International Computer Security Day

A new email worm has taken Australia and lots of other countries by storm in the last week.... although it hasn't taken us unawares... thanks to the last round of viruses we protected ourselves against.

This one is called BadTrans, and if your computer is affected, the worm will scan your Inbox for unread messages and send itself to those people. There are two filenames that are involved - the first is either a .doc, .zip, or .mp3 and the second is either a .pif or a .scr - this means that the attached document would look something like: photo.doc.pif

* update your anti virus software at least weekly
* never open attachments you weren't expecting
* never open attachments with unusual extensions
* don't forward email virus warnings without researching validity

International Computer Security Day is run every year around this time, with various countries and cities taking place with varying activities.

This year, the Australian Global Information Security has taken the bull by the horns and created a fantastic exhibition in Melbourne that shows both corporate and personal security issues and fixes.

We've seen:

- what a firewall looks like

- authentication hardware - this is a box that can recognise you as a person, in order to let you into the computer. It scans your face, thumbprint and other personal features.

- how easily someone could crack your password. We will see a computer game that demonstrates how you can guess someone's password by finding out a few facts about them. This is designed to encourage people to create more secure passwords for their ISP accounts, email, screen saver, power on password, etc.

Check out the website for more info at http://www.computersecurityday.com

For my fact sheet archive, visit http://www.getmega.com/getmega/todayshow.html

The best selling 'PCs for Dummies' book has been adapted for the first time for Australia by yours truly, me! Click on the book image to order the book now!