Cyber-safety shouldn\u2019t take a break when heading home for the holidays. Between free time, new toys, and family travel, year-end festivities pose plenty of opportunity for on-line compromise. So stay safe this holiday season by avoiding these ten\u00a0pitfalls.<\/p>\n
Malicious Season\u2019s Greetings<\/strong><\/p>\n December often brings an influx of email greetings from distant family and friends, inviting recipients to \u201cclick here\u201d to view an e-card, video, or animation. Alas, not all such messages are sincere. While some are harmless hoax-mails, cyber-criminals have been known to disguise viruses and spyware as phony season\u2019s greetings. Don\u2019t let holiday spirit trump common sense \u2013 open all file attachments and URLs with care.<\/p>\n Phishing for Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n From Facebook to Twitter, many users will use holiday down time to catch up on social networking. Unfortunately, social networking sites have become a fast-growing route for phishing. Was that friend invitation really sent by your old colleague Joe? Think twice before clicking \u2013 and never give out personal data to new \u201cfriends\u201d that you don\u2019t really know.<\/p>\n Wayward Laptops<\/strong><\/p>\n Somewhere between hotel, cab, and airport, thousands of travelers will lose laptops, PDAs, and phones this holiday season. New York\u2019s LaGuardia airport lost-and-found alone has accumulated over 70,000 unclaimed mobile devices. So don\u2019t leave a boarding gate, vehicle, or security checkpoint without taking a mental inventory of your electronics to ensure that all are still in your possession. If possible, register all laptops and smartphones with services that can locate and recover or kill lost or stolen devices, such as Apple’s MobileMe or Microsoft’s MyPhone.<\/p>\n Hazardous Hotspots<\/strong><\/p>\n Whenever you tap Wi-Fi at a coffee shop, train station, or ski lodge, beware of fake Internet hotspots. Surveys show that viral SSIDs like \u201cFreePublicWifi\u201d are advertised by 5 to 10 percent of Wi-Fi clients used in highly-traveled public places. Most are fellow travelers that naively tried to connect to similarly-named fake hotspots in the past. But a few might be criminals looking to steal logins and passwords. So avoid enticingly named Wi-Fi peers or networks that are too good to be true.<\/p>\n Infested Public PCs<\/strong><\/p>\n Holiday travelers that leave their own laptop at home often use someone else\u2019s computer to check email or print a boarding pass. Whether that computer is a public PC in the hotel lobby or your cousin Jane\u2019s PC in her den, you\u2019re swimming in potentially infested waters. Wherever possible, avoid typing in ordinary passwords that are easily captured by hidden keystroke loggers.<\/p>\n Unattended Logons<\/strong><\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re taking a quick break or hitting the road, remember to log out of all authenticated browser and VPN sessions, clear the browser\u2019s cache of saved pages and passwords, and exit all programs. When leaving your own laptop unattended, password-lock the screen. Or, better yet, shutdown and lock it away in a hotel room safe. Exercising a little forethought and caution can help you avoid wasting precious holiday time dealing with the consequences of unauthorized laptop use or theft.<\/p>\n Neglected USB Drives<\/strong><\/p>\n Often, the smallest possessions are the easiest to forget or drop. Holiday travelers who remember to safeguard laptops and smartphones can still leave USB thumb drives plugged into public PCs, under guest room beds, wedged into airline seats, or skittering about rental car trunks. The files saved on those lost drives could come back to bite you \u2013 unless you\u2019ve protected that removable drive\u2019s content with data encryption. The same goes for data on devices that double as USB storage, such as MP3 players and iPods.<\/p>\n Internet Skinny-Dipping<\/strong><\/p>\n Hundreds of thousands of families will unwrap a brand new computer this holiday season. While most new computers are now delivered with trial anti-virus software, recipients anxious to use these gifts don\u2019t always take the time to activate virus and spyware protection or download current signatures and OS patches. Using the Internet without desktop security is never a good idea. Get that computer up to snuff before the kids start visiting websites, downloading games, and instant messaging their friends.<\/p>\n Not-So-Safe Smartphones<\/strong><\/p>\n Small children aren\u2019t the only users who go online from new unsecured devices. From Droids to iPhones, many adults and teens will receive consumer smartphones they\u2019ve been pining for this holiday season. And most will immediately start configuring them with usernames and passwords for Gmail, Yahoo!, iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, and perhaps a corporate Exchange server. Unfortunately, a far smaller number will protect those phones with strong authentication\u2014much less data encryption\u2014creating an easy avenue for personal and business identity theft. Always enable built-in smartphone security measures and fill any gaps by downloading third-party security apps.<\/p>\n