56 CDT
Stolen from the ever-hilarious Fool.com, this list is guaranteed to make you "search" for a laugh...
10. Free worm with every search.
9. Google renamed "Microoosoooft."
8. Google becomes default search engine on all computers; attempts to use Yahoo! causes PCs to emit a pungent odor.
7. The search choices on Google will change from "Web," "Images," "Groups," "Directory," and "News" to "Web," "Shop Microsoft," "Buy From Microsoft Because You Have No Choice," and "Steve Ballmer Dancing."
6. Google Image Search will not show Microsoft's dark side.
5. All searches on the term "Steve Jobs" will return bios on Art Garfunkel, Ike Turner, Burt Ward (a.k.a. Robin), and other second fiddles.
4. Long speeches from Bill Gates about how "Smart Appliances" will allow owners to use Google to search for what's in their fridge. When pressed, Gates admits such appliances are only available in his mansion, and that he's never actually seen his refrigerator.
3. Microsoft uses Google technology to search for weapons of monopolistic destruction.
2. All searches on the term "Larry Ellison" will produce lists of garbage-collection websites.
1. "Bill Gates is richer than Warren Buffett" subliminally inserted into all search results.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Anil Sabharwal, Head of Google Photos, May 28, 2015 introducing Google Photos: "
