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The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

blog.mozilla.org

31–40 of 119 posts

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#31
Author needs to read, or re-read NIST 800-63B. https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html

Do not change passwords frequently. Do not use short passwords and try to compensate by using special characters and nonsensical word obfuscation, instead use long passphrases, the longer the better.

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#32
post #8

"Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec." Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...

That's been my understanding too, and I've seen security professionals say the same. But possibly, their advice was intended for likely targets, such as journalists, and not the general public.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd trust a typical end user to protect themself otherwise. Are they going to secure their OS profile? Avoid malware?

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#33
post #3

Overall a good resource but please no to "antivirus" software like McAfee. Absolutely horrible and makes it worse.

Ok so you have kids who play say Minecraft, they download all mods they can in zipfiles and install all the other games packs from weird internet forums.

What is bigger threat and attack vector, McAfee, Symantec or modding forums for 10 year old?

For me installing AV is silly I don't download and run random crap from internet that friend from school also installed. But If I would have kids having installed AV and updated is quite good idea. I also wonder all time how my non technical close ones break their computers, I don't know what they are clicking but I do not get unusable windows 10 every 3 months. My gf is not technical but she almost never install anything on her laptop and it works fine, so for this one I am quite happy.

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#34
post #23
post #8

"Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec." Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...

Previously, from a former Mozilla developer [1]: > At best, there is negligible evidence that major non-MS AV products give a net improvement in security. More likely, they hurt security significantly; for example, see bugs in AV products listed in Google's Project Zero. These bugs indicate that not only do these products open many attack vectors, but in general their developers do not follow standard security practi…

Vulnerability is not lack of security. You need a threat actor exploiting the weakness for it to become actual insecurity.

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#35
post #8

"Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec." Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...

Windows itseld is a proprietary software. MS Defender does an ok job but for most malware that target consumers,those av softwares are not a negative.

As a techie you might have nation state actors employing sophisticated attacks or corpirations spying on users. But the most immediate threat to consumers are things like phishing attacks,ransomware and banking trojans.

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#36
post #8

"Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec." Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...

That's been my understanding too, and I've seen security professionals say the same. But possibly, their advice was intended for likely targets, such as journalists, and not the general public. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd trust a typical end user to protect themself otherwise. Are they going to secure their OS profile? Avoid malware?

Yes, seems like people here take threat model of journalists and want to apply it to their 10 year old nephew who is downloading Minecraft mods.

Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data

#39
As someone who has dropped almost all social media (mostly so I can get more done, but also for privacy), I can point out some non obvious consequences. This blog post mentions that stopping the use of Facebook will prevent you from seeing your nephews baby pictures... This is true.

My extended family and remote friends actually got upset when I dropped Facebook. They asked why I didn't want to be part of their lives, asked why I was choosing not to talk to them anymore... All while texting me on phones that allow instantaneous communication of any type of election media imaginable, more so that Facebook allows.

Moral of the story: Facebook and other social media makes most people socially lazy with continuous use. If you don't believe me, go try to meet someone under the age of 30 "out in the wild", at a bar or venue. Bars used to be easiest places to meet anyone at, just walk in, sit at the front, and start chatting. I'm not talking about people who are on their phones ignoring the outside world; even people just chilling and having a beer just don't know how to talk to someone outside of their social media platforms.

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