EMAIL SECURITY

Email security has two major protocols to pick from. You can choose S/MIME and PGP.

PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy and was developed by Phil Zimmerman several years back. There was a big hullabaloo when he first generated the secure program application. The Justice department was concerned about criminal use of eccryption and brought a case against Phil Zimmermann, which was eventually dropped., after a three year investigation.

Today's law enforcement has forensic science departments that  have the capability to break into just about anything. The judicial decision to allow strong encryption within the US boarders was a plus for freedom and it continues today. You are not allowed to export these applications outside of US borders.

S/MIME  stands for Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, and adds RSA (named after the inventors of the algorithm, Rivest, Shamir, & Adelman) encryption for secure transmission. PGP has turned into a commercial application and also uses keys. With PGP you generate a public and a private key. An authenticating server at PGP.com publishes and authenticates your public key.

Bottom line is that without an appropriate key to retrieve and decipher a message, it's just dead bytes, unable to be opened and read.

Packet sniffing tools abound and there are a slew of them for Windows users, Unix users, and Macintosh users. They can be useful by professionals attempting to debug a network. Bad people, thieves trying to steal your identity or hard earned savings, can also use them.

Ethereal is one that if most frequently used and can be downloaded from the Internet. Knowledge can be used for good and bad. Its what you do with that knowledge that matters.

I sometimes use some of these detection tools in my work. I do not do it without my client's knowledge and providing good reason to do so. If they object then the problem gets resolved another way, even thought it might take additional time.

Why would an average user want to know about these capabilities? You could be a hobbyist enhancing your security skills. You might have a reason to try and protect your own home network. This is not a bad thing to do.

If you have a wireless home network, please secure it. There are folks who think having the neighbor share their network is a generous thing. It is also a dangerous thing and should be avoided.

Just like there are wired network tools for snooping there are also wireless sniffing devices that can rob you blind.

So, fellow TTPers, if you have a wireless network please do this:

*Turn off SSID broadcast in you wireless setting so that you are not broadcasting your network all over the neighborhood.

*change the default "Password" for your wireless router.

*If you have the capabilities to exclude PCs joining your network via a MAC (machine address code) then do so. Thus makes it difficult for someone to break into your wireless network.

*Use encryption. Most newer wireless access points, or routers have WAP 1 or WAP 2 capability. Turn it on and choose a good passkey. That means don't use your dog's name, etc. A mixture of uppercase and lowercase along with special characters is a good idea. For maximum protection change this password every 30 to 90 days.

The same things apply for a hard-wired network, except the broadcasting of SSID etc. Doing these simple things will go a long way to protect you and your data. If the data is too sensitive, do not keep it on your hard drive. You can keep data on a portable hard drive or a flash disk. Flash disks are up to 8gig in size now, and they can also be encrypted.

One of the potential problems for road warriors who are constantly connecting to different hotel networks or airport networks is security. Do yourself a big favor and get anti-spam anti-viral software, e.g., from McAfee or Norton and make sure to use it. 

One of the best things one can do is to keep up automatic security updates for your operating system, regardless whether you use a Windows, linux, UNIX or Macintosh box. Getting back to PGP it also gives you the option for whole disk encryption if you choose. This has it advantages and shortfalls.

Like a lot of things in life, common sense goes a long way in protecting your data. Don't leave you're your 2007 taxes on your desktop after completing them. Put them on a separate mobile media device and secure it.

The whole reason of even contemplating email security is this. Your mail pop accounts are out there in the naked with no protection. As it passes many hops and bounds on its way to its intended destination, it can be intercepted and sniffed by numerous people on its way.

It's your data, you can do what you want with it, but it might be a prudent thing to think about your security.