What is Cyber-safety? | Top Seven Cyber-safety Actions | Viruses | Hackers | Spyware | Protect Passwords | Cyber-safety at Work

What is Cyber-safety?

Cyber-safety is a common term used to describe a set of practices, measures and/or actions you can take to protect personal information and your computer from attacks. 

At UC Davis, we have the Cyber-safety Program policy, PPM 310-22, (http://manuals.ucdavis.edu/ppm/310/310-22.htm)   which establishes that all devices connected to the UC Davis electronic communications network must meet certain security standards.

As part of this policy, all campus units provide annual reports demonstrating their level of compliance.

Further, there are services in place to help all students, faculty and staff meet the cyber-safety standards. Specific information about these services is provided in this tutorial.
Cyber-safety is a common term used to describe a set of practices, measures and/or actions you can take to protect personal information and your computer from attacks. 

At UC Davis, we have the Cyber-safety Program policy, PPM 310-22, (http://manuals.ucdavis.edu/ppm/310/310-22.htm)   which establishes that all devices connected to the UC Davis electronic communications network must meet certain security standards.

As part of this policy, all campus units provide annual reports demonstrating their level of compliance.

Further, there are services in place to help all students, faculty and staff meet the cyber-safety standards. Specific information about these services is provided in this tutorial.


Cyber-safety is a common term used to describe a set of practices, measures and/or actions you can take to protect personal information and your computer from attacks. 

At UC Davis, we have the Cyber-safety Program policy, PPM 310-22, (http://manuals.ucdavis.edu/ppm/310/310-22.htm)   which establishes that all devices connected to the UC Davis electronic communications network must meet certain security standards.

As part of this policy, all campus units provide annual reports demonstrating their level of compliance.

Further, there are services in place to help all students, faculty and staff meet the cyber-safety standards. Specific information about these services is provided in this tutorial.

Cyber-safety Threats

Viruses

Viruses infect computers through email attachments and file sharing. They delete files, attack other computers, and make your computer run slowly. One infected computer can cause problems for all computers on a network.

Hackers

Hackers are people who “trespass” into your computer from a remote location. They may use your computer to send spam or viruses, host a Web site, or do other activities that cause computer malfunctions.

Identity Thieves

People who obtain unauthorized access to your personal information, such as Social Security and financial account numbers. They then use this information to commit crimes such as fraud or theft.

Spyware

Spyware is software that “piggybacks” on programs you download, gathers information about your online habits, and transmits personal information without your knowledge. It may also cause a wide range of other computer malfunctions.

Top Seven Cyber-safety Actions

1. Install OS/Software Updates
2. Run Anti-virus Software
3. Prevent Identity Theft
4. Turn on Personal Firewalls
5. Avoid Spyware/Adware
6. Protect Passwords
7. Back up Important Files

Avoid Spyware/Adware

Spyware and adware take up memory and can slow down your computer or cause other problems.

Use Spybot and Ad-Aware to remove spyware/adware from your computer. UC Davis students, faculty and staff can get Spybot and Ad-Aware for free on the Internet Tools CD (available from IT Express in Shields Library).

Watch for allusions to spyware and adware in user agreements before installing free software programs.

Be wary of invitations to download software from unknown internet sources.

Protect Passwords

Do not share your passwords, and always make new passwords difficult to guess by avoiding dictionary words, and mixing letters, numbers and punctuation.

Do not use one of these common passwords or any variation of them: qwerty1, abc123, letmein, password1, iloveyou1, (yourname1), baseball1.

  Change your passwords periodically.

When choosing a password:
Mix upper and lower case letters
Use a minimum of 8 characters
Use mnemonics to help you remember a difficult password

Store passwords in a safe place. Consider using KeePass Password Safe (http://keepass.info/), Keychain (Mac) or an encrypted USB drive to store passwords. Avoid keeping passwords on a Post-it under your keyboard, on your monitor or in a drawer near your computer!

Cyber-safety at Home

Physically secure your computer by using security cables and locking doors and windows in the dorms and off-campus housing.

Avoid leaving your laptop unsupervised and in plain view in the library or coffee house, or in your car, dorm room or home.

Set up a user account and password to prevent unauthorized access to your computer files.

Do not install unnecessary programs on your computer.

