Samsung’s security flaw and what to do about it
15 September 2006
This story is a few days old, so Samsung may have, by this time, evicted the Trojan horse that has been squatting on its corporate website:
Samsung Electronics’ U.S. Web site is hosting a Trojan horse that logs keystrokes, disables antivirus applications and steals online banking access codes, according to Internet security company Websense.
This actually has very little to do with Samsung, and more to do with the state of internet security. I wouldn’t recommend halting your visits to Samsung’s website or any other website that shows up in the news for something like this. There will be many more of these stories to come.
Your strategy
Keeping records of companies that screw up is a losing proposition. Having said that, a public record is necessary because companies should be held accountable for their complacency, as this is probably the only way the situation will improve, but it’s not a useful strategy for you to combat security risks.
A more useful strategy is to stay level-headed (there’s no need to panic every time a news article exposes a new virus), act to prevent compromises instead of just reacting to them, and maintain a general awareness of the threats that exist.
If you don’t think you’re prepared, see this article I posted late last month that will help you get up to speed.
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