Posts Tagged ‘security’

All WordPress-based sites hosted by Kephart + Associates were upgraded to the latest version 3.2.1 this afternoon. This was a minor security update.

Downtime per site was less than five minutes.

UPDATED (5:40 p.m. EST): All Kephart + Associates WordPress-hosted sites are now running WordPress 3.0.4.

We will be upgrading all WordPress-based sites hosted by Kephart + Associates to version 3.0.4 this morning. This update is considered critical. Downtime per site should be less than five minutes. We’ll post again when all upgrades are completed.

How honest are you online? Perhaps a little too honest? Have you done any of the following in the past month?

• Posted pictures from a private party you attended?
• Sent a tweet on Twitter or changed your status on Facebook to describe how tired, frustrated or depressed you were?
• Took an online poll that revealed personal details when it posted to Facebook?
• Used profanity or made sexual references in a blog post, a MySpace update or a Facebook wall post?
• Gotten into an argument or made negative comments about a third person when talking publicly on a social media service like Twitter or Facebook?

Users of these services seem to either be unaware or unconcerned that their words have a wider distribution than they may have intended. Individual privacy settings on Facebook are often more lax than they should be, allowing everyone to see your status, wall posts and other personal information. Twitter is sometimes mistaken for another instant messaging system, but everything you tweet is public (other than direct messages), so everyone can see and reply to your 140-character thoughts. The results can be surprising and unfortunate, from simple hurt feelings and misunderstandings to lost job opportunities or respect within a community.

Here are some steps to take to keep your social media reputation positive while staying part of your growing online communities:

• Check the privacy options on every online network you participate in. Make sure they’re set so that only those you’ve approved as “friends” can see your personal details. Nothing beyond your name is really required to allow new connections to find you, though you may also include your city and, on Facebook, your status. Everyone else should have to ask to be a friend before they see more info about you.
• Everything you “say” online is public, even when it’s private. It’s easy for one of your friends, especially if the relationship sours, to cut and paste and turn private conversations or details into public with a click of their mouse. Just like gossip in real life, don’t say anything online you could regret later. While online honesty can be positive and refreshing, it doesn’t mean you have to say everything. Think before you click and learn to edit yourself wisely.
• Think twice about every add-on, game or application you think of adding in Facebook. Most of them are perfectly safe, but they often ask for more access privileges to your personal information than they really need, raising privacy concerns. And they usually generate items for your News Feed that can become annoying to your friends when they have to wade through them, making them the Facebook equivalent of spam.
• Don’t confuse Twitter with Facebook, instant messaging or cellphone texting. It’s public. (Yes, you can lock your updates, but what’s the point of that?) If you’re uncomfortable with everyone reading your tweets, Twitter isn’t for you. It’s a different method of communication and can be very powerful for building communities and finding new business opportunities, but it can also be disastrous if its very public nature isn’t understood by the user.
• Delete social media accounts you’re not actually using. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with several services, pick the ones that seem to be working for you and concentrate your communication efforts there. Get rid of the others to avoid someone getting into an inactive account and impersonating you without your knowledge.
• Remember that not only is everything you say online public, it’s more than likely permanent. Deleting a wall post or blog entry may make it stop appearing on Facebook or Blogger, but it’s probably stored deep in one of Google’s many search engine servers, ready to be conjured up with the right combination of magic search terms. Again, think before you click.
• Make sure your online “you” is the person you want everyone to know. Unless you want to be known as a depressed, whiny person who drinks too much, leave the photos of you doing shots at the bar and the comments about how bad your life is to yourself. The power of social media runs both ways: you can create an image as a positive, resourceful person or a negative impression that could cost you friends, money and personal success.

It’s important to be part of this online communication revolution. Being in control of your online image and keeping the private part of your life private are as important, though. Make sure you’re using the tools and not the other way around.

It’s vital to keep all of your computer’s applications up-to-date and fully patched. It’s one of the most important things you can do to keep your computer safe from potential invasion, data loss and other generally nasty things. But with so many programs loaded on our PCs, how can we possibly keep up with all of the changes?

A new free tool from Secunia simplifies the process by scanning your PC, similar to a virus scan. Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI) works from a constantly updated database of software applications and checks the version you currently have against that list. When the scan is complete, PSI notifies you how many of your applications are unpatched or at their “end-of-life,” programs which are no longer being supported by their developers. You can download updates directly through the PSI interface where the program is aware of them.

The current version of PSI is 0.9 and is a release candidate, meaning it’s still in beta but getting close to its final release version. That said, it works well, catching several outdated plug-ins and applications on the New Tech Heroes HQ computer when I began using it in late December. Plus it’s free, which is a pretty good price. I did find it a bit challenging to update a couple of the older plug-ins, particularly ones that don’t remove their older version when they upgrade or patch (Flash and Reader were two culprits there – is there a reason why the older versions aren’t removed, Adobe?) and I had to go to Windows’ “Add or Remove Programs” control panel to manually remove the old software and then download the latest versions. But that’s less a problem with PSI then with the original software developers.

Overall, I highly recommend trying Secunia’s PSI. It’s another nice tool to help keep you one step ahead of the dark side of the computer universe.