15 Online Security and Privacy Tips for College Students

The internet was developed on university campuses, and it revolutionized education. As a student, you probably don’t have access to a highly secured campus network that restricts and regulates the traffic and new devices. You’re responsible for your own online security, so here are some tips to help you be safe and privacy-savvy on campus. 1. Keep Security Systems Up to Date All of your connected devices should have updated antivirus, operating software and apps. Turn the auto updates on! It’s important to have the latest protection against viruses, malware and other threats to which you’re exposed.

2. Check Your Bank Statements Frequently This should become a habit. Aim to check your statements once a day, so you’ll make sure all transactions are legitimate.

3. Only Shop on Secure Sites Online shopping is great but you have to make sure you’re doing it from a secure network. Avoid sensitive transactions like shopping and banking when using a public campus network; instead, consider using a virtual private network (VPN) or your smartphone’s hotspot for more secure browsing.

Pay attention to the websites, too. Check to make sure the URL starts with https:// and search for reviews to make sure it’s safe.

4. Back Everything Up What if you’re working on an important research project and you lose everything right before the deadline? Store your work safely on the cloud or on an external hard drive.

5. Get Informed About Ransomware Hackers can remotely lock your computer and keep your private files encrypted until you pay them. Do not pay the ransom! Get informed so you’ll know what to do in such a situation. To protect your files from this, be wary about clicking links or opening attachments in emails.

6. Improve Your Passwords Do not use the same password for different services. Avoid passwords that are easy to guess, such as those that include your name, birthday or address. Make your password a sentence that is at least 12 characters long – focus on positive sentences that are easy to remember – on many sites you can even use spaces!

7. Never Share Passwords So you’re expecting an important email and you thought your roommate could check it for you? Do not do that! It doesn’t mean you don’t trust them. Do not share your passwords!

8. Keep Your Passwords Safe How do you remember all those passwords? Do not keep them in a note on your phone. If someone gets their hands on it, they will have access to everything. Write the passwords in your diary, a notebook or a piece of paper that you’ll keep in a safe place away from your computer – or consider using a password manager that will store them for you.

9. Learn What to Do in Case of a Data Breach Campus networks and servers are at risk of a data breach, meaning hackers can break in to computer accounts. You can’t do much to protect yourself against these practices, but if there is a breach impacting your accounts, immediately change all passwords. Check and control your bank statements, too!

10. Use Public Computers Very Carefully You’re using a computer in the library? Never save your passwords on the websites you visit. Always log out before leaving a website. Delete all files you may have downloaded or saved from the device.

11. Don’t Fall for a Phishing Scam If a suspicious site or email or other message asks for sensitive information like your credit card number, Social Security number or phone number, do not provide it.

12. Protect Your Devices Protecting your devices includes keeping them safe from physical theft. Never leave devices unattended in public. When you leave your devices in your room on campus, don’t leave them in a visible spot. You can use a cable lock for laptops and other devices to keep them secure.

13. Manage Your – and Others’ – Privacy No one should post photos of you on social media without your permission. Unflattering content – or photos of you under the influence or engaging in risky behavior – could present disciplinary risks and/or impact your ability to get jobs in the future. Ask friends to get your permission before posting about you, and do the same for them. The golden rule applies online as well.

14. Think Before You Click Before you open any email or click any link you’re not sure about, stop and think. Make sure your antivirus is updated. Think: do you really need to click? When in doubt about a link or attachment, throw it out.

15. Share With Care Social media is all about sharing, but it doesn’t mean you should make your whole life public. Do not make your personal information public. You don’t have to inform the world when you’re leaving the dorm room and leaving your belongings unattended.

