As far as being more secure, have any attempts been caught? Or is it that black hats are more likely to run Linux and not keen on voiding their bowels in their own sandbox?

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o InternetExplorer or Firefox/Opera

o JavaScript everywhere or Maintain JavaScript whitelist

o no filter or Privoxy

o Windows $$$ + AntiMalware $$$ OR Linux 0$

(Guess which side gets us repeatedly infected)

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A bit of a side note since you’re working with small businesses. I currently work in retail computer sales and another thing that can easily get a small business in serious trouble is improperly licenced software. Not really a security issue I know but many small businesses don’t know that they need to pay close attention to the licence agreements. I find myself constantly explaining to small business owners that no they legally cannot run the Home & Student edition of a software because they are a business. If possible you might try to mention that in your lectures. A good case study/resource is a book written about 10 years ago by a publisher in Garrison, ND because they found themselves in that bit of hot water. Title: Slapped hard for “Softlifting” ISBN-10: 0970522401. You’ll probably have to get that book on Inter-library loan as I believe it is out of print. I know the public library in Bismarck, ND has a copy.

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I looked through three generations of your postings and what I find is pretty good stuff (of which, some I will use next week).

What would be more useful is to consider what could go wrong in a small business with IT/information/networks and how those things have happened to small businesses with what consequences. Much of what I’ve seen in the first three groups of stories is related to ZeuS infections which, while interesting, is a narrow range of a wide range of threats/consequences.

I’ve seen statistics (and stories) related to what happens if a small business loses all or a significant percentage of their business data. These are useful when discussing making and testing data backups.

I will dig a little deeper into your files to see what else I can come up with, but a topical organization under the umbrella of small business incidents would be helpful (and, which you might already have and I haven’t discovered yet).

Thanks for your help!
Rich

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http://krebsonsecurity.com/category/smallbizvictims/

Or were you referring to some other kind of resource collection?

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One of the tools that I need (and have a difficult time finding) is a set of case studies (can be brief) about small businesses who have been victimized by various threats.

Krebsonsecurity.com has some useful stories – buried in the rest of the material, but I would like to see a small document having useful case studies that myself and folks like me could use in our teaching.

One of the biggest problems that I have is that many (if not most) small businesses don’t think there is a problem or that they have a problem with information security (even if they do nothing to find/mitigate their vulnerabilities. They think this because they never hear of any such problems generally facing small businesses. They hear about the Fortune 500 companies, but not small businesses or organizations.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

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Several commenters have mentioned education of the user community. The real problem is that computers are still too complex for the average user unless that user is technically inclined. How many people do you know that could set the time and recording schedule on their VCRs, a much simpler procedure than maintaining a computer (IMHO).

As the younger generations that were raised with a computer in the house mature, this will become less of a problem, but there will always be users out there who expect a computer to be no different than a TV, and put no more thought and effort into using it than they would to change TV stations. Until computers, or their successors, become more like a radio, and less like a cockpit, this problem will be with us.

I am a relatively computer savvy senior, and work with seniors to help them with their computer problems. This age group, in addition to having an innate apprehension of such a complex device. are frequently confused by the jargon, and acronyms. I would expect the boomers who used computers in their jobs would be more savvy, but still not all at the technical level needed to master the beast. I have recommended this site to many of my friends, seniors and younger, because it is a good source of information. Sadly, most don’t understand half of what they read here. Not a criticism of the site, just a fact of life.

Full disclosure: I’m a Mac user because I think Windows is more difficult to manage and use. I do not advocate for Apple however, and most of the folks I help run some flavor of Windows. My experience with W7 so far have been very favorable.

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