Microsoft users can download the free Secunia Personal Software Inspector (https://psi.secunia.com/), which lets you scan your computer for any missing operating system or software patches and provides instructions for getting all the latest updates.

Cyber-safety at Work

Be sure to work with your technical support coordinator before implementing new cyber-safety measures.

Talk with your technical support coordinator about what cyber-safety measures are in place in your department.

Report to your supervisor any cyber-safety policy violations, security flaws/weaknesses you discover or any suspicious activity by unauthorized individuals in your work area. 

Physically secure your computer by using security cables and locking building/office doors and windows.

Do not install unnecessary programs on your work computer.

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What is a computer virus | What is computer virus | Define computer virus | What is Viruses | What is Worms | What is Trojan Horses | Define malware | How does malware invade your computer? | Are you running any servers? | What do viruses do? | What does malware do? | How can you check virus | Blackhat vs Whitehat

What is a computer virus?

A computer virus is a malicious program that spreads from computer to computer.

Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses

• Have you heard other names for malicious computer programs?
• Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses
• There are technical differences between each of these, but all of them attempt to run on your computer without your knowledge.

Malware

• The most general name for a malicious computer program is malware.
• You may have heard computer programs called software.
• The word malware comes from MALicious softWARE.

How does malware invade your computer?

• You have probably heard of some ways that malware can invade your computer.
• What are they?
• Through email attachments
• By clicking on a web link when surfing the web
• By downloading a program that claims to be a game or cool picture
• Others?

Front Door Attacks

• What do many of these attacks (through email, web browsing or downloads) have in common?
• They all require the actions of a legitimate user.
• They can be considered “front door” attacks because a user is tricked into opening the door for the attack through their action.

Understanding Front Door Attacks

1. The key to understanding front door attacks is that when you run a program it runs with *all* your rights and privileges.
2. If you can delete one file, any program you run can delete all your files.
3. If you can send one email, any program you run could send thousands of spam emails.
4. This includes any program you run even accidentally by opening an email attachment or clicking on web link.

Back Door Attacks

1. Not all attacks require action by a legitimate user.
2. “Back door” attacks target vulnerabilities in server software that is running on your computer.
3. Server software is software that listens for requests that arrive over the network and attempts to satisfy these requests.
4. A web server is an example of server software.

Are you running any servers?

• Most home computer users think they are not running any server software.
• However you would be surprised.
• For example, most default installations of Windows run a number of network services by default.

How can you check?

At a Windows command prompt, type the command “netstat –an”.
It will display a list of server software that is listening for requests over the network.

What do viruses do?

1. Once an attacker manages to exploit a weakness, they can run any code they want on the victim’s machine.
2. Attack codes vary in what they try to do.
3. Have you ever suffered a computer attack? What happened to your machine? How hard was it to recover?

What does malware do?

• Some attackers just want to see if they can make an attack succeed.
• The malware they write may simply displaying something to the user or announce its presence in another way.
• Other attackers want to do damage to others without trying to benefit directly.
• The malware they write might delete files or otherwise corrupt the system.
• Still others try to write malware that steals information from the victim.
• The malware they write might search for credit card numbers or other personal information and send it back to the attacker.
• Spyware might watch for victim’s passwords or otherwise spy on their online activity.

Blackhat vs Whitehat   

• Blackhat computer hackers look for flaws in software to exploit them or break into computer for malicious purposes.
• Whitehat computer hackers look for flaws in software to fix them or attempt to break into computers to audit their security.

What do whitehat hackers do?

• Analyze server software for flaws that could be exploited and recommend fixes.
• Analyze new viruses or malware to characterize what they are doing and to build patches.
• Audit the overall security of computer systems.

Incoming Search Tearms

What is a front door attack? What are some examples?
What is a back door attack? What are some examples?
Give some examples of what malware tries to accomplish.
Describe ways that whitehat hackers try to make systems more secure.
Describe things you can do to secure your computer against attack.
What is a computer virus?
computer virus
What is a computer virus
What is computer virus
Define computer virus
What is Viruses
What is Worms
What is Trojan Horses
Define malware
How does malware invade your computer?
Are you running any servers?
What do viruses do?
What does malware do?
How can you check virus
Blackhat vs Whitehat   
  

What is a virus? | What is a virus | What is virus Basic virus terminology | virus terminology | How viruses get into computers | How virus get into computers | How viruses get into computer | The impact of viruses | The impact of viruse | Basic virus defense | Office protection | Outlook file security | Anti-virus warnings | Anti-virus warning

What is a virus?

