...
- Common threats
- Attacker Tactics
- Simple things to protect your device
Basic Terminology
Before we continue, let's cover some basic terminology around device security:
- Malware
- Phishing
- Software Vulnerability
Demo - Phishing Attack
...
Protecting Yourself - What you can do
Some simple things you can do to protect yourself
OS and Application Patching
Software companies push out security fixes to customers in the form of a patch. Applying software patches as they come out is a great way to protect yourself new threats.
Update your operating system and programs
These should be familiar
Limiting Admin Privileges <make simpler>
Accounts
on a computer operating system will come it 2 varietiesThere are 2 types of accounts:
- User
- Administrator
Administrator accounts are like having the keys to the kingdom. Attackers love them.
Don't Ignore Warnings
...
Listen to Warnings
...but, warnings don't always make a lot of sense..
...
Verified Publishers
Software signing a way of checking who authored a piece of software.
Office Macros
Macros allow users to write and execute code snippets in Microsoft Office files
And another one...
Attackers try to trick victims into opening Office files with malicious macros inside
Luckily, Microsoft knows about this and has adding in some warnings
And another one...
Basic Macro tips:
- Don't run macros from unknown sources
- If you're not sure why a document requires a macro, don't run it
- Just disable macros all together
- Disable Macros
- Only run a macro if you know who wrote it
Backups
The safest way to ensure you don't lose your data
How to Backup:
- Storage Device - USB or External Hard Drive
- Cloud - Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
Ransomware: WannaCry[pt]
Background
- May 2017 an exploit for Windows was released
- Attackers used exploit to distribute ransomware
- Microsoft had patched the vulnerability in April 2017
Victims of the ransomware would be locked out of their files and attackers demand payment to unlock them
...
- one month before
What happened when you get ransamware'd
- Can't access your files
- Pay $300 to get them back
- but, you never get them back
How to protect yourself:
- Apply security patchesUpdate Windows
- Backup your dataDon't pay the attackers
Thanks!
Questions welcome