Jesper Writes About Security

  It was, of course, bound to happen. As soon as I published the   The Busy Executive’s Guide to Personal Information Security   the first person I showed it to said “but what about...”. Of course, there are a lot more things you should very seriously consider. The two that came up in that discussion are covered here. If you have additional tips that I hadn’t thought of, or questions about other steps, let me know. Freeze Your Credit Reports Most countries have some form of credit rating system. In the U.S. we have three credit bureaus with a not-altogether stellar record of keeping your information secure, nor a particularly inspiring track record of keeping bad guys from using it. If you want to change how they protect it, you need to begin by finding someone to vote for on November 3, 2020 who cares about such things. I’ve not heard anyone really pay much attention to it though, but you should definitely vote anyway.  However, if you want to control how the inform...

Congratulations. As an executive you are the favorite target of ne’er-do-wells across the world. They will spoof email messages to staff and business partners in your name. They will try to hack your corporate account, your bank account, your email account, and your phone. In addition to hundreds of messages per week from semi-legitimate vendors who want to sell you their most recent search engine optimization snake-oil you will also get a variety of Word documents, PDF files, and PowerPoint presentations, most of which are laden with malware. If this sounds depressing, it is. It is the world of Information Security. There are ways to protect yourself, however. This document will tell you the most important things you can do. 1. Patch Your Stuff! The first thing you need to do is to patch. Software and hardware vendors provide regular security updates to fix security bugs. Or, rather, the reputable ones do. The first step is to use devices and software that provide timely and reliable ...