In Search of the Perfect Investment

The story: The world is awash in online thievery.

One day you’ll wake up and find your bank accounts emptied or your computer’s files locked and, on your screen, a ransom note to unlock them.

This is not an “IF” scenario. This is a “when” scenario.

The traditional “solution” has been to warn against visiting phishing web sites (those pretending to be your bank or your credit card company) and to warn about opening attachments on emails from uncertain senders.

This “solution” no longer works. The thieves are getting too smart. By the time they get caught, your bank account is emptied.

I don’t make this up. It’s the most serious threat facing the Internet and our dealings on it.

The sad conclusion: Even the best Internet security software (I use Norton Internet Security) won’t protect us against our own stupidity.

There is only one solution: You should own and use two computers.

1. The first computer is for money — banking, buying and trading.

2. The second computer is for everything else — email, browsing the Internet, creating (yet another) PowerPoint.

They both should be protected by Norton Internet Security, or whichever Internet security you prefer. That is cheap protection.

The big key is twice daily backing up your work — both to a local external hard disk and to the cloud — and once a week cloning of your two hard drives to identical hard drives you keep in a safe place.

The good news is that computers and extra hard drives are cheap. Owning two of everything is a lot cheaper than losing $500,000 out of your personal bank account, your business’ checking account or your brokerage account.

If you get hacked on a credit card, the bank will cover your losses. If your bank account gets cleaned out, no one will cover your losses.

I’ve talked about backing up and cloning a zillion times. Here’s my favorite cloning device. You remove your hard drive from your laptop. You put your good one in the back slot and an identical one in the “target” slot. Hit the button and come back 20 in minutes. Bingo you’ll have a cloned, identical hard drive – for safe keeping.

It costs $73 on Amazon. Click here.

Want more? Read the BusinessWeek article on the hunt for the financial industry’s most wanted hack. Quote:

The new malware, distributed in spam sent over the Gameover botnet, appeared in 2013. Unwary people who clicked on e-mailed links received an ominous message: All your files have just been encrypted; pay ransom of several hundred dollars or you’ll never get access again. Other forms of ransomware were essentially big bluffs-the files weren’t really encrypted. This version, called Cryptolocker, was not, and researchers couldn’t find any way to break it.

Read BusinessWeek’s piece here.

Cyber-security stocks boom. Finally, cyber-security is a board meeting topic. This means cyber-security stocks will continue to boom, including CYBR and FEYE.

Stephen Colbert apes Donald Trump’s announcement.

It’s fun. He looks like Donald. He sounds like. Click here.

Never pay retail. I bought some shirts from Banana Republic (part of the Gap). Ten minutes I received a 40% coupon:

So I bought the shirts again at 40% off. I’ll return the first pricier stuff.

Moral: Never pay retail.

Favorite comment on our life:

The EU was created to stop World War III. It’s succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. It’s a mess financially and politically. We have one central bank. They have umpteen. We have one Congress. They have umpteen. If Greece (and now Britain) pull out, it won’t be a disaster — except for Greece, temporarily.

The EU can afford to bail Greece out. But whether it has the political will, well… we’ll see.

Old aphorism:

If you default on a loan of $100 to the bank, you’re in trouble.

If you default on a load of $100 million to the bank, the bank is in trouble.

Harry Newton who wonders why some of his friends are stinking rich and others as poor as church mice, despite equally great education. There has to be a simple reason .