• A virus is a program that self-replicates
• It is not data
• You can only catch a virus by running a program
• Your computer runs all kinds of programs

Basic virus terminology

• Virus
• Self-replicating
• Also called a worm
• Trojan Horse
• A program which appears to be valuable but has an unexpected consequence

How viruses get into computers

1. The four most common virus infections come from:
2. File – A virus type that infects existing files on the computer (~40%)
3. Macro – A virus that runs as a macro in a host application such as the MS Office applications (~35%)
4. VBScript – A virus that uses Windows VisualBasic Script functionality (~10%)
5. Internet Worm – A virus that is primarily characterized by it’s replication across the Internet (~5%)

The impact of viruses

ICSA Labs estimates that the cost of a virus disaster is between $50,000 and $500,000
Average server downtime for a virusis 14 hours

Basic virus defense

• Don’t open files that you are not expecting
• Many viruses automatically send files without the e-mail account owner’s knowledge.
• Ask the sender to confirm unexpected files.
• Suspect messages that appear more than once in your Inbox
• You may receive the same e-mail from a virus repeatedly.
• Learn file extensions
• Your computer will display both an icon and a file extension for files you receive. Open only file extensions you know are safe.
• When in doubt, call the help desk.

Examples of risky file types

The following file types should never be opened:

• .EXE
• .PIF
• .BAT
• .VBS
• .COM

Office protection

• Office files are mostly data with some program code
• Office macros are programs, which can be viruses
• Office will prompt you to enable macros
• Enable macros only when you know why office is asking

Outlook file security

• Outlook will automatically block some kinds of executable files, but not all
• If you need a file that Outlook blocked, call the help desk
• Do not assume that because the file made it through Outlook that it is safe

Anti-virus warnings

• Notify the help desk when you receive a virus warning from Norton Antivirus, Symantec Antivirus, Trend Micro, etc.
• Most of the time, the virus software will detect and prevent the infection. However, the help desk can better tell you what to do.

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Computer Virus | Create a computer virus|how to create a shortcut a computer virus | basic computer virus | How to identify virus | Definition of virus | Symptoms of Virus Attack | Computer Virus Timeline | virus | Virus

Definition of Virus

    A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real programs in order to get executed.

    Once it’s running, it spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents.

•     Computer virus have become today’s headline news.   
•     With the increasing use of the Internet, it has become easier for virus to spread.    
•     Virus show us loopholes in software.
•     Most virus are targeted at the MS Windows OS.

Virus :

     A true virus is capable of self replication on a machine. It may spread between files or disks, but the defining character is that it can recreate itself on it’s own with out traveling to a new host.

    There are estimated 30,000 computer viruses in existence.
Over 300 new ones are created each month.
First virus was created to show loopholes in software.

Symptoms of Virus Attack

1.  Computer runs slower then usual
2.  Computer no longer boots up
3.  Screen sometimes flicker
4.  PC speaker beeps periodically
5.  System crashes for no reason
6.  Files/directories sometimes disappear
7.  Denial of Service (DoS)

Virus through the Internet

    Today almost 87% of all viruses are spread through the internet (source: ZDNet).

    Transmission time to a new host is relatively low, on the order of hours to days "Latent virus".

Computer Virus Timeline

1949

    Theories for self-replicating programs are first developed.

1981

    Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are some of the first viruses “in the wild,” or in the public domain. Found on the Apple II operating system, the viruses spread through Texas A&M via pirated computer games.

1983

    Fred Cohen, while working on his dissertation, formally defines a computer virus as “a computer program that can affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself.”

1986

    Two programmers named Basit and Amjad replace the executable code in the boot sector of a floppy disk with their own code designed to infect each 360kb floppy accessed on any drive. Infected floppies had “© Brain” for a volume label.

1987

    The Lehigh virus, one of the first file viruses, infects command.com files.

1988

    One of the most common viruses, Jerusalem, is unleashed. Activated every Friday the 13th, the virus affects both .exe and .com files and deletes any programs run on that day.
    MacMag and the Scores virus cause the first major Macintosh outbreaks.

Typical things that some current Personal Computer (PC) viruses do

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