GET SAFE ONLINE OR HOW TO KEEP SAFE ON THE DARK SIDE …

Today marks the beginning of the Get Safe Online week  (http://www.getsafeonline.org) here in the UK.     Last month was Global Cyber Security month. 

This celebration of the ‘evil’ Internet - is becoming a ghoulish fetish – an obsession with the dark side of the cyber world, this dangerous underworld populated by zombies and Zeus mutants.   During every breathing moment this new ‘world’ we have created – the Internet / Cyberspace / the Web – morphs and grows and its tentacles reach into every nook and cranny of our lives.   You would have to be a Buddhist monk in the remote mountains of Bhutan not to have been influenced by the spread of this techno organism and its cancerous viruses….   Or is this all scaremongering?

How bad is it really?  Well first we have to acknowledge that it is a reality  – the Internet that is -  and everything that goes with it – both good and bad.    The Internet has unleashed Man’s creativity and his ability to harness this new force – mainly for good.   The Internet has unlocked information that would otherwise languish unread in distant, dusty libraries.   Our children are exposed to such a wealth of information that we as parents often wish that we were back at school – enjoying the luxury of being able to learn again.  It is a wonderful thing.    The advances in science and technology as well as the humanities allows Mankind to engage with the world in a much more vigorous way than ever before.  Very often with terrible consequences – pollution/global warming/ ocean acidification / deforestation / fish extermination – as well as that more subtle and insidious threat – CyberCrime.

As we engage with Internet more and more and use it as a tool for work and play so we accrue the manifold benefits – but we are also exposed to its evil side.   The dark side -  which is very real.   Cybercrime has long since surpassed the Global Drugs trade in sheer financial terms.   It is worth billions of dollars every year  and that does not account for the opportunity cost of stolen identities which account for the same amount again if not more.    Sixty thousand phishing sites are created weekly with the sole purpose of stealing your personal and financial credentials.   Maybe your site has been cloned ? 

The Internet is and will continue to increasingly be used for business purposes.   The costs of a bricks and mortar business are much higher than an online business and so we migrate our business models to the Web.   Every time we transact on the Web there is a process whereby users / customers engage with websites or applications and in so doing the process of the establishment of Trust between these two parties takes place.   

It is this critical interaction that is the foundation of transacting securely on the Web.   If this process is flawed or compromised then either the user or the site will be vulnerable to some form of attack.   The result of such an attack could be the theft of ID credentials from the user or the theft of products from the site,  the theft of credit  card / banking information. 

This process of establishing trust is called authentication.   There are many so-called authentication solutions out there – most of them using decade old technology purporting to provide you with ‘ iron-clad’ security.  And yet the incidences of the failure of these solutions continues to rise.   ID theft remains probably the scariest thing that could happen to anyone on the Internet.  And yet users remain oblivious to this threat and to the risk to themselves.   

There are very few solutions which can genuinely claim to protect your identity and provide a true multi-factor authentication solution.   Check out www.liveensure.com which provides a truly SAAS authentication solution available as a mash-up.   Think – Google  Maps for security.     Available on a freemium  basis.   Free trial with an upgrade to a Pay as you go Solution. 

Do you have your customers best interests at heart and want to provide more than a user name / password solution. ?   Try it – what can you lose?  

We want the Internet to become the force for good that it can – but we need to protect all users from the evil forces on the dark side.    Make this www.getsafeonline.org week a success and spread the good news around. 

Thank you