Network security and information security magazine, enterprise product reviews, comparisons and analysis. http://www.network-security-magazine.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 info@nsauditor.com Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Nsasoft RssEditor 1.0 http://www.network-security-magazine.com/images/nsamag_logo.jpg http://www.nsauditor.com Nsasoft offers network security audit software and internet tools, network monitoring software, network scanner, port scanner, password recovery and protection products, advanced network tools and utilities. 144 98 It is beyond questioning that like different aspects of life and various organizational fields, Software is a huge mechanism aggregating its units by means of its unique management. The effectiveness of any innovation is implemented in the aftermath of Evaluation and Selection. Software Comparison allows you to compare the most popular software on the market and find out which products works and which not. You are able to quickly and easily compare your files and folders. By using simple, powerful commands you can focus on the differences you're interested in and ignore those you're not. You can then make changes in your files, generate reports for your records, you can compare drives and folders at high speed, checking different computing elements. Software Evaluation and Comparison can become an emotive issue in some companies. Those tasked with finding software or those involved in the software selection and comparison process or software requirements specification often base their selection on the fact that they like "the look" of a particular software application. A few words should be said about Softrating.com which is a very important resource for choosing a good program. As a web-service provider Software.com is committed to the Internet as a powerful means of communication, research and doing business. It is committed to user’s privacy. To protect your privacy while allowing you to utilize all that our site offers, we have developed and follow certain principles for audience and user privacy and data protection. We are able to collect personal information about our users during registration, site service usage, from order forms for our publications/newsletters, upon user entry into Software.com content, and through the cookie technology during the usage of our sites. If you don’t prefer providing personal info, you can still our site(s). except the areas requiring registration. Summing up the above mentioned, Software.com carefully protects the security of your personal information, and honors your choices for its intended use. We protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction. The Softcomparison.com web-site also links too many other sites, but carry no responsibility for their privacy policies or practices. The accumulated by the site data helps to create an overall picture of the Business Software in order to improve site services. We also share the accumulated information, except for individual data, with our sponsors and advertisers to help them better understand our services. Softrating.com provides recommendations and reviews for selecting the best software-related articles and qualified links for you to purchase Software products. Nsauditor is a complete network tool’s site that includes more than 45 network utilities for network security auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. We provide a thorough review of the matter of fact providing the user both with the historical background and core concept of the item under study, product comparisons; software-related articles and qualified links. Here you will get acquainted with our featured products such as: Backup Key Recovery, Product Key network, SpotAuditor and the like 45 tools which may become a real support for your network. The easiness of use, high level of performance and overall positive features may surely become a comprehensive solution to very critical business and computing processes. Choose the most secure programs in Softrating.com. WELCOME TO OUR SITE!!! http://www.softrating.com http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/software-comparison.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Cloud Computing is cool; everybody knows this. However, despite the temptaions of openness, the platform actually has quite a bit of maturing to do around interoperability. In fact, the very definition of what openness means in a cloud environment is still up for debate. Vendor Lock-In Now as-a-Service. Large technology implementations and frequently changing business needs have taught most IT leaders that vendor lock-in is rarely (never) a good thing. Even if the vendor is really cool or they use the word service and cloud and remote a great deal, it’s still bad. Organizations want the flexibility to move between cloud providers and implementations easily, but it’s rarely a reality. There take place a lot of noisy debates around cloud computing, but true maturity in terms of standards, openness and interoperability will have to develop over time just in as every technology before the cloud. There are no magic solutions. The flow of innovation in cloud computing dictates that, even if a standard emerges, vendors will continue to explore proprietary optimizations that make their services different. The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, originating from cloud drawing. In the past this term was used to represent the telephone network.Later it was applied to describe the Internet in computer network. Cloud Computing is a result of natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization(multiple machines within one physical computer), architecture, autonomic, and utility computing that are mainly called to answer only customer’s needs and requirments. And since details don’t need to be controlled any more and are separated from