“An investigative series I’ve been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud,” Brian Krebs reports for The Washington Post.
Krebs reports, “The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don’t use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.”
“In direct response to this series reported and published by Security Fix, the SANS Technology Institute, a security research and education organization, challenged its students with creating a white paper to determine the most effective methods for small and mid-sized businesses to mitigate the threat from these types of attacks. Their conclusion? While there are multiple layers that of protection that businesses and banks could put in place, the cheapest and most foolproof solution is to use a read-only, bootable operating system, such as Knoppix, or Ubuntu,” Krebs reports. “Also known as ‘Live CDs,’ these are generally free, Linux-based operating systems that one can download and burn to a CD-ROM.”
Krebs reports, “Of course, a Mac computer would probably work just as well, but the focus here is on Windows users who may be looking for a cheap way to harden their existing setup to avoid malicious software.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Microsoft Tax strikes again. And, oh, by the way, a Mac would work better, because you’d be able to do so much more than just safely bank online.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tommy Boy” for the heads up.]
