I use logmein to remote into help them through gateway services. These nifty affordable hardware devices give them cheap third party automatic support, and I can go into their LAN without punching holes in their firewall to give them a hand.

But that is life in the desert. I hope you continue to find solutions for your customers! The small businesses of America will save this country some day, if they haven’t already!

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And they STILL haven’t learned? Sheese!!!

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I use a limited-user account on the PC and a free ZA firewall and two or three free antispyware programs and MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and . . . (you get the point), but I still worry.

I just discovered my brokerage account’s site allows me (or anyone logged on as me) to issue checks to third parties! (I need to ask if that feature can be disabled.)

I often use my wife’s Mac to do sensitive financial stuff (like paying the IRS online), but she is blase about security, so I wonder if the Mac is any safer.

Bottom line, I wish you Brian were still on Security Fix Live to address our needs and concerns and to give us neophytes information we can actually understand and use.

I also fear your audience will now be limited to professionals and, thus, the content will be directed to them.

Thanks for all you’ve done to help us sleep at night.

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In my vicinity, a judge sentenced (a hopefully former) nurse to jail today. Her charges stemmed from the theft and use of the identities of nine of her patients — all senior citizens. Her sentence: 2 years. And that’s a sentence that reflects the gathering of physical evidence.

For Internet crimes, I think the culprit will always try because it will take a while to find and charge him or her. By that time, the culprit could move onto something else. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be a good stiff sentence for crimes committed via the Internet. If the only deterrence is a slap on the wrist, people will try it just for the quick thrill. It’s sort of like robo calls, the politicians know it is happening, but they just can’t bring themselves to add any real muscle to the laws.

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Just curious: What do you think of the proposals to increase security by making the Internet less anonymous? Certainly the Internet as we know it would change. We would give up privacy but we would have the tools to shut down lots of malware-hosting computers.

My personal opinion is that the Internet will migrate towards less privacy as we increasingly trust it it to handle critical operations. But we most likely will have to go through a catastrophe before we recognize the need.

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Also, your email form uses the same character for 0 and zero…

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Clearly this is something that is not happening with regards to the Internet. Current problems were not anticipated or dealt with effectively. Neither are future problems. Considering that the IPv4 address space is expected to be exhausted next year and that IPv6 is projected to have a 25% penetration this year, it’s obvious that solutions are slow to be implemented.

The core issue relating to Internet security is that people who misuse the system are not held accountable for their actions. The only way to resolve this problem is to limit the means by which these people can remain anonymous. Which means we all lose some of the freedoms we have long taken for granted.

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You do some great work Brian. Keep at it.

What keeps me up at night? Small businesses that are connected to the Internet.

The last thing that kept me awake was checking a new customer’s application server. The owner and I had a successful meeting. We had discussed getting a network topography created to help me understand his application set. That night, on a dare from my wife, I tried logging into both servers using RDP. Administrator and Password of course. I was shocked when it worked. Both M$ Windows 2003 R2 servers were wide open. No AV/MW protection at all. Just for grins-n-giggles I opened IE 6.x on the app server and checked the history. http://www.auto.ru was the last entry. It was sheer luck that they had just logged on that day. I tripped off the app server and domain controller and then shut down the cable modem (that one was little tougher just admin and blank) I was there at first light to “sell” a few things to the owner. True story.

Most small businesses think they are too small to be noticed. Many more feel they get a poor ROI on AV/MW/Firewalls/site blocking/SSL email or banking/and least-privilege user. Most fail to understand the importance of automatic (and free) updates. Most assume that IE is OK since M$ Office works so well. Most assume that Firefox is only for geeks. I could go on for hours.

Most small businesses cannot afford even a medium level of Internet security from IT consultants. They simply will not prepay for three to four hours of monthly security service. It is tough to change that mindset when all their other costs are soaring.

What keeps me awake at night? The day that I tell a small business owner that I have to re-image all his servers and workstations using dated/suspect/missing backups. (These tapes from Dell cost $40 a piece and you want me to buy 10 of them? Can’t I just use a USB drive for Best Buy?) Can I really charge a client who is dead-in-the-water $3,500 to $4,500 for a 36 hour marathon rebuild session? Can I afford not to?

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What keeps me up at night is being part of a major corporation that still runs IE6 due to “Oracle compatibility” issues, still runs Adobe Reader 8.1.x because it’s “someone else’s software” and the team can’t be persuaded to update it, still runs Flash Plugin 9.0x. for the same reason, and continues to have ZERO management response to users who are having their machine reimaged for the 9th time after “taking it home for the weekend”.
Looking the other way is a poor defense, something we manage to prove daily…

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