A free data security toolkit from SOPHOS
July 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under Protection Tools
Penalties for data loss can be huge … fines, law suits, lost customers and negative PR. So it’s vital your users understand how to secure your data.
Get your free data security toolkit
It’s packed with great tools to help you explain how data loss occurs and give practical advice on how to keep your data secure:
- Videos on data protection and safe passwords
- Presentations on how data is lost
- Top tips for securing your data
- Example data security policy
Individual resources
Top tips to protect your data
Practical advice for everyone on how to keep data safe.
View online: Flash
Protecting your sensitive data video
Straight-forward guidance on how to prevent data loss.
View online: Flash
Download: WMV
Top tips to avoid ID theft
Easy-to-follow advice on how to avoid being a victim of ID theft .
Download: PDF
Safe passwords video
Information on the importance of safe passwords and how to make yours hard to crack.
View online: Flash
Download: WMV
Data security threats
A presentation that explains how data is lost and stolen and the risks data leakage poses to individuals and organisations.
Download: PPT
The business implications of data leakage
A presentation on the impact of data loss for organisations and the four pillars of effective data security.
Download: PPT
Data security policy
An example policy to act as a guideline for organisations looking to implement or update their data security policy.
Protecting personally identifiable information white paper
A paper for IT managers on what personally identifiable information is at risk and what you can do about it.
Download: PDF
Threatsaurus: A-Z of computer and data security threats
A practical guide to the threats to your computers and your data in simple, easy-to-understand language.
Download: PDF
AVG LinkScanner Can Detect Malicious Short URLs
October 14, 2009 by admin
Filed under Protection Tools
URL shorteners may be handy for your tweets on Twitter. But they’re also known security holes since they don’t display the actual address of your destination. A free tool from security vendor AVG may provide a solution.
AVG has updated its free LinkScanner tool to detect malicious pages hiding behind shortened URLs. The company said the tool checks the actual destination of each URL link to make sure the page is legitimate.
More than a dozen URL-shortening services abound on the Net, including TinyURL and Bitly. With its 140-character limit, Twitter automatically shortens URLs in each tweet via Bitly. Other services like WordPress also include a built-in URL shortener.
But Web browsers don’t display the true address of a shortened URL, so you have no idea whether or not the destination page is safe. Hackers have easily been able to use the obscure nature of shortened URLs to conceal hazardous Web pages behind them.
“The problem with shortened links is that they usually don’t bear any resemblance to the original URLs, which means that users don’t always know what they’re clicking,” said Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG Technologies. “People click with the intention of going to a specific site, but the link can be easily hacked to send people to a site containing Trojans, spyware, rootkits, and other malware instead.”
AVG, formerly known as Grisoft, bought LinkScanner in late 2007 as part of a larger acquisition. The tool has already proven helpful to Web surfers by analyzing Web pages behind each link that is either clicked on or typed into the browser.
Other solutions do exist to reveal the truth behind a short URL. The Web site LongURL can display the long version of a short URL. A Firefox plug-in called LongURL Mobile Expander can also translate from short to long.
But according to AVG, LinkScanner is now the only security tool on the market that can find poisoned Web pages behind a short URL. The company says it does not rely on blacklists and instead checks each link in real time.
by Lance Whitney from Cnet
