How can I add to improved security in Fronter?

Written by Tapio Janasik | 06 July 2011
Posted in FAQs - Technical Support FAQs

Fronter is a modern secure system, with minimal possibilities of somebody breaking into the system. However, human factors tend to comprise the largest threat to computer systems. Examples of such factors include easily guessed passwords, or providing login credentials to somebody pretending to be a legitimate administrator (aka "phishing" attempts).

At Fronter we hear of and see such forms of attacks on a regular basis. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to emphasise the importance of never disclosing login credentials and creating passwords of sufficient complexity in addition to regularly changing the password.

Phishing

When somebody claims to be an administrator for Fronter or another system and requests you to login at a given address to verify your credentials, or plainly asks you for the password, it may be a phishing attempt. Below are some thing to keep in mind in such cases.

• In general, be wary of requests to validate credentials. For one, there is no reason for any system administrators to request a password from you.
• If you receive suspicious emails with links to e.g. login pages, hover your mouse over the link to check the URL in the browser (or e-mail client) status bar. While the email message may say "fronter.com" for example, in reality the link may take you to a completely different site.
  
• When logging in, make sure the URL in the browser address bar appears correct.

Further, spelling mistakes in such emails should also serve as warning signs as they are typical for phishing scams, at least for now.

Good passwords

A good password is hard to guess but easy to remember. In reality this is not always so easy. Some complexity in the password is however strongly encouraged. For instance, a good password should contain digits and capital letters in addition to non-capital ones. Similarly, changing the password on a regular basis is recommended. To make this a smaller nuisance, institutions are encouraged to integrate with your own LDAP, to decrease the number of different passwords to remember. The best password however quickly becomes less secret if it is written on a post-it sticky next to the computer...

Also, the password reminder is a functionality intended to support improved security. Please contact your local Fronter team for more details on these possibilities.