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Dubai: David Perry doesn't deal with fiction. He deals with computer viruses and has been doing it for over 20 years.
But what frustrates this 53-year-old security expert is the fact that most people base their ideas about viruses, and their online security in general, on what they see in movies.
"Viruses make smoke and fire pour out of your terminal. Viruses tip over oil tankers. Viruses open up bank vault doors. Viruses bring alien spacecraft right down out of the sky. Viruses do something immediate, visual and dramatic. Right? Well, nothing could be farther from the truth."
Perry, who is currently on the road for Trend Micro to talk about the risks of being online, thinks the problem is that people think that what they don't see can't hurt them.
Information is property
"We have to get end users to where they believe that information is property, because they don't," he said. "People don't realise that theft of information that is on the computer can cause real damage in their lives," said Perry.
"To do that, people need to realise that malware is a silent, invisible thing that is going to steal your credit card information," he warned.
Perry said that users tend to ignore danger knowingly. "A few years ago, a virus was circulated that offered naked pictures of Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova. There was no picture, but that didn't stop users from knowingly infecting themselves in an attempt to see it," he said.
One of Perry's main themes is that people need to protect themselves, especially where their money is concerned.
"If end users don't know what protection they are using, or note the nature of the threat, or doesn't have knowledge of what is going on, they should not be banking online. They shouldn't be making purchases online. There are a lot of things they shouldn't be doing," he opined.
Knowledge about security of online services doesn't just end with banking and buying online however. Perry said people have to use their brains when considering new technology, such as smart homes.
Perry said that every year he travels to the International CES show in Las Vegas and looks at technology that could be targeted by cyber criminals.
One thing he focused on was the idea of putting door locks online.
"I'm sitting there looking at things thinking 'your door locks online, why?' Well, and they tell me 'if Little Johnny gets locked out of the house, forgets his keys, you can pop him in from the internet'."
Perry said that companies say this type of service will use encryption to stop intruders from accessing the system, but that isn't the point, he says. In his home town of Huntington Beach, California, Perry said gangs have given up selling drugs and are now stealing computers and the information on them.
"Someone who steals your laptop would then have full access to your home," he said.
Threats everywhere
Perry also takes in a step further when he talks about putting software into cars.
"Danger Will Robinson, man," he yells. "What do I see? I see that if I want to rob a bank, I can kill all the cars in the surrounding neighbourhood around the bank so that I stop traffic.
"I see that I can steal a car and block the vehicle identification numbers and get away with it. I see that I can extort you by shutting down your car. There are several things i see."
"With cyber criminals on the prowl anything that is connected to the web becomes vulnerable, waiting to be exploited," sums up Perry.
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