I started a thread a few years ago about securing computer systems, which most people use to access their investment and other financial accounts: Securing investment accounts
As the security landscape is continually changing, I thought the topic could use some re-visiting.
In particular, there has been some controversy over anti-virus/anti-malware products in the past year. A couple months ago, Google researchers found severe security flaws in Kaspersky anti-virus products. FireEye, ESET, and Sophos have also had some embarrassing bugs.
Computer security software generally works by examining files that are executed in the operating system or downloaded from the Internet (web pages, music files, programs, and so forth). Security software must generally also have fairly extensive privileges into a computer system in order to conduct this examination. This means that if the security software itself is compromised, it could also expose the operating system to compromise.
One school of thought is that anti-virus/anti-malware is largely useless because it (1) increases the attack surface of a system -- what I described in the paragraph above and (2) it is reactive, relying on malware signatures. Some AV packages use heuristics to flag abnormal activity, but I don't know the effectiveness level of these techniques. New malware might not be detected until it is too late. People who believe this advocate for using the minimal amount of installed software possible.
2-factor authentication (like an RSA token or SMS code sent to one's phone) can largely prevent unauthorized trades and/or transfer of assets.
The other thing I have been thinking about is disk encryption. Windows 10 Pro and higher has Bitlocker, and MacOS X has Filevault. This substantially reduces the chances that personal info can be extracted from files if one's PC is stolen.
Any thoughts?
As the security landscape is continually changing, I thought the topic could use some re-visiting.
In particular, there has been some controversy over anti-virus/anti-malware products in the past year. A couple months ago, Google researchers found severe security flaws in Kaspersky anti-virus products. FireEye, ESET, and Sophos have also had some embarrassing bugs.
Computer security software generally works by examining files that are executed in the operating system or downloaded from the Internet (web pages, music files, programs, and so forth). Security software must generally also have fairly extensive privileges into a computer system in order to conduct this examination. This means that if the security software itself is compromised, it could also expose the operating system to compromise.
One school of thought is that anti-virus/anti-malware is largely useless because it (1) increases the attack surface of a system -- what I described in the paragraph above and (2) it is reactive, relying on malware signatures. Some AV packages use heuristics to flag abnormal activity, but I don't know the effectiveness level of these techniques. New malware might not be detected until it is too late. People who believe this advocate for using the minimal amount of installed software possible.
2-factor authentication (like an RSA token or SMS code sent to one's phone) can largely prevent unauthorized trades and/or transfer of assets.
The other thing I have been thinking about is disk encryption. Windows 10 Pro and higher has Bitlocker, and MacOS X has Filevault. This substantially reduces the chances that personal info can be extracted from files if one's PC is stolen.
Any thoughts?
