The SmartSwipe Online Security, Shopping and Technology Blog

Earlier today, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a very interesting article, written by an electronic payment processor called First American Payment Systems. I have been following First American Payment Systems on Digg for awhile - in that time, I have learned many interesting things by watching the articles that they Digg. However, this article deserves special mention as it explains exactly how the transaction industry works.

http://fapsmarketing.blogspot.com/2009/03/understanding-credit-card-transactions.html

On March 17, Shane Gross wrote an interesting article in which he looked at some of the statistics behind identity theft in Canada. In the course of writing this article, Shane referenced a wonderful report entitled, "Measuring Identity Theft in Canada: 2008 Consumer Survey" written by Susan Sproule and Norm Archer of McMaster University's eBusiness Research Centre.

Since Sunburn Gross and I come from different backgrounds, it is no surprise that we both focus on slightly different aspects of the report. While Shane focused more upon the raw numbers, I got hung up on a few very interesting sections.

Here is a simple test, (courtesy of lastwatchdog.com) to find out whether or not you are already infected with Conficker, aka the April Fool's Day worm.

Try clicking Microsoft.com. Then try Symantec.com. Finally, try McAfee.com. If you can open these websites, then you are not infected with Conficker – it has a redirect built in to keep you from opening these sites. However, if your browser will not let you access any of these websites, chances are you are already infected with Conficker.

On 60 Minutes last night they reported on Conflicker and other potential internet threats. I thought this story was very well done (it even comes with a surprise ending!). You can watch it here.

What is particularly interesting is that even the guy from Symantec (makers of Norton Antivirus) says antivirus is simply not enough to protect your computer. Norton has to issue an update every 5 minutes in an attempt to keep up! Dan blogged on this last week in "From the Horses Mouth". I was also pleased to see that they illustrated how anyone can be infected by such simple acts as leaving your computer on overnight, visiting a hacked website or getting messages from friends on social networking sites.

Seems like Symantec themselves are saying that anti-virus software isn’t enough to protect against modern threats…

http://www.symantec.com/en/au/business/library/article.jsp?aid=a_closer_look_at_endpoint_security

I work in User Experience/Customer Relations at NetSecure Technologies. In that capacity, one of my major tasks has been to prepare and execute support materials. A security product is useless if customers cannot or will not use it, so teaching people how to use the product is especially important.

Psychologists have argued (quite effectively) that different people employ different learning styles. Personally, I learn best when I can read something - give me a book and I can become an expert fairly quickly (strangely, I have much more difficulty absorbing information if I read it online). Other people learn best when they can hear something. And still other people learn best when they can actually try something out. Customer support is about supporting people the way they need to be supported - there is no room for ego, and no room for, "well, this works for me" thinking. So, I have tried to employ as many different learning styles as possible in all of my support materials.

Swiping your credit card at your PC. It’s so simple - why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?

Actually, they have been trying to do this for a long time. Dig hard enough and you’ll unearth the remains of a number of “secure credit card reader” devices for personal use, some dating back as far as 10 years ago. And they’re still trying to do it - there are dozens of companies out there trying to develop all sorts of neat little gadgets for secure online shopping (some of which are pretty dubious in terms of security). But nobody’s ever been able to make it fly. Why not?

By now you have probably heard about the impending April Fool's day worm that, according to CNN, threatens to "overwhelm and shut down Web sites, or monitor a person's keyboard strokes to collect private information like passwords or bank account information".

The thought of Y2K, however, is probably nothing more than a faded memory.