NOTE ON PERSONAL COMPUTER

SECURITY

Hsu, Yen-Yi

Outline

Background

E-mail Content

– 6 steps

Background

A federal prosecutor, Sucheel Gupta, ran a packet sniffing program in EMBA audience.

Most participants were surprised by this demonstration.

A EMBA student John Chettleburgh send a email to the class, to help his colleagues better secure their personal computers.

Email content

John would prefer not to have people grab his passwords of personal information.

He think many of his colleague were uncertain as to whether or not they had current virus software, or even firewall.

He provide them with a step-by-step plan for making their PC more secure in this email.

Six Steps

STEP 1 ： KEEP IT CLOSE

– Many people have had a notebook stolen from their car.

– Usually bring it with me.– Using security cable to fasten your notebook to a

desk or even a motion sensor alarm.

STEP 2 ： BACKUP

– everybody knows the importance of backup, but a few remembers to do it.

– Required backup frequency depends on how important your files are to you.

– Backup media have a lot of options.

STEP 3 ： SYSTEM PATCHES

– Patches are usually security related.– Discovered some kind of a security threat in the

software.– Microsoft site.– Windows update site.

STEP 4 ： ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

– McAfee virus Scan V.S. Norton Anti-Virus.– Live update or automatic virus definition file

download.– Scan your entire PC at least once per week.– Zombie.

STEP 5 ： FIREWALL– protect your computer by ignoring undesirable

requests for communication from the Internet.– can be hardware- or software-based, or a

combination of both.– There are numerous brands of hardware-based

router.– Software-based firewall ： built into the

Windows-XP or download a freeware version.– Wireless router

STEP 6 ： ENCRYPTION– Concerned about someone stealing your pc and

taking your personal files.– PGP software package

• 128-bit encryption algorithms• Convert the data on your pc into a form that is virtually

impossible to descramble

– Password function in Microsoft Office • 40-bit• It can be cracked with relative ease

Questions

•除了上述文中提供的六大步驟以外，加強個人電腦安全是否還有其他需要注意的部分？

•以網路空間作為備份媒體的選擇，是否為一個好方法？

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