by Dan Levine and Jim Finkle | Reuters | Aug 23, 2011

Online data tracking service comScore Inc siphons confidential information including passwords, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers from unsuspecting users, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of two plaintiffs who downloaded comScore software, also says comScore scans all files on users’ personal computers and modifies security settings, among other allegations.

The lawsuit against comScore, one of the leading companies that measures and analyzes Internet traffic, seeks an injunction against several alleged practices, as well as damages under U.S. electronic communications privacy laws.

ComScore collects data from people who get free software and chances to enter sweepstakes in exchange for their participation. It sells that information to more than 1,800 businesses around the world, including Best Buy Co, Facebook, Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc, according to comScore’s website.

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1. Automate Your Backups

Most everyone knows that you need to backup up your data. Unfortunately, most don’t make a regular habit of it. The best way to ensure you have up to date backups is to automate the process. An excellent way to do this is to use a tool like SyncBack. It provides an excellent GUI for creating “tasks” to backup data to external hard drives, network shares, encrypted volumes (see below) or other backup devices. Its integration with the Windows Task Scheduler makes it very easy to automate your backup tasks.

This is the solution I recommend for most users as it requires no batch programming and it is completely free. If you are backing up a business network I suggest using SyncBackSE, a premium version (~$30) that includes several more features including file versioning and the ability to backup locked files.

2. Get Your Backup Off Site

OK, now that you are making those backups on a regular basis you need to protect against tragedies like fires and floods. The best way to do that is to take backups off site. One way to do this is to use portable backup solutions like data cartridge or tape drives, external hard disks or a laptop. Each of these can be effective solutions providing you actually take them off site.

I recommend Carbonite for online backup.  It’s inexpensive, simple to setup and use and supports file servers.

A more complex alternative, if you have a FTP account – with enough capacity and bandwidth for your needs – you can use it as the target of your SyncBack tasks.

3. Encrypt Your Data

Another threat to your data is unauthorized access. Your network is password protected, but what about the backups. With all these off site backups floating around the likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands increases. How many stories have we heard about information workers loosing a laptop full of social security numbers, credit card numbers and other personal information? An excellent way to protect the data in your care is to encrypt it.

The tool I like best for this purpose is TrueCrypt. It’s a free, open source tool that lets you create and maintain encrypted volumes on hard drives and removable data cartridges. By backing up to these encrypted volumes you can be sure that your data is protected from unauthorized use.

If you are using an online backup service then configure it to backup the TrueCrypt volume only. This way you know that while your data is securely sitting on a third party server there is no risk of snooping or other data theft.

4. Use a Version Control System

If you work in an environment where several people make changes to a large library files then you may benefit by using a version control system. Traditionally used by programmers and software engineers, version control system can be valuable tools for others that need to maintain control over how and who can change files.

With a version control system authorized users are required to “check-out” documents from a repository before they can make changes to them. This helps prevent multiple users from editing the same file at the same time. When files are “committed” back to the repository the changes are stored as well. This gives you the ability to compare versions and rollback edits. So when some one accidentally deletes pages 5 to 21 of the employee handbook you can recover it from an earlier version of the document.

You can implement a basic version control system on your PC or network using a free tool like TortoiseSVN. You can also use a web based service provider like CVSDude to host your repository giving you the added benefit of anywhere access and off site backup.

5. Backup Your Power Too

Have you ever lost an hour or more worth of editing when the power went out? One solution to this problem is to SAVE OFTEN! But did you know that your changes aren’t always written to disk immediately when you save? It could be several minutes before their securely on the disk. The better solution is to use an UPS – that is an Uninterrupted Power Supply – or battery backup. When the power goes out a UPS will continue to keep your PC on long enough for you to save and shutdown the PC normally.

If you are running a business network a UPS is a must for file servers and database servers. Remember to use a UPS on network equipment as well. Even if your servers and workstations are on a UPS you won’t be able to properly close network resources if the switch loses power. That can lead to data loss too.

In addition to a continuing flow of juice a good UPS unit will also provide protection against power surges that can damage your computer and network equipment. Even small, unnoticeable fluctuations in voltage can cause electronic wear to sensitive equipment. If you are not going to use UPS, at the very least use a surge suppressor.

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Commercial security suites are good, but sometimes too good. To justify their continuing subscription fee, they bloat the software with new features in each release. Pretty soon, we feel like our computers exist just to run the security suites and were buying memory upgrades to handle the programs we want to run.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Anti-Virus

When starting with a clean machine, most users only need a simple and reliable Anti-Virus tool with a light-weight active scanner and frequent automatic updates. My favorite is AVG Anti-Virus. It is the one I run myself and the one I recommend to all of my clients, friends and family. If you are using it in a commercial environment then Grisoft does require a subscription fee comparable to other commercial AV vendors.

Click here for more free Anti-Virus tools.

Anti-Spyware

In addition to Anti-Virus, we all need protection from Spyware.  You can find a number of excellent free packages in the Anti-Spyware page of the Free Software Catalog.

If you suspect that your machine is infected with spyware that your anti-virus is not detecting you should install and run one of these packages. Remember to run the product’s update function before scanning to ensure you detect the latest threats.

For those hard to reach places these next two tools are great. I wouldn’t recommend them for the novice users because the results of their scans can be hard to interpret. But, if you’re the neighborhood computer geek, these are a must have.

• CCleaner
• HiJackThis

Once your machine is completely clean you shouldn’t need to consistently run spyware blockers. That is, unless you visit a variety of “unscrupulous” sites or you frequently download music, games and programs from file share networks. If these are your surfing and use habits you should probably run one of the active blockers, such as SpyCatcher Express.

Firewalls

Nowadays, most home based computers access the Internet through a router. That router provides basic firewall protection by using something called network address translation (NAT). NAT makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for hackers to gain control of your machine from outside of your network. This means that most home users do NOT require a software based firewall.

The additional advantage a software based firewall does provide over the NAT enabled router is the ability to detect when software on your computer tries to access the Internet. This can be useful in identifying and stopping spyware. Of course, if you keep your computer free of these threats it’s not totally necessary.

However, if you are not using a NAT enabled router, i.e. your computer is connected directly to your cable, DSL or dial-up modem, then you need to run a software based firewall.

If you are running Windows XP or later you already have a decent firewall built-in. Make sure it is running.

If you feel you want something a bit more robust, check out ZoneAlarm.

Conclusion

As you can see there is no excuse for not properly securing your PC. You can learn more about these packages here.

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