February 18 - 25, 2000
Blocking Hacker Attacks
Federal authorities say they lack the resources to combat the kind of hacker attacks that recently locked up prominent web sites, but a UAB engineer says watchfulness is the best defense for business owners.
"There is no surefire defense other than the constant vigilance of your information technology people," says Stan McClellan, Ph.D., senior research engineer at the UAB Center for Telecommunications Education and Research. "All computers are vulnerable -- if not now, just wait five minutes." But there are precautions. "I have most of my computers set up to automatically update themselves every night and to only allow access from 'known and trusted' locations." McClellan's been hacked twice in five years, but only because one of his 'known and trusted' locations got hacked.
Contact Nick Patterson, Media Relations, 205-975-8858 or [email protected].
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