The application of thrid party certification program in Malaysia

Choosing this title give me a hard time to understand the certificate (phew). Finally, I have some understand on what is third party certification program. First, let me explain what is certificate. Certificate always refer to digital identity certificate or public key certificate. Let me tell you how this things work, certificate mostly is refer to 2 keys, public and private key. What those key for? Let me give you an example to make it more clear, when we send a secure message to somebody, we need a key to encrypt the information the key in this area is called a public key, and we need a private key to decrypt this data. However, the other user on the net maybe will develop a similar key that will be a threat of security. Therefore, we need a third party, certification authorization (CA), to secure their information.

How CA do that? CA will keep the public key of the parties who trust him and make a higher level encryption, when a party want to send a message to another party, CA will match the public key to allow the 2 parties having the right encryption that can be decrypt by their own private key.

Sound like very hard to understand right? I also use a lot of times to understand it (= =). The application of third party certification program in Malaysia is Digicert. Digicert is a government create trust agent that help to secure the online users in Malaysia.

http://www.digicert.com.my/

The Threat of Online Security: How safe is our Data?

Nowadays, using internet is very convenient but do you know that surfing the internet does a harmful to our personal computer and personal data too. A online security risk is any event or action that could cause a loss of or damage to computer hardware, software, data, information, or processing capability. Some breaches to computer security are accidentally. Others are planned intrusions. Some intruders do no damage, they just access data, information, or programs on the computer.

There are some threats of online security.
1.Computer viruses: A computer virus is a potentially damaging computer program that affects, or infects, a computer negatively by altering the way the computer works without the user’s knowledge or permission.

2.Trojan Horse: This is program that hides within or looks like a legitimate program. A certain condition or action usually triggers the Trojan horse. Unlike the virus, Trojan horse does not replicate itself to other computer.

3.Unauthorized access and use: unauthorized access is the use of computer or network without permission. It includes a variety of activities, for example an employee tracks down the employee e-mail messages, or gaining access to a bank website to perform an unauthorized transfer.

4.Software Theft: this is another threat to security, software theft occurs when someone steals software media or program. And then they will so some software piracy or illegal copy to market.

Here are some safeguards
1. Firewalls: a firewall is hardware or software that protects a network’s resources from intrusion by users on another network such as the internet. All networked and online computer users should implement a firewall solution.

2. User name and password: is a unique combination of characters that identifies one specific user. It allows access to certain computer resources.

3. Encryption: this is the process of converting readable data info unreadable characters to prevent unauthorized access.

4. antivirus software: this is the software that can scan through out the computer and delete all kind of viruses.


Business and home users must protect, or safeguard, their computer from breaches of online security risk.

How to safeguard our Personal and Financial data

Nowadays, the internet is a public network of nearly 60,000 networks connecting with millions of computers throughout the world. While we need to register as a member in a particular electronic commerce website where you buy or sell thing. We need to give the personal and financial date to the particular website. The detail you need to give for example name, date of birth, gender, house address, hand phone number, e-mail address, occupation and interests, personal financial information such as credit card number, and other information. Therefore, it is important that users take measure to protect their data from loss, damage and misuse.

Here are some simple safeguard


1. Use a username and password wisely: While you want to choose something you will remember, you don't want it to be something that a clever thief could figure out just by learning your birth date or IC number. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer you more security.


2. Use a credit card with a small limit: for mail-order and online purchases. It's all too easy for a dishonest sales clerk to use your credit card information. If the card you use for these purchases has a low credit limit, at least thieves won't be able to rack up many bills before hitting a wall.


3. Review your monthly statements: always always check the credit card statement and make sure that the transaction is use my you and not other.


4. Delete cookies: when ever after you use the computer, you must always delete the cookie, these cookie can track down the username and password.


5. Install antispyware and antivirus software: Symantec, Norton and Avg antivirus are popular software use by computer users. Its clean computer and protect personal information, financial data and etc.


Finally, I hope that all the website user or the staff of the website should have some ethic and morale value.

Phishing...Fishing...??

Hi, it's blogging time again ^^ Are you familiar with the word "Phishing"?? It's not "Fishing", an activity that you sit by the river bank and wait for the fishes to eat your bait. But, it has a similar meaning. It is a technique used to steal your valuable personal data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data. using fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from legitimate businesses.

Phishing is the biggest and might be the most common threats that an online might have experienced nowadays. Phishing can in form of electronically, commonly through e-mail or instant message, or through voice phone calls, text messages, and other electronic communication methods. Here are some samples of phishing e-mail.

These mails are sent to targeted users under well known or trusted websites such as PayPal, eBay and banks. Some e-mails' contain information that threatening the users that their account would be suspended or terminated if they do not re-enter their information. Some users might started to worry and followed the instructions to re-enter their information. Once users responded to the those e-mails, users' sensitive information such as credit card numbers, bank account data, passwords will be stolen. Users may not only just leak out their personal information but also suffered from financial losses.

As there are lots of phishing e-mails on the internet, preventions should be taken by the internet users to keep track from the scam. Online users should be smart and be suspicious of any e-mail with urgent requests for personal financial information. We should not use the links in an e-mail or instant message if they suspect the message is a phishing scam. Instead of using the link provided if we suspect that the message if we do not know the sender or user, we might log on to the company's website by typing in the web address directly in our browser or directly call up. We should also avoid to fill out forms in e-mail that ask for personal financial information. Regularly check on the bank, credit and debit card statements to make sure there is no suspicious or unrecognized transaction is carried out.

Education may play a role in preventing ourselves to fall into those phishing scams. If we are educated with the knowledge to detect a phishing mail or website and how to securely access website, a lot of phishing attacks will not succeed. There are lots of information online which teach users how to identify phishing mail and site. A lot of companies and anti-phishing organizations also provide security tips and advises on preventing phishing scams. The most common way to prevent a phishing attack is via phishing software.

There are many products in the market and many of them come in or are included in anti virus and anti spam software. The program will filters our incoming emails, searching for any content within the message or in URLs that may be phishing related or carry phishing software.