I read a well written article that breaks down a warning email from a major security vendor about an expired anti-virus subscription. Ever gotten one of those? The AD is designed to scare the user into buying the anti-virus software whether they need it or not. The really scary part is that they want the user to click a link in the e-mail which is actually both unsafe and unwise.

Check out the full article – Poor Windows users

Security begins with education. But education means users won’t be easily impressed with scary emails and may not actually cash out money for a rather mediocre security product they don’t need in the first place. Teaching people how to use their computers contrasts the primary goals of security vendors, which is to make profit.

It’s true. If the major security vendors wanted to actually make users safer and computer systems more secure, they would do more to educate the users. But that isn’t the goal. They don’t seem to care what the user does so long as they get the money.

So how do people who aren’t security experts get the basic computer safety education they need? Who’s providing it?

That’s one of our goals here. To help give clear, summarized information on security and point people to more complete resources. The information is all available for free and is all over. But most people don’t have the time or interest to go hunt it down.

Security begins and ends with education. The most vulnerable part of the system is usually the user. Tricking a user to give up private information is the easiest way to “hack” the system. Hopefully that will improve with time.