It’s that time again…

Today in Boston is a special day. Yes it’s raining, but today the yellow buses have started their engines. It’s back to school time!
I thought I might use this as a reminder to talk to your kids about computer security. We drill it regularly to our employees and readers, but honestly, kids need to be taught about this as well. First, talk to them about creating a strong password, one that can’t be easily guessed. We blogged about the Top 20 you should never use here:
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/01/22/top-20-website-passwords/
We also blogged about how to choose a more secure password:
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/02/03/choose-strong-password/
Second, of course make sure the machine is patched with the latest operating system patches, and that the security software is up to date. This can pre-empt a lot of problems right away. But something that gets overlooked is making sure your child’s account doesn’t have admin rights. This way you can control what they download and install. This also cuts down on the amount of spyware and malware issues you’ll have on that machine, simply because much of the malware written needs “escalated privileges” (admin or poweruser rights) to be executed. Yes, your kids may whine and fuss because they can’t install some program that is the latest “GOTTA HAVE IT”, but this give you the opportunity (continue reading...)