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IT security at home

Threats to information security are not exclusively targeted at the corporate network.

Many blended threats and attacks of late rely on the curiosity and apathy of home users.

There are some practical steps that can be taken to improve the security on a communications infrastructure at home:

* The awareness of the end-user is possibly the most important aspect of information security. Home users should always keep up to date with latest security trends. This information is provided on a regular basis by banking sites and Internet service providers.

* The home user should always treat information from a unknown source with suspicion.

* The protection of the identity of the user is of outmost importance. Users often make use of weak passwords and authentication methods, this makes it easier for cyber criminals. User identity should be seen as the 'key to the kingdom'.

* Traditional anti-virus and content filtering solutions on the home users' computer have proven insufficient to say the least. Multiple ways of exploitation are used to compromise systems not covered by conventional methods of protection. An integrated security client is required to provide protection against viruses and malware, including hacking, cracking, password grabbing etc.

* The technology aspect does not stop at a basic installation. As in the case of any AV solution, these integrated security clients should be kept up to date on a weekly basis to ensure the detection and prevention of the latest attack signatures.

* Patch management on a solution is simple yet often neglected by home users and even corporate networks. Users rarely consider the fact that there is a built-in level of security inherent within the operating system - unless a weakness or bug is discovered in the system, it will be near impossible to compromise.

* Weekly and sometimes daily patches gets released to address these bugs in the OS, it is a matter of applying these to effectively keep the system up to date and protected against these threats.

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