Comodo for the Trusted Internet

I adore Comodo Firewall. I have it installed on all five computers here and it is the best firewall I have ever used. And believe me, I’ve used them all. I highly recommend Comodo for its reliability, usability, and most importantly, its security. Comodo is proving once again it’s an excellent company with innovative ideas; Comodo has recently released their brainchild, the Trusted Internet. This is from their website:

This is where every digital interaction, every online interaction will include a new layer of security and trust enabled by an entire infrastructure designed to help us create mutual and real time trust. In a Trusted Internet, we can find what we want online without wasting our time with untrustworthy merchants. We can shop far more efficiently because we can verify the site’s credibility and business practices - immediately.

And with a Trusted Internet, we will be able to do things we can’t even try to do today. With a Trusted Internet, our PCs will automatically be able to find products or information we want from reputable, authenticated merchants and “subject matter experts”. Our computers will be able to vigorously and proactively defend our identities ensuring, in real time, that our information is safe and has not been compromised. But most fundamentally it means that we will all able to connect with each other with full confidence that we can create trust online when and where we need it.

Interesting. This news comes at a time when security breaches and theft has been in the news (again). Comodo’s idea is different than the other kinds of PC security plans we’ve seen, which rely heavily on consumers’ ability to pay for security programs, and on consumers’ knowledge of security measures. New computer users are not very knowledgeable of all the threats and how to prevent them, which accounts for the enormous spread of malicious software and the degradation of the Internet experience as a whole. Comodo intends to change this by turning the Internet security system on its head– that is, treating PC security as a right, not as a priviledge.

To reach this state, we intend to change behavior and help people move from not using PC security because they can’t afford it to using PC security because we give away it away for free. We intend to change people’s low expectation of not being able to authenticate anything online to being able to authenticate everything online - identities, content and even a site’s legitimacy.

This is an amazing concept to me; overall I think it a good thing. However, will this be the end to Internet privacy, to Internet anonymity? Does the answer to PC security– across the board– mean a centralized Internet security hub  or system?

Comodo is certainly a company to watch. I love their firewall, of course, and they have outstanding antivirus and email software. This company is known for its creativity and innovation. It will be interesting to see how this Trusted Internet develops among PC users and other software companies.

What do you think? Do like the idea of a Trusted Internet? Do you think the Internet is ready for something like this?

If it does something to decrease the massive comment spam I get on my blogs, I’m all for it!

Beware the Antivirus XP

Be very careful what you download. And be very careful with the websites you visit. Before reading this article, I’d never heard of Antivirus XP 2008. It’s not an antivirus, even though it looks, feels, and acts like one. Someone very crafty made this piece of spyware!

Antivirus XP 2008 is malware– malicious software. It is downloadable into your computer, where it gives you popups, pretends to scan, opens up Internet Explorer, and “Google” tells you that it has detected a threat. And you have to pay to remove the threat. Yikes. Symantec has a good and brief decription of this program, and the C|Net Forum has a simple tutorial on how to remove it if your computer is infected.

Be very careful about the sites you visit, keep your security software updated, and never download anything unless you are sure what it is. It’s disgusting, all the junk out there. You’d think people would have better things to do than create malware and wreck people’s computers?!

Hacked Grocery Store Beefs Up Security

I blogged about the grocery store, Hannaford’s, problem with security a few weeks ago. Hannaford’s is a huge grocery store chain here in the Northeast. I was affected by the data breach (as were most Northeasterners) and had to get new credit and bank cards. I am closely monitoring my statements, still.

To be more accurate, Hannaford’s security wasn’t the real issue; the finger of blame goes (once again) toward credit card companies. You can read more about it here.

But Hannaford’s is to be commended for their speedy response to this problem.

The supermarket chain Hannaford Bros. Co. has spent millions of dollars on additional security measures since last month’s revelation that hackers may have accessed up to 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers, it said yesterday.

The grocer, based in Scarborough, Maine, has stores in Massachusetts and several other states. It has started encrypting card numbers from the moment they are swiped at checkout counters. And it has tapped IBM to monitor security for its computer network around the clock.

But Hannaford’s top security executive said some other retailers are probably still vulnerable to similar attacks. “The latest threat wasn’t anticipated,” said chief information officer Bill Homa. “The bad guys are one step ahead.”

Hannaford told Massachusetts authorities it found unauthorized computer programs, called malware, on servers in more than 270 stores. When customers swiped their credit cards, the malware intercepted the data as it was transmitted from cash register to credit card processors.

The malware stored the data - card numbers and expiration dates - on store computers and later sent the information to offshore computers, where it could presumably be picked up by the thieves.