end-users, the technology underlying base appears to be "in the real cloud" that assists them. The implicit concept of cloud computing goes back to the 1960s, when John McCarthy opened that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility." Almost all the up-to-date characteristics of cloud computing (elastic provision, provided as a utility, online, illusion of infinite supply), the comparison to the electricity industry and the use of public, private, government, and community forms, were thoroughly investigated in Douglas Parkhill's 1966 book, The Challenge of the Computer Utility. As historical source indicates, in 2007, Google, IBM and a number of universities embarked on a large-scale cloud computing research project.In early 2008, Eucalyptus became the first open-source, AWS API-compatible platform for deploying private clouds. In early 2008, Open Nebula, went up in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, becaming the first open-source software for the federation of clouds. In the same year, efforts were focused on providing QoS guarantees (as required by real-time interactive applications) to cloud-based infrastructures, in the framework of the IRMOS European Commission-funded project. By mid-2008, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing "to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them" and observed that "organisations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" so that the "projected shift to cloud computing ... will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas." As cloud computing is gaining popularity, little by little the security issues come about and the effectiveness of traditional protection mechanisms have been taken up for reconsideration, The core reason for such changes is hidden in the innovated deployment model, which cardinally differs from that of traditional one. The relative security of cloud computing services is a quarrelsome issue that may still arouse long disputes on the matter of fact . These security issues have been categorized into sensitive data access, data segregation, privacy, bug exploitation, recovery, accountability, malicious insiders, management console security, account control, and multi-tenancy issues. Solutions to various cloud security issues also vary through cryptography, particularly public key infrastructure (PKI),use of multiple cloud providers, standardization of APIs, improving virtual machines support and legal support, etc. Organizations have been formed in order to provide standards for a better future in cloud computing services. One organization in particular, the Cloud Security Alliance is a non-profit organization formed to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within cloud computing. In addition to concerns about security, businesses are also worried about acceptable levels of availability and performance of applications hosted in the cloud. In this aspect Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is worth mentioning which is a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. It can also audit password and security policies as well as make a variety of network attack probes, such as stealth port scans, HTTP / CGI server auditing, registry auditing. The program can sniff and use brute-force and dictionary attacks on LM and NTLM password hashes and expose the insecure ones. All these advantages not only makes it easier to deal with different computing programs but also secures their functioning. No doubt, there are also concerns about a cloud provider shutting down for financial or legal reasons, which has happened in a number of cases. Since data that was, in the past, stored locally on a user's computer would now be stored remotely in a data center, an individual's internet usage would soar as large files are sent via the internet between the user's computer and the data center. For instance, a purchased movie needs to be downloaded only once if stored on a user's computer. But, if the same movie is stored in cloud storage, it would, in essence, have to be downloaded every time it is viewed in its entirety. If the user's internet service has a monthly data usage cap, this cap could easily be exceeded if large, frequently accessed files are stored remotely. This would cause the user to incur potentially large overage charges. In the past, both data and software had to be stored and processed on or near the computer. The development of Local Area Networks allowed for a system in which multiple CPUs and storage devices could be organized to increase the performance of the entire system. In an extension to that concept, cloud computing fundamentally allows for a functional separation between the resources used and the user's computer, usually residing outside the local network, for example, in a remote datacenter. Consumers now routinely use data-intensive applications driven by cloud technology that were previously unavailable due to cost and deployment complexity.[citation needed] In many companies, employees and company departments are bringing a flood of consumer technology into the workplace, which raises legal compliance and security concerns for the corporation. The term "software as a service" is sometimes used to describe programs offered through "The Cloud". A common shorthand for a provided cloud computing service (or even an aggregation of all existing cloud services) is "The Cloud". An analogy to explain cloud computing is that of public utilities such as electricity, gas, and water. Centralized and standardized utilities freed individuals from the difficulties of generating electricity or pumping water. All of the development and maintenance tasks involved in doing so was alleviated. With Cloud computing, this translates to a reduced cost in software distribution to providers still using hard mediums such as DVDs. Consumer benefits are that software no longer has to be installed