5 Technology Security Tips for Businesses

In the wake of new high-profile cybersecurity breaches, such as those experienced by Equifax and Deloitte, the subject of protecting technology and data is on everyone’s mind. Even if your business is not as big of a target as Deloitte or Equifax, protecting your and your customers’ sensitive data is a major obligation. Cybercriminals look for any opening to commit a virtual smash-and-grab. Letting your guard down for even a moment is typically all the opportunity the bad guys need to commit a crime that can have dramatic and catastrophic effects on your business and your customers’ financial stability. Knowing this, it makes sense for all businesses to establish some commonsense safeguards when it comes to their use of technology. Although having strong cybersecurity protocols in place and partnering with a qualified cybersecurity firm, such as Nebula Consulting, can go a long way to protecting data and technology, following a few simple procedures also can have a significant impact on security posture.

STAY AWAY FROM PUBLIC HOTSPOTS It cannot be stressed enough how dangerous it is to share one’s personal or financialIt cannot be stressed enough how dangerous it is to share one’s personal or financialinformation with any website or any person over the Internet while using a public connection.Public Wi-Fi networks are common hunting grounds for attackers and data snoopers who tryto access users’ personal information. Since public networks have negligible security, usersshould try to avoid using them while making online payments – or if they really have to, thenthey must use a VPN – a Virtual Private Network.

KNOW WHERE YOUR DATA IS Even if you use a third party for payment transactions, you are still liable for managing the data. You need to check to make sure you’re not securing credit card payment information on mobile devices and that the data center you’re using to store data has fully-implemented information security policies and procedures in accordance with PCI requirements and industry standards. These also apply to any storage of personal data associated with customers and employees. It’s mandated this information be securely held.

MANAGE PASSWORDS As basic as this might seem, passwords continue to be incredibly important. Require your employees to use strong passwords and to change them often – every 90 days. Use a password manager and employ other factors for authentication, where possible to build defense in depth.

USE A RELIABLE E-COMMERCE PAYMENT SOLUTION Safe payment acceptance technology integrated within your website ensures any transaction completed via a credit card will be secure. The consumer will be able to make purchases without any personal information being accessed by outside forces, and your bank accounts connected to the website will also be secure. You, as well as the consumer, can feel comfortable completing payments within your site.

SECURITY LAYERS When it comes to DDoS attacks, proxy or scrubbing services should be used. Firewalls can help limit DDoS attacks, but they suffer from the same resource issues that a web server or router would when attacked. They may handle it a bit better but are not considered DDoS prevention tools. E-commerce sites can benefit from cloud-based DDoS protection and managed domain name system services to further protect themselves from attacks. Always employ best practices in the software development process.

Avoid Falling Victim to Card Skimmers with This Android App

Most of us use debit or credit cards to pay at all kinds of locations without much thought. But these cards, especially at high-traffic locations like ATMs and fuel pumps, pose a special risk. Hopefully you know to look for the danger signs of a compromised ATM (like a fake number pad). Recently, a new type of device has become popular for fraudsters to install on card readers at gas stations. These can steal your card info without you even noticing, and transmit the stolen details via Bluetooth.

If you want an extra measure of security against these attacks, you should install the free Android app Skimmer Scanner.

Open up this simple app, make sure you have Bluetooth enabled, and tap Scan. Your phone will then search for nearby Bluetooth devices commonly used to skim cards and alert you if there’s a compromised scanner nearby. It will generate a list of nearby Bluetooth devices, including those that are harmless like your car system and your smartwatch. When it’s done scanning, you’ll see if it detected any scam devices.

Of course, this isn’t foolproof. Just because it doesn’t find a device doesn’t mean that the card reader is safe. Also, if you find a device, remember that you may accidentally authenticate your device’s Bluetooth to it, which could identify your device to the criminals using it. Don’t try to remove any skimmers yourself — let the station employees know and they can take the appropriate action.

In all, this is a great app to keep around. Running a quick scan before you pump gas only takes a moment, and could save you from the annoyance of having your card stolen. Just don’t let your guard down because you have the app in your corner.

