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TinyJWRinLC
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Posts: 425
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 4:11 pm
Location: In Front of a Computer
Thursday, October 20, I attended the Cyber Security Awareness Workshop at Port Arthur, Texas. This was a follow up to the Cyber Security Awareness Kickoff held earlier in the month.
There were three discussions, each lasting an hour. All of the speakers were extremely interesting and spoke their entire allotted time. I took a few notes each session.
1. Real Cybercrimes – Detective Brian Cater, Port Arthur Police Department.
Detective Cater spoke mostly about internet scams that were actual cases in the city. These were mostly the same scams we hear about nearly every day: phishing, website spoofing, lottery scams, online job listings, etc. In recent years, victims have generally been older people. In most cases, funds are lost and never recovered. If you are a victim, suspect a scam or want to learn more, check the Internet Crime Complaint Center website.
As he ran out of time, his final tip was to create your Social Security Account if you haven’t already. That way, no one else can create one using your identity.
2. Social Media – Javier Barajas, IT Support, City of Port Arthur.
Mr. Barajas gave an interesting talk on using social media. The average person uses their cell phone 4.7 hours a day. He talked about things to watch for and gave some great examples. My personal favorite was a young lady that posted “guess who got a new credit card” and uploaded a picture of her new card. One of the responses to her post was from someone that asked what the cvv number on the back of the card was. You can guess what happened.
Advice:
a. Watch what you post, once on the internet, it’s always there.
b. Don’t share your location.
c. Click “like” on Facebook may result in bad things – Many of these sites are data farming.
d. Check your social app privacy settings. An internet search can prove useful.
e. Use two-step verification when available.
f. Use different e-mail addresses/user names for different sites.
g. Don’t use selfies as your avatar.
h. Don’t enable auto login.
i. Change your passwords frequently.
j. Close old accounts.
k. Think twice before clicking on links.
3. How to Configure Your Home Network – James Cammack, Instructor at Lamar College PA.
Mr. Cammack gave a great presentation on setting up and configuring your router. He used an excellent analogy of comparing a router to the U.S. Post Office. One delivers web pages to your computer and the other delivers mail to your house. Both use addresses.
Advice:
a. Use WPA2 encryption.
b. Change your router password.
c. Hide your SSID.
d. Use guest network (or disable if you don’t want to share).
Mr. Cammack only had time to finish part of his presentation. Hopefully, he will speak again next year.
I had another great day in Port Arthur and am looking forward to attending next years events.