and is automatically updated, but savings in terms of money is yet to be seen. The principle behind the cloud is that any computer connected to the Internet is connected to the same pool of computing power, applications, and files. Users can store and access personal files such as music, pictures, videos, and bookmarks or play games or do word processing on a remote server rather than physically carrying around a storage medium such as a DVD or thumb drive. Even those using web-based email such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, a company-owned email, or even an e-mail client program such as Outlook, Evolution, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Entourage are making use of cloud email servers. Hence, desktop applications that connect to internet-host email providers can also be considered cloud applications. Cloud Computing utilizes the network as a means to connect the user to resources that are based in the cloud, as opposed to actually possessing them. The cloud may be received through the Internet or a company network, or both. The service provider may store the processing power of multiple remote computers in "the cloud" to receive a certain task which would really take up much time and expenses for an separate user. Cloud computing can be applied to a netbook or a smart phone of an individual user with a connection to the Internet, hence being enabled to make requests for receiving data from the cloud. Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. The specific and unique feature of Cloud computing is that it is able to provide the act of operating a computer., software, data access, and storage services without requiring end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. The entire business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location and applications are delivered through the internet. Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through shared data-centers. Security of cloud computing is of course improved by different resources, however concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford. Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, because they do not need to be installed on each user's computer. They are easier to support and to improve, as the changes reach the clients instantly. The whole idea is as follows:instead of saving data on a user's computer, now it is stored remotely in a data center and large files are sent via the internet between the user's computer and the data center. For instance, a purchased cartoon is to be downloaded only once if kept on a personal computer. But, if the same movie is in a cloud storage, it has to be downloaded each time it is from beginning to end. Many universities, vendors and organizations are performing a research on the topic of cloud computing. In the aftermath different critical opinions have come about: Some have come to criticize the term as being either too unspecific or even misleading. CEO Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation asserts that cloud computing is "everything that we already do", claiming that the company could simply "change the wording on some of our ads" to deploy their cloud-based services.Forrester Research VP Frank Gillett questions the very nature of and motivation behind the push for cloud computing, describing what he calls "cloud washing"—companies simply relabeling their products as "cloud computing", resulting in mere marketing innovation instead of "real" innovation.GNU's Richard Stallman insists that the industry will only use the model to deliver services at ever increasing rates over proprietary systems, otherwise likening it to a "marketing hype campaign". http://www.softrating.com http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/cloud-computing.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Little by little, computer viruses are becoming more and more prevailing like an uncurable epidemy. This brings about the automatic necessity of achieving a highly localized anti-virus technology. Antivirus or anti-virus software is used to prevent, detect, and remove malware(malicious software), (a computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer), computer worm(malware computer program,), trojan horses(a destructive program, spyware(the ability of collecting small pieces of information about users without their knowledge) and adware(advertising-supported software). Inexperienced users may also have trouble understanding the prompts and decisions that antivirus software presents them with. In heuristic detection, success depends on achieving the right balance between false positives and false negatives. As modern technologies develop, updating virus checkers have become an impotant activity. Avery powerful tool enabling to overcome this kind of computer hazard is Nsauditor Network Security Auditor which is a network security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found. Besides the above mentioned tools there are several methods which antivirus software can use to identify malware: Another heuristic approach is File emulation where the antivirus software can determine if the program is malicious or not and then carry out the corresponding disinfection actions. Anti-virus programs are not always effective against new viruses. It may be very difficult to get rid of, and you can never really be sure if it's really gone or notIn such cases we normally advise to reinstall the operating system or reinstall backups. ” Besides unnstalling antivirus software running on an individual computer there are also others including cloud-based antivirus, firewalls and on-line scanners. 1. Cloud antivirus 2. Network firewall Network firewalls prevent unknown programs and processes from accessing the system. A firewall is designed to deal with broader system threats that come from network connections into the system and is not an alternative to a virus protection system. 