Top Free Antivirus Apps Without Nag Screens and Bloatware

Most computer users know that they need an antivirus to protect their machines from the many threats of the modern web. While there are plenty of free antivirus programs, many of them stay free by constantly bugging you to upgrade to the paid version or installing some unnecessary browser extension. If you’re installing an antivirus for a novice computer user, you don’t want them confused by all kinds of nagging popups. Even advanced users get tired of these.

To this end, we’ve picked out some free antivirus suites that don’t constantly nag you or install a bunch of unnecessary junk. We’ve started with the cleanest solutions and end with a few that have popups by default, but are easily disabled by flipping one setting.

Windows Defender Let’s start with the default antivirus in Windows 10. Windows Defender had some issues in its infancy, but it’s grown into a solid antivirus with several pros in its corner.

One of the biggest reasons to use it is the complete lack of nag screens. There’s no premium version of Windows Defender, so you won’t ever see a popup asking you to pay for it. Windows Defender sits quietly and does its job, only alerting you if there’s an issue. You don’t have to worry about any “special offers” with this solution, either. Finally, Windows Defender updates through Windows Update, which is automatic in Windows 10.

Sophos Home Sophos isn’t one of the biggest names in antivirus programs, but it’s still an excellent contender. You’ll have to register for an account before you download the antivirus, but it’s a small inconvenience for a nag-free antivirus tool. The installer is pretty large, so it might take several minutes to get it set up.

Once Sophos is ready, you’ll find that opening it results in a simple panel with no ads. Click Manage My Security to open Sophos’s website, where you can sign in and manage how the antivirus runs. Open the Configure tab, and you can even set up basic web filtering for your computer. You can block or issue a warning for categories like gambling, violence, and alcohol.

Immunet The open source antivirus ClamAV has been around on Linux for a while, and developers have ported it to other platforms too. The standard Windows client hasn’t seen an update in over a year. However, ClamAV recommends you try Immunet, a full antivirus published by Cisco and powered by ClamAV’s engine.

Immunet doesn’t have a paid version, so there’s zero nag screens or bloatware to worry about. What makes this antivirus unique is that it’s community-based — if the app detects an infection on someone’s system, it automatically blocks it for everyone else who uses Immunet. Even better, it only takes up a few MB of space.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Bitdefender is another great beginner-friendly antivirus. It doesn’t present tons of options to confuse you, and like any good antivirus should, it sits quietly in the background protecting your PC. There’s also no bundled junk to watch out for during the installation.

Once you’ve activated Bitdefender, click the gear icon at the top of the window and select Account info. Disable the Display notifications with special offers option to prevent popups for the paid version of Bitdefender from showing up. After that, you shouldn’t need to pop open its panel again.

Panda Free Antivirus Panda is a solid third-party antivirus. It includes a few “special offers” during installation and you must disable its ads, but doing so is easy enough so we’ve included it in the fifth spot here.

When you install it, make sure to uncheck the three boxes to avoid installing Panda’s useless browser extension and changing your homepage and search provider. Panda will ask for an email address to create an account when you launch it, but you can close this as the app works fine without it.

Once you have Panda installed, you need to flip one setting to disable all annoyances. Open the app and click the Menu icon in the upper-left corner of the window. Select Settings and scroll down to the bottom of the General tab. Uncheck Show Panda news and Show relevant security news here.

Now Panda will keep quiet unless it detects a problem. Plus, Panda doesn’t pile a load of extra garbage into its free offering. Since it’s a cloud antivirus, this makes for a relatively light package.

Avira Avira is one of the “big three” antivirus providers (along with Avast and AVG), and arguably the least annoying of them. As long as you avoid installing the extra junk, it’s a relatively light antivirus. However, while we didn’t see any in our testing, some users have reported that Avira occasionally displays a popup advertising its premium product. Thus we excluded it from the main list above, but still included it here in case you hate all five of the above solutions.

When you head to Avira’s download page, make sure you download the Free Antivirus and not Free Security Suite when offered. The latter packs in a ton of bloat that you don’t need.

