Critical Data Hack - Were You Exposed?

According to MSN's Money web site, over 770 million email accounts have been breached along with passwords.  I personally have followed the link to find that some of my information, was among some of the largest leaks and one was critical.

I am taking action and changing account information on those that have been compromised immediately.

I highly recommend using the insights they provided to find if your data was leaked and from where so you can also take corrective measures right away.  To find out if your email address and/or password were hacked, go to: https://haveibeenpwned.com/.  This page lets you check your email address first.  Next, you can select the tab "Passwords" to find out if your passwords were compromised.

If you find that your data was leaked, you can scroll down a bit and discover from where it was leaked and what level of information was included in the leak.  It could be simply an email address or worse, an email address with a password, or other more serious information like address, family information, and so forth.

To give you an idea of if you might been part of a leak, if you had any of the following types of accounts: Bitly, Disqus, Forbes, LinkedIn, and more.  However, the leak referred to in this instance with the 770 million plus accounts exposed is called Collection #1.  This leak is an compilation of over 2000 previous leaks.

What action can you take:

• If your passwords were compromised, change them to very strong passwords immediately and don't reuse the compromised passwords for anything.  
• If your email address was compromised, find a new one and treat it like you would if you had to change your phone number: Contact those people who need to contact you and give them your new information and omit the others.
• Write your passwords for your accounts in a book that you keep in a safe or safe deposit box. This way you know what they are.  Paper in your home safe or in a bank's safe deposit box cannot be hacked.  (If someone did break in to either to steal information, you would also know right away unlike with hacked data.) Doing this is also important should anything happen and you were to die so that your family can get all your accounts squared away that need to be.

I cannot recommend the password managers recommended on this site as I do not have enough information about them.  Furthermore, Any online that can store your password can ultimately be hacked - and those that are known to store crucial information of that sort are the ones most likely to be targeted by hackers.

Computer Science Curriculum

In searching for a middle school or high school computer science curriculum for your student here are some points to consider:

1.      Does it include a basic history of computers? This should include:

•    The first computer programmer – Ada Lovelace (pronounced “Loveless”), a woman, and the daughter of Lord Byron, the poet

•    The first computer designer, Charles Babbage and “Babbage's machine”

•    At least some brief history of the development of computers through the years.

2.      Does it include computer terminology?

•    What constitutes a “computer?”

•    A definition of computer components:

•    Hardware versus software

•    Hard copy versus soft copy

•    Personal computer versus mainframe and mini-computers

•    Closed system versus Open system computers

•    Filenames and file extensions

•    Central Processing Unit (CPU)

•    Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), particularly important for children wanting to be game developers or testers

•    Random Access Memory (RAM) – a bonus would be to understand sequential access from a historical perspective

•    Read Only Memory (or ROM)

•    BIOS (Basic Input / Output System)

•    Hard disk and floppy disk

•    A brief discussion of SCSI, IDE, SATA devices and the pros and cons of each

•    Attaching devices using: USB, Firewire, PCMCIA, and PCI slots

•    Operating system – What constitutes an operating system? Examples of modern operating systems such as UNIX, Microsoft® Windows, Apple's iOS, LINUX, Android, and others.

•    Understanding office productivity software:

•    What is a word processor? Topics should include fonts, styles, margins, page layout, heading, footer, header and body styles, margin justification (left, center, right, and justified or newspaper-style margins), numbered outlines, bulleted text, setting tab stops, inserting tables, using spell checker, thesaurus, and word and character count functions.

•    What is a spreadsheet, including terms for rows, columns, and cells? Topics should include functions and formatting for dates, numbers, currency, and text. Ideally, the curriculum will also include some best practices, including using an apostrophe character (') in front of the numerals for a zip code to indicate that it is a text number, not one on which mathematical calculations will be performed.

•    What is presentation software?

•    What is publishing software?

•    Drawing and photo editing software examples should also be included. This should provide information about the various types of images and the pros and cons of each, basic drawing and picture editing terminology, and possibly some more advanced drawing and editing examples and tools. Adobe Photoshop is a really excellent product for creating some more advanced images and budding graphic designers. Learning to create icons is helpful for the budding computer programmer. / web designer. Animation creation and editing software is a great tool for anyone interested in movie making or game development.

•    Ideally, the curriculum would give examples of when it is best to use each type of product, along the lines that one could use a screwdriver to beat a nail into a wall, but a hammer is more efficient; however, if one needed to screw a screw into a board, a screwdriver works much better than a hammer.