3. Online scanning Periodic online scanning is very effective for those that run antivirus applications on their computers because those applications are frequently inapt to catch threats. 4. Specialist tools CD or USB storage device, can be used to run antivirus software outside of the installed operating system. Finally, our review of the matter showed that an right way to manage the virus problem in organizations is a leading correct policy. • Making sure that anti-virus software is being applied by the organization. • How to act in case of emergency(who to contact in case of finding a virus. • Make sure that the evil virus is eliminated. Such measures are considered to be quite effective ans are surely apt to help users out of the awkward situation and cut the average number of incidents. As time passes, our knowledge and experience in solving virus issue is becoming more advanced and effective.To my mind, direct user investigations and review techniques, will help us to predict and to affect the future course of computer virus trends not only within organization frames but also throughout the world. All the above mentioned tools, methods are easily represented however getting stubborn adware and spyware off your PC can be frustrating. In any case no reason for grief, there are steps you can take to make the process easier and more effective. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/antivirus-software.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Security Polices have become a hazardous evil in today’s computerized world. Without a Security Policy, one becomes quite an open target for numerous attacks. Here we will try to find out and represent the possible means to be applied successfully for sake of defining a security policy. What is a Security Policy? For an organization, it addresses the limitations on behavior of its members as well as constraints imposed on adversaries by mechanisms such as doors, locks, keys and walls. For systems, the security policy addresses constraints on functions and flow among them, limitations on access by external systems including programs and access to data by people. To make the idea clearer, here is an example example I first stated with the Porn Surfer… It doesn’t help ‘after’ the fact when your dealing with a court case, if you had a policy in place to keep people informed about what it is they can or cannot do (like surf the web during business hours hitting sites that are not business related) they may not do it in the first place, and if they do, you have a tool (the policy) to hold them accountable. So, now that we understand the idea of what a security policy is. Asstates Silver et al,a security policy is a living document that allows an organization and its management team to draw very clear and understandable objectives, goals, rules and formal procedures that help to define the overall security posture and architecture for said organization. Now let’s start planning your infrastructure project for securing it.Here much depends on your basic IT project team to help you begin defining the main project parameters and criteria. Since it is likely to have more success if you hear thr opinion and suggestions of your co-workers.. Actually a completely meaningful approach to security can’t be obtained , and all measures may be per the upcoming needs.. We are not confident of our level of security throughout the whole enterprise. The best solution to the issue is to secure your network structure by developing a security plan. Besides drafting a security project users should also apply the appropriate and effective tools that will be of help in the process of organizing and securing Computing process necessary for an individual or an organization. In this aspect Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is worth mentioning which is a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. It can also audit password and security policies as well as make a variety of network attack probes. The software includes Firewall and intrusion detection system based on a security events log analyzer, in addition software allows monitor security events and permissions changes. This software also provides you with the ability to manage and monitor all shares on your workstation, disable or enable default administrative shares, hide your workstation on the network, view the number of the users currently connected to each shared resource on your workstation. ShareAlarmPro also lets you easily browse your LAN and view all shared resources irrespective of whether they are hidden or not as well as view connections to shared resources on remote workstations. ShareAlarmPro is an Advanced All-In-One Network Access Control and Folder Monitoring Software. It allows easily to perform network shares and folder monitoring, block unwanted users attempting to access secured shares and confidential files over network, detect and log accessed files and folders. With ShareAlarmPro you are protected and well-informed about files and folders access over network. ShareAlarmPro includes folder watcher functions. You can perform folder monitoring and folder content change tracking. With ShareAlarmPro you can centralize all alarms, thus having the opportunity to monitor several shares on multiple servers from a single location workstations. NetShareWatcher - Find shares which are violating to your company data access policy and Fix it! NetShareWatcher is network security improvement software. It allows network administrators to monitor network shares and identify shares which are violating data access policy of their organization. NetShareWatcher is very handy. Once you apply it a first time, you can forget about network sharing problems. You only need to select restricted groups or users and every time NetShareWatcher will automatically detect network shares with an access list containing