Once Avira starts installing, avoid installing any of the extra nonsense. Don’t click Install for free on any of the extras like Avira Safe Shopping and Avira System Speedup. You can click the Skip all text in the upper-right and wait for Avira to finish up the install.

If you dig into Avira’s settings by clicking the Settings gear in the bottom-left of the program’s window, you can select General, then turn off Acoustic alerts and Warnings if you wish. These are actual problems that you may want notifications for, however.

Health Information Privacy – Why You Should Care

We are all aware of the recent headlines about major data breaches of personal information and similar cyber incidents, from the theft of 145 million records from a major credit reporting agency to reports about ransomware shutting down businesses. But of all the data that is at risk, a breach of our health information is probably the most concerning.

Does your business manage healthcare data? If so, contact our cyber security experts for a free security audit!

•  Health data is very personal and may contain information we wish to keep confidential (e.g., mental health records) or potentially impact employment prospects or insurance coverage (e.g., chronic disease or family health history).
• It is long living – an exposed credit card can be canceled, but your medical history stays with you a lifetime.
• It is very complete and comprehensive – the information health care organizations have about their patients includes not only medical data, but also insurance and financial account information. This could be personal information like Social Security numbers, addresses or even the names of next of kin. Such a wealth of data can be monetized by cyber adversaries in many ways.
• In our digital health care world, the reliable availability of accurate health data to clinicians is critical to care delivery and any disruption in access to that data can delay care or jeopardize diagnosis.

The privacy and security of health information is strictly regulated in the U.S. under federal laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), but also through various state laws and laws protecting individuals against discrimination based on genetic data.

Unfortunately, health data breaches are only too common. For 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported a total of 450 health care data breaches affecting more than 27 million patients, with the 10 largest incidents accounting for half of the breached records alone (13 million). And, most concerning, more than half of all breaches were due to external cyberattacks, as opposed to accidental exposure due to human error or loss of devices.

Looking at recent examples of health care security incidents will show a wide spectrum of events and underlying motivation by the cybercriminal. We have seen reports of employees at hospitals browsing through medical records out of curiosity or posting information about patients on social media. There have also been cases in which an individual’s identity, financial or insurance information is stolen for personal gain ‒ for example to take out a mortgage or to receive medical services in somebody else’s name (and on somebody else’s insurance).

The incidents that have broader impact and affect more patients are the theft of medical records and attempts to extort health care organizations by threatening the release of stolen data. Also, health care institutions have been affected by ransomware, with some deciding to pay up and others not, choosing instead to accept the impact on patient services and loss of income.

For health care providers and insurers, there is typically no limitation for patients to disclose information about their health. Just as any patient can (and mostly should) share concerns about their health with family and friends, any patient can now easily share anything they want with the world via social media or join an online support group. Although these are generally positive steps that help an individual with health concerns find support and receive advice, we now need to be much more conscious about what we share and where it ends up.

How large is your social network, and who gets to see what you are sharing? Who is hosting the support group you just joined and what is their commitment to data privacy? Many sites, especially if hosted by reputable organizations, are safe. But how do you know what, or if any, of your information may get shared and analyzed for marketing or other purposes?

By no means should this advice be interpreted against sharing or seeking support online. The more we know, the better prepared we are, and the better health care decisions will we be able to make. The wealth of information we can derive from the internet has led to a more educated patient population that is much more capable of being engaged and part of the healing process.

However, concerns about your health care provider’s ability to protect your data should not lead to patients withholding information. Even in this digital age, the patient-doctor trust relationship is still the most important aspect of our health care system – and that trust goes both ways: patients need to trust their providers with often intimate and personal information, and providers need to know that their patients are not withholding anything due to privacy concerns.

We have entered the new age of digital medicine and almost universal availability of information, leading to better diagnosis and more successful treatments, ultimately reducing suffering and extending lives. However, this great opportunity also comes with new risks and we all – health care providers and patients alike – need to be conscious about how we use this new technology and share information.