•    Communication protocol, for example:

•    DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPITALS OR THE READER WILL THINK YOU ARE YELLING. I had a customer contact me who was typing her résumé in all capitals. This is a very unprofessional way to create a  résumé. Additionally, some spell checkers may not catch mistakes when typing in all capitals, hence the reason the woman called.

•    While we are on the topic of  résumés, extra large fonts or extra wide margins used to allow one to fill a page when one has little to no work experience is unnecessary.

•    Don't use multiple exclamation points!!!

•    Do use correct spelling and punctuation, especially in professional communication.

•    Networking terminology:

•    At a very minimum, modern terminology should be covered to include:

•    CAT-5 cable

•    MODEM, router, bridge, brouter

•    Repeater

•    Hubs and switches

•    TCP/IP and IP address

•    Network Interface Card (NIC)

•    Local Area Networks

•    Ethernet and WiFi

•    Transfer rates

•    Dial-up, DSL, Satellite access

•    Internet, world wide web, intranet

•    Servers and client computers

•    Peer-to-peer networks

•    There are many other networking terms that could be included, but these are the most important for students at this stage

•    Internet access

•    Browser and examples of browsers

•    Internet safety. This should be a special topic to help your child learn how to protect himself or herself on the Internet. This is a time that would be especially good to reinforce house rules and go over the potential dangers of the Internet. Examples include: Not using last names or creating a pseudonym, do give out phone numbers or addresses, do not tell the name of the city you live in, the name of the teams played on or where they play, the color or number of the jersey worn.

•    Viruses, adware, and malware: What are they? What kind of damage can they do, and how do we protect our computer and our information?

•    Web sites and types including web page, web logs (aka “blogs”), stores, and search engines

•    Electronic mail (e-mail)

•    Web hosting

•    Hypertext markup language (HTML)

•    Dynamic HTML (D-HTML)

•    Extensible markup language (XML)

•    Style sheets (CSS)

•    The curriculum should include examples of each and directions for creating these.

•    What you see is what you get (WYSIWIG)

•    FIFO and LIFO (First in / first out; last in / first out)

•    Graphic User Interface (GUI)

•    Computer Programming

Note: Before beginning the computer programming section, your child should have successfully completed the math topic of converting between binary and decimal . If your math curriculum includes converting between binary, decimal, and hexadecimal, that is a bonus.

•    Why do we call computer glitches “bugs?”

•    What is “machine language?”

•    An understanding of different types of programming languages and types. This should include the difference between compiled and run-time, or interpreted, languages, the pros and cons of each, and examples of each type of language, not necessarily between the programming languages themselves. An example of a compiled language is C++. Examples of interpreted languages include script languages such as JavaScript and VBScript. An example of a programming language that is both a compiled and interpreted includes Visual Basic as it compiles to an intermediate language (IL), then converts the intermediate language to machine language at run-time.

•    Object-oriented programming

•    Executables

•    Threads

•    Multi-tasking

•    Handles

•    For Microsoft® Windows programming, one should also have an understanding of the registry and globally unique identifiers (GUIDs).

Following are some options for computer science resources:

Software development web sites to look at:

Compiled versus Interpreted Languages

http://www.vanguardsw.com/dphelp4/dph00296.htm

Visual Basic: Compiled or Interpreted? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6002955/visual-basic-net-compiled-or-interpreted

Access: Visual / Access Basic is Both a Compiler and an Interprer

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/109382

Computer Tutorials, specifically Visual Basic tutorial

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Visual-Basic/Introduction-to-Visual-Basic/1

Visual Basic Tutor

http://www.vbtutor.net/index.php/vb2010-lesson-1-introduction/

XML Introduction

http://www.xmlfiles.com/xml/xml_intro.asp

Internet Security

We've all heard how important Internet Security is. Maybe you or someone in your family has had information compromised, credit or debit card information stolen, your identity stolen, your computer crash temporarily or even irrecoverably, or had someone stalk you or your children because of another person gaining access to personal information. The problem, sadly, is pervasive in today's society. If your information has been compromised or you have suffered through one of these circumstances, please feel free to comment on what you have done to rectify the situation and how you work to prevent this in the future.

How can you protect yourself and your family?

1. Make sure you have a current Internet security system. An Internet security system includes Anti-virus, anti-adware, and anti-malware products as well as means to detect and protect your computer environment from people who are sniffing to detect key information traveling through the Internet.

I have been using anti-virus programs beginning in around 1995. Working in an industry where we shared information internationally among co-workers and customers, we had to be particularly careful about ensuring we had no viruses. While we had anti-virus products on our local computers, we learned the hard way that we needed a secondary anti-virus program of a different sort to ensure that our data files were not sent out with viruses attached. The secondary anti-virus scanner we used was PC-cillin by TrendMicro.

