I Learn about Black Hats

Jamie sent me a PDF and said: “Read it. Print it out, in colour preferably. This stuff is important”.

It was from his workplace. Two weeks ago Sony was “hacked”, possibly by North Korean agents, as a protest against the film called “The Interview”.

The article was titled No Black Hats.

“We can help you to help us. Beware of the black hats. Be very aware.  Being “aware” is not enough. Stop them.

Stopping them will also protect you personally and your family from cyber-crime and identity theft. It will save you from the embarrassment and danger of having your private lives exposed.

You are too smart to fall for low-end spam with poisoned links. But APT’s are in a different league. 

If you use the same or similar passwords for various applications, you are wide open. 

Invest in password management software. I recommend LastPass. There are others. That way you can put all your passwords into a locally encrypted vault and lock them behind a master password.

Use the master password to encode something only you will know, like a favourite quotation. Include little known symbols like ^ or { and give them your own meanings.

Limit system access to countries where you are likely to be.  If you are in a hotel or travelling, hide your master password from keyloggers who track your keystrokes by using virtual keyboards. LastPass offers one. This is important.

Guard your text messages. Edward Snowden recommended Open Whisper. If you use iPhone, you could use the Signal app. It will encrypt messages and protect phone calls.

Do these things. That way we can will help you to help all of us. Keep out the Black Hats.”

I asked Jamie what APT was. “Advanced Persistent Threat,” he said. “Jargon for targeted attacks.”

“Basic stuff,” Jamie  said. “you need to do it”