In that respect lets mention a few tools you can use to keep your accounts secure.
Start here: Gmail Security Checklist
Subscribe here: Google Online Security Blog

This will help keep you up to date on all the new techniques and scams running so you can properly protect yourself!

Happy Paranoia

Keep your account secure! [Checklist!] is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

• http://twinkler.in/ (should feel somewhat organic, you can move around and see relationships between twitter folk)
• http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/ (should seem like a interactive screen saver with each dot representing a tweet)
• http://html5gallery.com/2009/06/karrun/ (should be able to drag elements around)
• http://informationhighwayman.com/ (more mainstream site using html5)
• http://www.energycell.co.uk/ (again more mainstream)

If you need to update your browser and don’t know where to find one:

• To get Mozilla Firefox (recommended)
• To get Google Chrome (very good but some older IE only sites have issues)
• To get Opera
• To get Apple Safari (also recommended)

You may be wondering where Microsoft Internet Explorer is on this list? It’s not, while every browser and every computer has numerous security vulnerabilities, oddities, and is probably missing a bit of something – Internet Explorer is very much behind the rest.  We do not recommend using it unless it is necessary for the particular page you are trying to view (which is rare).

Recently, at Black Hat DC conference, a security consultant (Jorge Luis Alvarez Medina) demoed how it’s possible to exploit a flaw in Internet Explorer browser that turns your personal computer into a public file server. In other words, attacker can remotely read files on the victim’s local drive.

From: http://www.taranfx.com/ie-flaw-public-files

As always, when updating your browser its a great time to get great extensions to make your life easier. Here is a small sample of some we’ve found helpful for our clients:

Addon’s for Mozilla Firefox

Update your browser! is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

If your using Firefox, Google Chrome™ or Safari you shouldn’t have any issues. If your using Internet Explorer it may ask you to update to the latest version with more security features and capabilities for handling the best and newest web apps out there!

Here is the communication I received:

Dear Google Apps™ admin,?

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs™ suite and the Google Sites™ editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail™ and Google Calendar™.

Google Apps™ will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome™ 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting next week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs™ and the Google Sites™ editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps™ team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps™ team

Google Apps™ Browser Requirements is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/googles-privacy-principles.html

We are involved in the service provider, administrator, and support circles for the Google Apps™ product. If you have more questions or concerns we’ll be happy to help answer them or direct you to the proper resources!

Google™ Privacy Principals is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

Threat Advisory: Spam and Virus Trends

Postini data centers blocked more than 100 million viruses every day during the height of a virus attack in recent months. The majority (over 50%) of these viruses delivered through fake notices of underreported income from the IRS, and another large contingent of virus-infected emails included false package tracking attachments. Spammers also sent an email that asked for the recipient’s user name and password to their webmail account, and then used the compromised account to generate spam.

Postini continues to capture many of these phishing attempts before they reach your users’ inboxes. For unprotected mail systems, only a tiny fraction of the recipients need to be fooled for spammers to add hundreds of computers to their botnets every day.

For more information on this attack, see Spam & Virus Trends from Postini on the Google™ Enterprise Blog.

Best Practices for Virus Protection

Consider Early Detection for viruses: The Early Detection feature provides additional protection against zero-hour threats, which are emerging viruses/malware that are not yet captured in a virus definition file. With Early Detection, incoming messages that contain suspicious content are temporarily quarantined for deeper analysis and rescanned by the service’s antivirus engines with updated signatures. Early Detection targets messages with executable file attachments and messages that trigger the advanced anti-virus heuristics filter.

From our observations, we found that Early Detection successfully identifies and blocks zero-hour viruses in customer environments. Find out more about turning on Early Detection and how it works.

Use Attachment Manager to filter executable files: Most viruses are delivered as executable file attachments (for example, .exe or .vbs):

• Bounce or quarantine all system threats such as executables and encrypted compressed files.
• Enable binary scanning and scanning inside compressed file types.

For more information, see the instructions for Attachment Manager.

Postini Email Advisory is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

This past week over 30,000 email accounts were compromised (access was gained by an unwanted individual or entity) as reported by

RTE,ZDNet,TechSpot,Mashable

What all of these reports agree upon – and the sources they site – the issue is not the security of the platform or product but that people are. But it’s not that these individuals are intentionally going out there and giving out their account details but they are getting themselves into situations where their information is gathered without their knowledge. This is where the user comes in. This is traditionally the hardest area to improve upon as it requires change of behavior for individuals with no over-sight or supervision. You must WANT to improve, protect yourself, be more security conscious or no amount of security products will fully protect you.

So what I recommend to those of you reading this and saying “yikes I hope that doesn’t happen to me” is to review your basic computer practices:

• Passwords, do you use them? How do you make them, do you change them often and regularly?
• When you visit websites, do you look at the address bar to see where you really are?
• If you’re putting personal data in are you making sure the website is secure?
• When you save data on your computer are you doing so within your own profile in a designated area?
• Do you have open shares on your computer to anyone who can access?
• Do you have wifi, is it secure?
• Do you browse the web in public places like coffee shops, restaurants, airports, and sporting events?

Things like this should come to mind whenever you’re working with personal information. It’s scary how easily open information can be gathered. But little steps can go a long way to protecting you from these widespread attacks that just look for the easy catch.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions let us know! There are a ton of resources out there with steps for protecting yourself in each of the different situations I made note of but I’d be happy to talk with you about any concerns you may have.

Security: The User Matters is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works