I also worked for a company that created corporate Internet security software. One of the lessons I learned from that experience is that no anti-virus or Internet security software will be 100% secure. The reason is this, someone has to originally invent a virus or other malware. Until it is invented, it cannot be tested for and identified. It is very similar to human illnesses. If the disease has never occurred, there are no tests to identify the disease until it causes harm. Once that happens, companies create tests to quickly identify the specific type of germ that causes the disease, not only that, but these tests can be broadened to identify mutations of those germs that may occur.

That is what anti-virus software programs do. They identify a pattern or marker in a computer virus. Once that happens, they can broaden the scope to find copycat viruses that could cause harm.

When I began my own computer consulting business in 2002, I found that while many people had anti-virus software, there tended to be four specific problems:

(1) They let the anti-virus expire and it did not have the latest virus definitions to catch problems

(2) They purchased a product that stated it would protect from adware and malware, but the product installed without protecting the person's computer by default and finding the setting was hidden, not something that a regular person could do.

(3) Someone accessing the computer went to websites that are known for problems, including pornography sites, some gambling sites, and even those sites that look like so much fun and create so much trouble on one's computer. I even had a corporate customer who insisted on allowing users to install and use a program that had a variety of smiley faces when this was a known malware product. As I was, in turn, a customer to my customer for the type of service provided and the business had the information of thousands of customers and their sensitive data, I refused to allow that as it would send information to another site. Many times, in order to access those types of web pages that cause harm, one would have to override the anti-virus settings. Once the virus is on the computer, they deliberately disable the anti-virus functionality to protect your computer.

(4) The person installed or used a factory installed anti-virus, even one that they maintained, that simply did not do the job well and did not keep up well with the viruses, adware, and malware. One of my business customers continually had problems with her computer and adware, though she kept the anti-virus software up to date. I kept having to fix her computer. I checked for the problem with the anti-virus software company she used (a high-profile common anti-virus company that is commonly pre-installed on computers), another well-known anti-virus company, and a third that I had consistently had luck with. Only the third, TrendMicro could properly identify the problem and provide a solution for rectifying it. That has consistently been my experience the past 10 years of providing computer consulting and computer support. As she had just purchased a renewal of her existing anti-virus software, she kept it. A short time later, I happened to be in her office when her computer started acting up again. We got her data transferred to another computer in the nick of time. Her computer completely and irrecoverably crashed. She had to purchase a new computer to replace it. At that time, she changed and opted to use TrendMicro's solutions.

Author's note: I do not receive any reimbursement or benefit to recommending TrendMicro's products. I recommend them solely based on my experience in using them in the course of the past 10 years as a computer consultant.

At this time, I recommend more than an anti-virus solution, but an Internet Security solution that can help protect you and your family from going to a web site that seems harmless, but has reports of spreading viruses or other malware to those who go to the page.

This type of software also provides a firewall between your computer and the rest of the Internet world. There are hardware firewalls that can be installed between the Internet and a switch or hub, and firewalls that can be installed just inside the local area network, and software firewalls that are installed directly on a computer. For home users in a peer-to-peer network (there are no server computers), an Internet Security software is sufficient.

Do not allow anyone on your home network that does not have current anti-virus software installed. If “John” comes over to visit with “Sam” and wants to bring his computer and hook it up to your network so he has access to the Internet, make sure his anti-virus software is current and that he has the latest signatures updated before doing so. You do not need a compromised computer compromising your home computer network.

2.      Secure your Internet access device. Modern MODEMs that you will receive to give you access to the Internet for DSL, satellite, or cable connectivity generally come with secure authentication codes, specifically those with Wi-Fi capability. Make sure to keep your network secured. Otherwise, you can have people driving by, neighbors in your apartment complex, or others who can gain access to your home network and networking devices.

3.      Use secure passwords for EVERYTHING. If your personal computer does not have a secure login password (8 characters or more including upper and lower case characters, special characters, and numerals), make one. This can keep little Johnny from coming over and playing on your computer and putting “neat stuff” on there that can cause your computer to be anywhere from lethargic to entirely crashed. It can also help to prevent others from accessing your computer remotely. There are a variety of reasons why this is not entirely foolproof, but there is no point making it easy for someone to hack your computer. Unless they really want what you have, if it is too time consuming, they will move on to someone who is easier to hack.

