I have attended a number of presentations over the last week, and one has really stuck with me... Unfortunately not because of how good it was. The presentation was about the current state of internet security. The person was really passionate about identity theft, but was way over the top with his message. The result was that anything of value was lost...
My recall of the presentation goes as follows:
You use fly buys - wow... Don't use fly buys
You use internet banking - wow... Don't use internet banking
You don't encrypt your hard drive - wow...
don't leave your computer on...
don't access the internet
You use internet explorer - wow... Don't use IE
You use office - wow don't use office
(now let me go a little further...)
don't use a computer
don't cross the road
don't drive a car
don't carry cash
don't deal with banks
don't deal with people
Become a hermit and remove yourself from society
That is the logical extension of the presentation...
Now unfortunately there was no real advice. There was nothing of value that you could take away from the presentation. In a work environment many people use Office, they are going to need to. Saying don't use office is not going to help. Saying, office has a large number of issues, these are the main ones, this is what you can do to avoid many issues, these are the risks that you cant avoid, etc. That would be useful, you can take something away from the presentation. Just saying 'don't use it' is really a waste of time. I use it every day and I'm still here...
If you give a presentation think about what your audience is taking away. If there is nothing for them they will not be satisfied.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
The Security Guy
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5 comments:
I don't use Fly buys (1)
I don't use internet banking (1)
I don't encrypt my data (0)
I don't leave my computer on (1)
I use the net (0)
I don't use IE (1)
I'm moving off MS Office (.5)
4.5 out of 7. Not bad.
But if I download the wrong file my computer is still fekked.
Funny he didn't mention Security software?
It is that issue, if you don't see what burns you, you will never discover anything.
We wouldn't have gone to the moon if we feared it.
Sounds like you've had a lot of your time wasted. But you need to hit him back. Mention names, link to blog.
These people will just hinder the development of IT.
On the other hand
"Become a hermit and remove yourself from society" I wonder how much better life would be?
I'm thinking the hermit option may have some merit.
... country side of spain ....
- Xavier
www.apple.com.au
Enough said :-).
-Hari
We could break this down into three categories.
1) People who are blissfully unaware of the risks and as a result take no precations.
2) People who are aware of the risks and take sensible precautions yet understand they can't be 100% risk free.
3) People who are aware of the risks and are so afraid of them thaht they are paralised and can take no action just in case it exposes them to more risk (think: hermit)
I'd like to think of myself in the number 2 category. I hope most people are in that category.
Just trying to scare the s**t out of people and push them into category 3 is counter productive.
BTW, apple is no more secure than any other OS in these respects. You could download the "frag my computer" script for OS X just as easily as for Windows.
What about when they first released OS X 10.4? Saffari, by default, would automaticly download and install "widgets" from web pages you visited. What's a widget? Oh, just a little bit of executable code ;)
The only secure system is a non-existant system.
OS X is more secure than Windows for example, because of its default settings (first account in Windows always has Administrative access, for example).
The only reason my installation of Windows hasn't fallen prey to various security issues is because I fit into the second category that you listed.
Before SP2, Windows machines were often infected within minutes of installation when connected to the Internet (because of Blaster or whatever that RPC worm was called).
It's a sad state of affairs when a secure system is one that isn't infected within minutes of installation.
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