April 2008
Digital Engineering Firm Enhances the Security
of its Wireless Network Connectivity
A digital engineering firm wanted to enhance the
security of its network by increasing and enforcing
compliance requirements for users who wirelessly
connected to its network. Windows Server 2008 was
the logical choice after previously using Internet
Authentication Service (IAS). The security
enhancements in Windows Server 2008 (available when
deployed with Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3) were
of particular interest for focusing on
manageability, security compliance, and
policy-driven access features.
Windows Server 2008 enables the following:
- Check the health and status of roaming
laptops and verify compliance of unmanaged home
computers (desktop and laptop)
- Determine the health of visiting laptops and
enforce application layer data inspection by
checking for malware
- Reduce the risk of unauthorized access
through strong authentication
- Control the software and security level of
systems as they authenticate to a wireless
network
- Configure separate roles by computer, block
access, or enable restricted access to the
network based on the client computer’s software
level
- Simplify administrative tasks such as system
updates and application installations
- Check policy based quality of service to
prioritize and manage the sending rate of
outgoing network traffic and filtering of
outgoing and incoming traffic
- More securely extend and protect information
and applications to business partners
- Reduce the number of user accounts and
repositories that need to be managed
- Securely manage user accounts and
information outside the data center
Network Management System
In most organizations, the network is a critical
infrastructure that must be highly reliable and
secure. If the network goes down, so does employee
productivity, customer interaction, and sales
activities. A network management system is a
critical component of managing your network
infrastructure. It gives insight into network
abnormalities that may be indicative of security
problems.
Key NMS functions include:
- Proactive Monitoring and Alerting: A NMS
records data trending to give you insight on
what is normal, and alerts can be set up to
identify abnormalities. This allows you to
understand what your network is doing and
quickly respond to abnormal activity, be it spam
or a worm.
- Traffic Insight: Network performance issues
can be caused by something as easy to manage as
internet radio. Traffic insight allows you to
see how much bandwidth is being used, and what
it is being used for so that you can quickly and
easily pinpoint and eliminate network
performance issues.
- Root Cause Analysis: This feature will
indentify what network events were correlated to
the root cause of a problem much more quickly
than troubleshooting one step at a time,
allowing you to minimize network outages and
performance issues.
- Drilling down to the offending device,
service, or application: A NMS can monitor
servers, services, and applications to determine
the source of the problem.
Implementing an enterprise NMS will identify
issues sooner, help troubleshoot problems, and
inevitably improve network availability and
security. With costs starting at nothing, there is
no excuse for not having one. Contact us with
questions or for more information on available
solutions.
Top Online Threats for 2008 and How to Protect
Yourself
While cybercriminals used to focus on fame, their
focus has now shifted toward fortune. In 2008, the
top online threats will focus on stealing personal
and financial information, and will specifically
target high profile events and popular, emerging
technology.
- Bots will dominate 2008: Bot-herders are
decentralizing via peer-to-peer architectures to
become harder to detect. They’re mainly using
instant messaging to spread botnets because
there’s no way to verify that the person
connecting to you is who they say they are.
Solution: Never click on a link sent via
IM as it is unknown where that link will lead.
Keep your operating systems, applications and
security software up-to-date—it’s easier to keep
bots off than it is to get rid of them.
- Smarter malware: Malware will target
virtualized computers, and the use of
obfuscation techniques will help criminals
conceal their activities. Anti-virus and anti-spyware
won't help and it has nothing to do with the
operating system.
Solution: Be very skeptical of what is
being presented and be very careful about the
sites you visit.
- Social networking sites in the crosshairs:
Social networking sites will become increasingly
popular and, as a result, more vulnerable. The
large number of aggregated potential victims and
relatively small concern for computer security
make these sites a windfall for cyber thieves.
Solution: Install anti-virus, antispyware
and other security software and keep it up to
date.
- Key dates for opportunity: Cybercriminals
are likely to take advantage of the U.S.
presidential election and those who want to
donate to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
High-profile events tend to offer opportunities
for destructive attacks and corruption or
outright theft of information.
Solution: Check the security certificate
before you enter personal or financial
information into a website.
- Web 2.0 services and sites will come under
targeted attacks: While it is relatively easy to
implement Web 2.0 services, it can be quite
challenging to configure them to be totally
secure. Once a Web 2.0 site is infected, it will
infect other people when they visit that site.
Solution: If you don't have someone
working at your company that is really
knowledgeable about Web 2.0 and how to secure
it, you need to hire a consultant or get
somebody to take a look at what you have done.
- Windows Vista at risk: Although Vista is
designed as Microsoft’s most secure operating
system, 20 vulnerabilities were reported in
2007. SP1 will make Vista more secure but, as
more and more people use it, more attackers will
target it and continue to find vulnerabilities
and exploit them.
Solution: Maintain
security updates. Automatically update your
Windows operating systems here.
- Electronic greeting card scams: An e-card
could be a phishing scam designed to steal your
personal information, spam or a spyware
installer that barrages you with pop-up ads, or
a computer virus that scans your contact e-mail
addresses and send them a fake e-card and virus
that appears to be from you.
Solution: Use
a firewall. Never download or click on anything
from an unknown source. Preview a link’s web
address before you click on it (when you move
your mouse over a link, the address should
appear on the bottom bar of your web browser).
- Telephone or website scams: These e-mails
direct you to verify your credit card or IRS
refunds through a website or phone number that
collects the information you provide and uses it
for fraudulent purposes.
Solution: Contact the organization
directly—not through the website or phone number
provided in the e-mail—and ask for confirmation.
Then, report the email. Microsoft Outlook 2003
and 2007 have spam and anti-phishing
capabilities to identify and warn you about
suspicious e-mails.
- Cybersquatting: Scammers register Internet
addresses that are similar to popular website
addresses. If you accidentally type in the wrong
address, you could end up on a site where you
might be tricked into entering personal
information that could be used to steal your
identity or commit other kinds of fraud. If your
computer is unprotected, they could even
download malicious software applications and
spyware without your knowledge.
Solution:
Phishing filters can warn or block you from
reported sites, while updated antivirus and
antispyware software can protect you from
malicious downloads. Add websites you use often
and any financial websites to your favorites
list and access them only through your favorites
menu. Do not enter personal or financial
information into pop-up windows.
Secure Mobile Devices with Exchange
Businesses already running Microsoft Exchange
Server have all the security they'll need for mobile
devices running Windows Mobile. Those devices can be
remotely managed, password access can be enforced
and, in case of lost or theft, they can be remotely
wiped by IT administrators. However, the technology
doesn't eliminate the human element of security
breaches, as end-users can still compromise devices
through unsecure online
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