One of my customers used a small local company's Internet service. They provided radio-based Wi-Fi in the community. Each company or family that used the service received a radio antenna to attach to their home to access the Internet. Sadly, this service was entirely unsecured. I could browse to “My Network Places” and see people's home computers, shared printers, access their computer and more. That was really scary. (No, I did not hack the computers, but someone who had a desire to do harm could readily have done so. It was an open door invitation.)

If you can see other people's computers that are not your computers from My Network places, if you do not have a firewall, they can see yours as well. This would be a critical time to purchase a hardware firewall that went between the Internet and your local area network at home so that you could share files and printers with your family, but not with all your neighbors.

4.      When sharing a computer, make sure that each person has their own login and password, preferably a reduced permissions account, not Computer Administrator. You may even want to give yourself (if you are the computer guru in the house) a reduced permissions account for yourself to use whereby you could not accidentally install malware on your computer, and a Computer Administrator account for installing software and updates on the computer for the family to use.

If you work somewhere that only certain people have access to the Internet, do not give them your password to access the Internet, even if you want to be nice. Recommend the local library or other such source for them. One of my business clients only allowed certain people access to the Internet in order to protect the data they had and their network. One employee wanted to help out a young lady who needed to register for classes at a local junior college and gave her the password to access the Internet. She told him afterward that while she was there, she installed a weather-monitoring software for him because she thought he would like it. This was not her computer. This was not authorized software for the company. Within a short time, his computer started failing. His was one of two computers in the company that had certain critical data and applications on it for the business. His computer had to be completely reformatted and reinstalled just because the man wanted to be nice and helpful.

5.      Do not use a business's autodraft feature for withdrawing funds from your account if at all possible. While the company may make every effort to secure your information between your computer, across the network to their server, and try to vet out employees who may have any criminal background, there are still times when someone gets through the cracks. Once your data is stored on their servers, it is there for someone to gain access to. While a hacker may work to gain access to personal information from outside of a company, it is far easier to do so within the company.

I had never had my credit or debit card information stolen until I decided to save a few dollars with my insurance company and allow them to autodraft from my card. This meant storing my account information on their servers. Within the month, my account was used for two small, but unusual drafts. Fortunately, the bank's credit and debit company caught this and called me. I canceled that card immediately and got a new one. I thought at first this was a different business that did this based on some information I received from the person, though I had not had a problem in five years with that business. I canceled that account with that business that I thought caused the problem right away. I then tried again with the insurance company and kept an eagle eye on my bank account. The same thing happened. I contacted the insurance company. They assured me that they had no reports of problems and that they secured people's data. I tried a third time. Again, within a short time, the same thing happened. This time, no other business at all had the account number. I disabled the autowithdrawal capability with that company.

6.      Protect your identity. Do not use your real name if possible if you are Absolutely do not use your children's real names in public forums.

Getting Out of Debt 2: Budgeting for Needs and Wants

Is your budget tight? Ours is. It has been for years. It is getting better, but I have noticed that after doing without for so long, there is a long list of things that we need or high priority wants that can really make saving a difficult challenge.

To help us in this endeavor, I created a spreadsheet to allow us to prioritize those important needs, wants, dreams, and includes blessings, as well.

I started the spreadsheet with just prioritizing needs and wants for the family. A priority 10 need was life or death – or close to it and it went down from there. For example, I prioritized Sweet Pea's swimming lessons at a 10 and Pumpkin's at an 8 because Sweet Pea had never had swimming lessons before and loved the water, but Pumpkin had had swimming lessons. It was important to have Sweet Pea learn to swim for her own safety.

I “had” to add a Blessed item to Wants and Needs after we were blessed with God's provision through our friends for things we needed. I highly recommend including this for those times that there is no way you can do what you need to do on your own, but God comes through for you as a reminder of God's love and provision. It has certainly been helpful for us. It is especially helpful to be reminded of these things if you have just encountered a downturn in your family income. It is so easy to try to fix it or figure it out on your own and be self-sufficient, but when you realize that your best efforts cannot do what God can do, it is humbling and ever so helpful to strengthen you in doing what you are called to do and remain faithful to Him.

Please feel free to use this for your own benefit. I hope it proves helpful to you. To use most effectively, highlight the active cells, choose Data, Sort, then sort by Need/Want – ascending; Priority – descending; and Cost – ascending. It works out nicely this way in that your blessings are listed first, followed by “done” items, your needs next, wants come third, and dreams (Zzzz) are last. It is also nice because if you have two competing priorities, the least expensive one comes first so that you feel that you are making progress.

How do you prioritize your needs and wants in your family's budget?