Plurkshops

*note to self: be sure to warn guests about pace, volume - “firehose”

Monday night’s Plurkshop was one of our most successful ever and one of our most challenging. We picked a topic that was totally new for almost our entire audience, hosted two rock-star security expert guests, tried a new format and, uh, had more people participate/observe than ever before.

That would be a bit much for some, but not for the Plurkshoppers. We are learning how to do this right with the whole world watching/plurking along with us. For those of you who tried the app we used, CoverItLive, thank you for your patience! We are trying our hardest to find a format that maintains the free-form spirit of Plurk, and can manage the volume of folks who want to participate.

Our guests, Jennifer Leggio network security geek by day, ZDNet blogger by night, and Adam J. O’Donnell, Ph.D., Director of Emerging Technologies at Cloudmark, answered questions lobbed at them by over 60 people. The result was an excellent Online Security 101.

Adam started out with an intro about how spammers are moving into social networks. Of course their primary vehicle is to operate through friend requests. Remember that dude you thought was a friend of of a friend? When you asked her about it she said she didn’t know him either. And you just accepted him as a friend because you thought he was connected to someone you trust. Or, worse yet, you couldn’t remember who they were, so you checked their profile, leaving you vulnerable to a spam, or even a phishing attack.

Trust is key to protecting yourself on social networks. Read on!

Key Tips: How safe are you?

Friends, Following, URLs, Trusted Sources

We get so many friend requests, that it would be so easy to just automatically accept them all. Well maybe not all of them- we can see right through those anatomical “friend” names.  Jennifer warns against clicking accept for all of them or even using auto-follow programs, “What if you’re not aware this person could be linking to malicious URLs? And you see something in your timeline and just click on it, not realizing that you have a spammer in your follow list. This could be trouble. It’s better to take the time for cautious review.”

Check to see if the request is from someone you know- aka “trusted source.” When Jennifer gets a suspicious request, she always checks their profile, but never clicks on any links.

URL Filtering

When I hear filter, I think water. URL filtering protects us from bugs too, just a different kind. Links to malicious URLs are a key way for the web’s online dark lords to reel you in. URL filters are content blocking systems that social networks could use to “automatically detect URL redirection to malicious sites and block them.” Most services aren’t sophisticated enough yet to have them- basically you need to be your own filter. Open links from trusted sources & beware of those from unknown people.

Malicious links can be embedded in a web site and if you have an older browser you are vulnerable to malware even without clicking on a link. Adam recommends you back up your data, download software updates & apply standard patches.

Password Protection

The stronger your password, the safer you are. Adam explains, “Passwords are strong if they are difficult to guess…Strong passwords don’t contain dictionary words, have nothing to do with you, and contain random numbers and letters.”

Jennifer recommends you have a different password for every online app you use and they should be updated every 60 - 90 days. To make it easy for herself, she sets calendar reminders to make the change.

Want to learn about spam and phishing? Read the session transcript Plurkshop 7 Security & Microblogging.

Jennifer Leggio is also the creator of Security Twits and Adam O’Donnell can be found at his blog NP-Incomplete.

Next Plurkshop: Tim Jackson hosts Social Media- It’s the Conversation Stupid! @plurkshop 7 PM, PDT.

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