those restricted groups and perform a configured action. NetShareWatcher allows you to easily monitor network shared folders and permissions and alerts anytime a user sets a share ACL to "Everyone" or some other global group that violates your data access policy as well as disables this shared folders automatically if you have selected the appropriate feature in the settings. NetShareWatcher has user friendly interface and is easy to use. Being configured once, it will regularly notify you on network sharing detection with restricted permissions assigned. The program logs all detected events ( access to shared folders, security events, folder watcher events ) in an HTML format. To fulfil the arrangement of the project successfully, it requires lot of basic compulsory skills. If the project team doesn’t have all the skills mentioned in the assessment then the project is at risk because gaps in skills will bring about problems in quality. You will need a number of functional and technical requirements for your infrastructure security project. The functional and also technical ones may include: - Physically secure premises - Secure network infrastructure servers - Secure network firewalls, routers, etc. - Safe local communication - Secure remote communication and user, Types of servers, operating systems, communication methods, authentication methods, etc. All this valuable ifo provided is to give you with plenty of ideas for creating your technical requirements for the project..You might describe your technical requirement in this manner: - Upgrade all external entry doors to card-swipe system. Card-swipe system should be compatible with the existing employee card system, XYZ. (You might include the technical specs of this system here as well.) - Install security monitoring system (with cameras) focused on parking lot and all external doorways. System should be able to record continuously for 24 hours, cameras should be able to record in slow motion and high resolution, the system should be able to “respond” to potential incidents, and the system should record events and have at least three methods of administrator alert. These are just some of the ways you can capture technical requirements. Clearly, if you're talking about a server, you would include processor speed, memory specifications, disk drive specifications, operating system, and so on. - Legal/Compliance Requirements Create a list of the functional, technical, and administrative requirements for your infrastructure security project based on the legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements. Taking time to translate these requirements into project requirements at this juncture will help ensure that you build compliance requirements into your project. In standard project management, it's always easier to build something in at the front end than to add it at the back end (it reduces errors, omissions, time, and cost), so now's the time to add these requirements to the greatest extent possible. Also, be sure to add milestones and documentation requirements to your project plan based on compliance needs. Policy Requirements Policy requirements may fall under functional requirements, but there's no rule that you can't include policy requirements as a distinct category of requirements if doing so helps you cover all the bases.We'll look at policies in more detail in a later article, but for now, let's walk through a few ideas for policies related to securing the infrastructure: - User policies - Network access policies - Remote access policies - Wireless policies - Network administration/network management policies - Server policies - Firewall, IDS/IPS, DMZ policies - Regulatory/compliance policies - Corporate policies - Legal policies At this point, you should have an idea of the scope of your project.You could choose to address your complete infrastructure security needs during this project, or you might choose to parse it out into smaller subprojects and time them in stages or phases to meet organizational needs. Making changes to the infrastructure comes with risk, and you'll need to be careful to take this fact into consideration as you plan your project.This starts with determining the proper scope for your project. For example, you might have recently implemented an IDS that you're satisfied with, so you could choose to include IDS in your project only to the extent that it ties in with other infrastructure security measures. However, you might feel that your biggest exposure is on network servers such as DHCP, DNS, and directory servers, so your primary focus will be to harden these servers and related network traffic.Your assessment should tell you where you need to focus and what must be included in the plan and perhaps what can safely be omitted from your plan.Then clearly define what is and what is not part of your project so that you leave nothing open to interpretation. Whatever the case, if you already know about these scheduling issues, you might as well begin addressing them here. You might have a rough idea of how long this project will take, given what you've looked at thus far, and you may be able to see where it will fit in your overall IT schedule.You'll have to balance the demands for your IT resources with the need to secure the infrastructure, so this is a good point to try to get a handle on some of those schedule constraints. You could define quality as the level of protection you're willing to accept, though it might be difficult to quantify. As we've stated, quality is a mindset, and you should instill this mindset in your IT project team. As you define your project plan, you'll have the opportunity to create specific quality metrics related to your infrastructure and include them into your task details. Remember that security comes from depth of defense, so you want each layer you build to be as strong as it can be, within the defined constraints (time, cost, criticality, and so on) and understanding that no system is 100-percent secure. 