I am appalled– APPALLED– at the complete disregard bankers and companies, and the government, for that matter, have toward us and our data. It has gone too far and we really need to pressure these people to halt their data mining!

Bluehost CEO’s Blog

I have discovered that the President and CEO of Bluehost, my new and favorite web hosting company, has a blog! It’s Matt Heaton.com. I love it when CEOs have blogs. Blogs are extremely personal and allow you to interact with the higher folks up the food chain. He has some great insights to offer about his business. This recent post about identity theft is very good.

There is no incentive to fix security problems. In fact, there is TONS of money being made by these companies on all that fraud that is happening out there. Chargeback fees to companies doing the billing are getting higher and higher. As the fraud increases Visa and others simply increase the discount rate that merchants like us pay to interchange for processing to compensate. No problem right? Wrong, guess who pays? The consumer always pays in the higher prices that merchants are forced to pass on in ever increasing credit card fees.

I’m no high-falutin’ businesswoman, but I do have some interest in how businesses run. And some of his posts are extremely enlightening to consumers like me. Give it a read, you’ll find it very interesting and readable.

Plus, it’s very interesting to know that he was a missionary in Taiwan and now has five children! Cool!

Tux Paint for Kids

I discovered another free program for kids. It’s a paint program called Tux Paint. It’s adorable. My 11-year old is probably too old for it now; I’d say kids ages 3 to 8 would really like it. It’s bright and it’s got big buttons. Very easy to use. And, it’s free! It’s a great way to introduce the world of graphic design to the little tot. It’s really an adorable little program. But don’t blame me of your little ones suddenly all want their own laptop computers!

ATM Security

As with “rap music” and “government intelligence,” I’ve discovered another oxymoron for ya: ATM security. Not! Watch this ‘expose’ and fasten your seatbelts. I never use ATMs anymore, and watch cashiers like a hawk when they take my card. And I always cover the numberpad when I punch in my PIN.

Watch this video. It’s a little lengthy, but a good one.

Beware of those ATMs, folks! Remember the good old days when theives were only interested in your designer jewelry? Now they want everything.

Hat tip Daily Tech Impressions.

Google Health Records?

This company just never ceases to amaze me. Next thing you know, they’ll have an online blood bank! I should be quite and not give them any ideas. But there is NO WAY I’d ever stick my finger in a drive to give blood to Google!

Anyway, this is the news that floored me: Google to Store Patients’ Health Records.

Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.

The pilot project to be announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google’s new service, which won’t be open to the general public.

Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that’s also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools.

Google views its expansion into health records management as a logical extension because its search engine already processes millions of requests from people trying to find about more information about an injury, illness or recommended treatment.

This is really weird. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.

What about you? Would you like Google to store your health records? Do you think they should first secure their AdSense coding so hackers can no longer hack into that? The whole thing about online health records is ridiculous. I love online and I love the convenience. But it is not a stable medium, especially for the storage and security of personal records. The Internet is not capable of doing it.

YouTube Outage Caused by Pakistan

I noticed that YouTube was not online Sunday. Anyone else notice? I, for one, was shocked. Since YouTube is so enormous and probably the most website on the Net, I thought it must have been something really big to disrupt service. I read this morning that it was caused by Pakistan’s attempt to censor YouTube.

Most of the world’s Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours Sunday after an attempt by Pakistan’s government to block access domestically affected other countries.

The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet’s vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

… An Internet expert likened the cause of the outage to ‘identity theft’ by a Pakistani telecommunications company, which accidentally started advertising itself as the fastest route to YouTube. But instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 Internet service providers to block access to YouTube.com, because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The block was intended to cover only Pakistan, but extended to about two-thirds of the global Internet population, starting at 1:47 p.m. EST Sunday, according to Renesys Corp., a Manchester, N.H., firm that keeps track of the pathways of the Internet for telecommunications companies and other clients.

… John Palfrey, executive director for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, said that while all the facts in the case are not yet known, it appeared that the repercussions were due to Pakistan taking a relatively heavy-handed approach in trying to censor YouTube.

‘It points in many respects to the difficulty, if not the folly, in Internet filtering at the state level,’ he said.

Misrouting occurs every year or so among the world’s Internet carriers, usually as a result of typos or other errors, Underwood said. In a more severe example, a Turkish telecom provider in 2004 started advertising that it was the best route to all of the Internet, causing widespread outages for many Web sites over several hours.

‘Nobody ran any viruses or worms or malicious code. This is just the way the Internet works. And it’s not very secure or reliable,’ Underwood said, adding that there is no real solution to the problem on the table.

You can read more of the story here. This is a good example of how insecure the Internet really is.

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