My slightly altered version Some of you may have heard about Sony's recent troubles with hackers getting into the PlayStation and Online Entertainment networks. If you haven't been following the story, you may not be aware that other Sony services are also experiencing breaches. I expect Sony to have difficulty for some time. If you have any Sony account ID's (they also own BMG Music) you need to be extra vigilant.
It's a good time to point out some things you should be doing or need to know. 1. Don't recycle passwords, use different, complex passwords on every site, at least as complex as the site will allow. Doing this is the #1 item to protect yourself. 2. Use a password management app that allows you to securely manage an ever growing list of passwords. Smart phone users have a large array of choices, many of them free. See your Appstore, marketplace, etc. 3. If a site has access to a credit card #, as the Sony sites do, keep a watchful eye on that card. There have been some reports of fraudulent charges and phishing scams breaking out to get the Security Code from the back of credit cards. 4. If an email comes to you asking for login information, or other personal information, you should contact the company that is supposedly represented by the email, or just ignore it, because it's 99% probable that it is a phishing attempt. a. Do not automatically click on links within the email. Hover over the links, if it takes you to some place that doesn't look correct it probably isn't. b. For example you bank with Chase, emails should be from [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> or sent on behalf of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Website links should have chase.com<http://chase.com> before any page links, example www.chase.com/default.aspx<http://www.chase.com/default.aspx> would be a good valid page www is a computer at the chase.com<http://chase.com> internet domain default.aspx is the name of a specific web page. www.chase.com.differentdomain.info/changepssword.aspx<http://www.chase.com.differentdomain.info/changepssword.aspx> is actually an address not going to a Chase owned website. In this example www.chase.com<http://www.chase.com/> is actually a specific computer at the internet domain diferentdomain.info<http://diferentdomain.info>. The clue is working from right to left from the slash, separating the website address from the page selection. All internet domains are denoted by the two words, separated by a period immediately to the left of the / character. 5. Wherever possible make sure that a site that you to login is using https:// as the beginning of the address in the address bar. The "s" denotes secure and the channel between you and the website has been encrypted. If it isn't encrypted anyone else on that WiFi hotspot is able to listen to the traffic and could easily acquire your username and password code. a. Also be wary of sites that have problems with a website security certificate. For example, our sites for external access to email and the vpn do have a problem with our security certificate, because we use a self-signed one for private use. It's ok to do that, in this instance, because it is for private use, not public use. Public use should be using certificates signed by a certificate authority, and wouldn't create the same warnings. As we put more of ourselves online with social networks, Facebook and LinkedIn being the two most prominent, it is important to follow some of these basic security practices. The more information out there, the more carefully crafted phishing attempts we will see. #1 defense is to use complex and different passwords at every site you have login credentials. #2 is to not respond to email purporting to come from a trusted authority asking for personal identifying information. From: Sam Cayze [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 11:43 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Template Phishing Alert Email? Some kind soul posted a template we could send out to our users here, regarding identifying Phishing and passwords. Can't find it. Can someone repost it please? 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