Is This Website Safe?

Hi All,

Symantec is a very, very large computer security company that provides computer security individuals and corporations.  Its a large, large company which bought another company called Norton several years ago.

Norton provides computer security to regular folks and their computers. They use a product called Safe Web - of which you can read about more by clicking here. 

The interesting thing about Norton Safe Web is that users can look up a site and get Norton's rating of the site with respect to security and safety of the site.  Click here to use Norton Safe Web.  Nothing is downloaded or installed onto your computer. 

Information about the site users type in includes: website location, Norton Rating, Summary and Total Threats from the site. 

Norton uses icons to let the viewer know whether or not the site is 'safe' to use.  A green box with an ok in it is the top rating.  An orange box with an exclamation point is the next rating.  A red box with an 'x' is the lowest rating.

Users can also tap into Norton Safe Search community rating by viewing the table for community ratings on the right side of the screen.  Users can also review sites with a brief narrative.  Date of the review is also included.

Finally, click on this link for Norton's Community Buzz page.  Viewers can see sites like Google, Facebook,  YouTube and many others and there Norton Safe Search scores.  Interesting!

To some extent the site is an free advertisement for Norton's Safe Web software - which they (Norton) are trying to sell to customers...Buyer/web viewer beware. 

But its still a somewhat interesting and useful website!  Enjoy the site and the reviews!

Regards,
Stu

Kaspersky Cyberthreat Real-Time - Get Your Computer Geek On!!!

Hi All,

This very short blog post is was written for the inner-geek in all of us.  Yes, you've probably read a bunch of my posts talking about computer security, spam, viruses and other privacy issues...well...this post is similar to that....

Check out Kaspersky Cyberthreat Real-Time Map (KCRTM hereafter in the post) to get your inner geek-on - and you might even learn a thing or two about cybersecurity. 

KCRTM is a way of visualizing cyberthreats on a country-wide level. 

Why is this important you ask?  Well, to the regular web-user it isn't that interesting.  But to professionals who deal with cybersecurity (think CIO or CTO - Chief Information Officers or Chief Technology Officers - of corporations) this is a vitally important topic.  Viruses, cyberattacks and the like are proliferating at a geometric rate....(just do a simple Google search for 'number of cyber attacks' and you'll find hundreds of links and articles and websites...) and that can slow down or cripple an organizations website and/or operations....

Okay...back to the KCRTM site...users can rotate and manipulate a globe on the screen to focus in on a particular country.  Users are treated to a bevy of computer security acronyms like OAS (on-access scan), ODS (on-demand scan), WAV (web anti-virus), MAV (mail anti-virus), IDS (intrusion detection scan), VUL (vulnerability scan) and KAS (Kaspersky Anti-spam) which are all Kaspersky security products and services that they sell.   Basically the site is showing the user the number and location of various types of cyberthreats all over the world - in real time.  That is the unique part of the site - the real-time nature of the information!

And of course, the graphics are just way cool.  Check it out.

Finally, click on this link which goes to the US Cyber Security Command entry on Wikipedia.  The formal US Cyber Command website is restricted, so, while I have the link to the site here, users won't be able to get in since the domain has restricted access....

Enjoy the links!
Stu