There are several great iPhone Security Apps and a handful of good and simple configuration changes that you can make to your iPhone to greatly enhance you iPhone security and protect your sensitive information and identity.  We have seen security vulnerabilities in iPhone including flaws in pass code access (since fixed), so it makes sense to take proactive measures — especially as attacks on mobile devices are growing rapidly.

Easy Configuration Changes for Security and Privacy

There are several iPhone configuration settings that you should make to start protecting your iPhone.  The first thing to do is “Don’t Jailbreak Your iPhone“.  Jailbreaking removes much of the security inherent in the iPhone and makes it much easier for malicious software or users to gain access.  Furthermore, Apps that you can install on a Jailbroken phone may have not gone though any kind of screening process — you have to “trust” that they are OK.

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Creating a web site that has “secure” components requires more than slapping together some web pages and adding an SSL Certificate.  All a certificate really does is create a thin veneer of security — one that does not go very far to protect whatever sensitive data necessitated security in the first place.  In fact, naive attempts at security can ultimately make the data less secure and more likely to be compromised by creating an appetizing target for the unscrupulous.

So, beyond paying big bucks to hire a developer with significant security expertise, what do you do? Start with this article — its purpose is to shed light on many of the most significant factors in secure web site programming/design and what you can do to address them.  At a minimum, reading this article will help you to intelligently discuss your web site security with the developers that you ultimately hire.

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Section 1: Introduction to Email Security

You may already know that email is insecure; however, it may surprise you to learn just how insecure it really is. For example, did you know that messages which you thought were deleted years ago may be sitting on servers half-way around the world? Or that your messages can be read and modified in transit, even before they reach their destination? Or even that the username and password that you use to login to your email servers can be stolen and used by hackers?

This article is designed to teach you about how email really works, what the real security issues are, what solutions exist, and how you can avoid security risks.

Information Security and integrity are becoming more important as we use email for personal communication and business. While you are reading this article imagine how security problems can affect your business or personal life…. if they have not already.

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The Secure Socket Layer, SSL for short, is a protocol by which many services that communicate over the Internet can do so in a secure fashion. Before we discuss how SSL works and what kinds of security it provides, let us first see what happens without SSL.

Life on the Internet without SSL

Let us compare communications between computers on the Internet and communications between people over the telephone. Without SSL, your computer-to-computer communications suffer from the same security problems from which your telephone communications suffer:

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Email security issues and technologies are extremely complicated; however, here we intend to make the salient issues and solutions clearly understandable to all readers.

You may already know that email is not a perfectly secure communication medium; however, it might surprise you to learn just how inherently insecure email can be. Messages thought deleted can still exist in backup folders on remote servers years after being sent. Hackers can read and modify messages in transit, use your usernames and passwords to login to your online services, and steal your identity and critical information!

As the amount of crucial business conducted via email increases, so does the amount of Spam, viruses, hacking, fraud, and other malicious activity. Unless precautions are taken, email can leave you and your business open to escalating security and privacy risks. What are these risks?

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Do you feel secure? If so, you must be a good corporate citizen. You are on time every day, contribute effectively and courteously in meetings, and your appearance is impeccable. You could be a contender as Trump’s next Apprentice. Of course, no one knows that you’re more like Andrew Dice Clay when you email your co-workers and friends. Or do they???

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LuxSci has been approached by many people asking for VPN (Virtual Private Network) services.  When we ask them why, they indicate that they use wireless hotspots (like at Starbucks and other public places) that are insecure and untrusted and they want to be sure that their email is secure and encrypted there.

This is a very legitimate concern.  Wireless hotspots are serious danger zones; we have seen many cases of people who have carelessly used insecure connections to email and had their login usernames and passwords stolen in such places.  This can lead to identity theft, the leaking of sensitive company or personal information, and other serious problems.  Anyone using public wireless hotspots or other untrusted networks for email and other activities that involve personal information need to take care that the information sent to and from their computers is protected.  If the transmission of your sensitive information is protected, then you have nothing to worry about and hotspots can be great places to work.

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LuxSci now supports encryption of inbound email messages during their transport to and from LuxSci and other email servers. This ensures that your messages are protected from eavesdropping during transport even if the messages themselves are not encrypted using SecureLine. Note that the messages will only be encrypted during transport when sent from an email server that supports TLS (like LuxSci’s servers do).

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