1. A successful security policy needs to be flexible and it WILL experience change, only in case your business changes (nowadays we are prone to changing them more often. 2. A successful security policy must be reviewedand correspondingly and a regular review process implemented to them. If so, you may find yourself quite alert in the review of your policy. Making sure you are aware of what you are reviewing whether you are doing a proper review will deter a huge number of instabilities!!!! http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/company-security-policy.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 A Computer Network can make much easier one's technical capabilities if they have in their possession multiple computers and a number of various technical equipment for increasing the functioning of computers. When computers are in a network, tasks can be more effective enabling people to save both time and money. Computer networks are very comfortable not only for home or small businesses, but also for wide area networks (WAN). Another important factor is computer network security which operators should be aware of when looking at networking through a WAN. Networking at home allows the system operator to share a single Internet connection between the whole set of computers at home. Today's wireless networking enables the computers to be connected to the network by using radio signals making wireless connections a really tempting option for many users. Networking will also allow sharing different files, making it possible to access information from one desktop to another, sharing a printer, playing games that allow multiple users on different desktops, and sending output devices to other computers in the home. So a computer network can be simply defined as a network, a collection of computers and devices interconnected by communications channels that facilitate communications and allows sharing of resources and information among interconnected devices. Computer networking or Data communications (Datacom) is the engineering discipline concerned with the computer networks. The three types of networks are: the Internet, the intranet, and the extranet. Examples of different network methods are: Local area network (LAN) is a small network limited to a small geographic area, for example, a computer network within a building. Metropolitan area network (MAN) is used for medium size area, a city or a state. Wide area network (WAN) is a larger network that covers a large geographic area. Wireless LANs and WANs (WLAN and WWAN) are the wireless variants of the LAN and WAN. Networks may be classified according to topology, connection method and scale. Historically before the invention of computer networks previously based upon some type of telecommunications system, communication between calculation machines and early computers was realized by human users by providing certain activity “rules” between them. Many of the social behaviors seen in today's Internet were present in the 19th century and presumably in even earlier networks using visual signals. Today, computer networks are the basis of modern communication. All modern aspects of the Public Networks (Telephone) are computer-controlled, and telephone increasingly runs over the Internet Protocol, although not necessarily the public Internet. If you make use of Nsauditor Network Security Auditor which is representing a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network auditing, scanning, monitoring and more it may become a real obstacle in the way of hackers. It can also audit password and security policies as well as make a variety of network attack probes, such as stealth port scans, HTTP / CGI server auditing, registry auditing. The program can sniff and use brute-force and dictionary attacks on LM and NTLM password hashes and expose the insecure ones. All these advantages not only makes it easier to deal with different computing programs but also secures their functioning. Computer networks can be used for a variety of purposes: 1. Facilitating communications Using a network, people can communicate efficiently and easily via email, telephone, and video conferencing. 2. Sharing hardware In a networked environment, each computer on a network may access and use hardware resources on the network, such as printing a document on a shared network printer. 3. Sharing files, data, and information In a network environment, authorized user may access data and information stored on other computers on the network. The capability of providing access to data and information on shared storage devices is an important feature of many networks. 4. Sharing software Users connected to a network may run application programs on remote computers. The following list presents categories used for classifying networks: - Connection method(according to the hardware and software), - Wired technologies (Ordinary telephone wires, use of two wires twisted, etc.) - Communications satellites(Earth-orbiting systems, satellites) Common types of computer networks are : A local area network (LAN) connecting computers and devices at home, school, computer laboratory, office building, etc. A personal area network (PAN) is a computer network used for communication among computer and different information technological devices close to one person. A wide area network (WAN) is a computer network that covers a large geographic area such as a city, country,etc. A global area network (GAN) is a network used for supporting mobile communications across an indefinite number of wireless LANs, satellite coverage areas, etc. Hackers are on alert to get access to your wireless network. Hackers have been creating a mess with many casesapplying differentmechanisms through wireless networks. So in order to prevent any kind of such unfortunate hack into your network first understand the nuances of your networking and follow measures for their security. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/computer-network.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 The field of information security has grown and evolved significantly in recent years having for its base the rise of the Internet which in its turn has resulted in many important issues being raised. One of these major issues directly concerns privacy and security. The protection of data (information security) is the most important since it is necessary for preventing loss of server resources as well as network from being used for illegal purposes. In other words, computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. Information Security Components and characteristic features are Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA). Information Systems are decomposed in three main portions, hardware, software and communications having their protection and prevention of information at three levels: physical, personal and organizational. The term computer system security is the integrity of processes and mechanisms by which valuable information and services are protected from being collapsed by unauthorized individuals and unplanned events. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor - Advanced All-In-One Network Tools Suite includes more than 45 network tools and utilities for network auditing, scanning, network connections monitoring and more. Nsauditor helps network administrators to identify security holes and flaws in their networked systems. The program also includes firewall system, real-time network monitoring, packet filtering and analyzing. Nsauditor significantly reduces the total cost of network management in enterprise environments by enabling IT personnel and systems administrators gather a wide range of information from all the computers in the network without installing server-side applications on these computers and create a report of potential problems that were found. Computer Security implements the following methodologies: 1. Security by design 2. Security architecture 3. Hardware mechanisms that protect computers and data 4. Secure operating systems 5. Secure coding 6. Capabilities and access control lists 7. Applications 7.1 Cloud computing security 7.2 Aviation 7.2.1 Notable system accidents 8. Computer security policy Security by design Computer Security Technologies are based on logic; the program is designed with security so that to restrict the program's behavior. Security architecture Security Architecture refers to the design of artifacts and maintain the system's quality attributes, such as confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability and assurance. Hardware mechanisms that protect computers and data Hardware based computer security offers an alternative to software-only computer security. Devices such as dongles may be considered more safe due to the physical access in order to be compromised. Secure Operating Systems One use of the term computer security refers to technology to implement a secure operating system. Secure operating systems are primarily used to protect national security information, military secrets, and the data of international financial institutions. Applications Computer Security is vital in almost any technological industry which operates on computer systems. Computer security can also refers to computer safety. On the whole full knowledge of this system and ability to fully or partially implementing it immediately results in quicker fixes and better security. Fixes and improvements are produced faster because vendors and authors have to respond in order to protect both their systems from attacks and hacking their image. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/computer-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Computers are great tools, probably one of the greatest tools ever invented. Our reliance upon these machines is frightening at times, especially when you think about all of the data stored on them. As consumers, and business owners we keep everything on our computers: our company's financial records, pictures of our kids, home videos, our personal financial information....the list goes on and on. Data Recovery is the process of saving data from damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible secondary storage media when it cannot be accessed normally. Computer data storage refers to computer components and provides one of the core functions of the modern computer, that of information retention. The most common "data recovery" case encompasses an operating system (OS) failure and provides common services for execution of various application software. This process can sometimes be realized by disk partitioning(dividing into separate units and saving valuable data files on quite a different system file). Another case is a disk-level failure. In computing, a hard-disk failure occurs when a hard disk drive malfunctions and the stored information cannot be accessed with a properly configured computer. In a third variant, files have been "deleted" from a storage medium but not erased immediately; instead, references to them in the directory structure are removed, and the space they occupy is made available for later overwriting. The original file may be restored. Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Software is an investment, Are you sure your investment is safe? In the event of a computer crash, you lose hundreds of dollars. You cannot afford to lose your valuable data that you have created investing years of effort. In case you have inadvertently lost your product key, you need an efficient recovery software to recover back all the data. You can instantly find your product keys with Product Key Explorer. With this keyfinder software you will be able to track the number of software licenses installed in your business, find and recover a lost or forgotten product keys, save and keep an up-to-date backup of all your software license keys in a central location. So it is an Excellent tool for network administrators, or businesses undergoing a software license compliancy. Recovering data from physically damaged hardware covers multiple techniques by replacing parts in the hard disk. Hardware repair-This type of data loss involves physical impairment to the hard drive, in some situations parts of the hard drive can be rendered wholly unreadable. To recover data from a physically damaged hard drive user needs very special apparatus and methods which means that this group of data recovery can be quite expensive. Good, that hardware disruption is the least common form of data destruction. Media that has suffered a catastrophic electronic failure will require data recovery in order to salvage its contents. • Recovering from logical (non-hardware) damage Result of a failed data recovery from a Hard disk drive. • Overwritten data Usually after data have been overwritten on a hard disk, the previous data can’t undergo recovery any more. • Corrupt filesystems If a filesystem has been damaged, the data on a hard drive can’t be read. However at least a part of the original data can be recovered by repairing the damaged filesystem with help of specialized data recovery software. • Online Data Recovery "Online" or "Remote" data enables to restore the lost or deleted data. Although online data recovery is convenient and useful in many cases, it still carries some points making it less popular than the classic data recovery methods(a stable broadband Internet connection). All computer hard drives will fail at one point. Many things can cause that to happen. These reasons can include viruses. Data recovery has become so important due to the need for data to be recovered. So here several techniques should be implemented. If you surmise that your system has experienced a data wreckage the first thing you must do is directly power down your apparatus. Continuing to use your system after a data destruction for any other task, even browsing the Internet, can permanently alter and/or damage your data. This is the single most important step to minimizing the amount of damage incurred in a data damage circumstance. You can recover data from most hard drives. A software program can be used for data recovery is the drive makes a ticking or scratching noise. Age or bad parts can cause failure of the aperture arm, or damage of the platters in the hard drive. If data recovery fails with the software you used, you can have technicians do it for you or even have the hard drive rebuilt. You should know that data recovery makes it possible to also recover data from the recycle bin. Partition recovery, and even information that has been lost somewhere on the disk can be retrieved as well. You might think that you'll never get those data again, but the technicians can do it. From Windows to Mac, everything can be recovered. NTFS and FAT32 are two examples of the different filing structures and formats. They are general Windows filing structures for holding data in the hard drive. RAID configurations in computers with many hard drives can also be recovered. The RAID setup will work double time if one configuration should fail, ensuring that you won't lose any data. If the entire RAID configuration does fail, it's going to be a messy crash. You'll need to have technicians restore the RAID hardware and software. Data Recovery is very convenient should you hard drive fail or crash. Whether they are personally files or very important files that are need for business - you can put your trust in data recovery and know that you'll get everything the back the way it was. Peace of mind is a wonderful thing especially when you have already overcome one of the Vital hazards in your Business life. http://www.softrating.com/data-recovery-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/data-recovery.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 The long process of Encryption has had its start since ancient times where no computers and other modern computing facilities were available and our ancestors used this for only character substitution. The process of deciphering was a long and tedious process. In earlier decades when people didn’t have the problem of protecting information of their computerized systems, encryption was only used by governmental bodies to facilitate the secret information during their communication. Nowadays encryption is widely applicable for data in transit that is when information is being transferred via networks, Bluetooth devices, bank automatic teller machines, etc., since this method helps to secure the info which is often difficult to physically secure intermittently. Information security of computers and through the Internet is provided by various methods. A simple but straightforward security method is to only keep personal information on portable flash memory drives or external hard drives. But the most popular forms of security all rely on encryption, the process of encoding information in such a way that only the person (or computer) with the key can decode it. Nowadays that it has become extremely easy to manipulate with computer applications, to sell and buy things without crossing far distances even without communicating each other, but filling in a form or so, to communicate with relatives abroad, appears as a vital concern on the Internet, especially when you're trying to send sensitive individual information between parties. (Credit-card information, personal details, bank account info, private correspondence, etc.) As it is mentioned in one of the articles on Data Security by Peter Suciu, sites such as “PayPal” use some of the industry’s encryption to keep customer information and company data highly secure, says Amanda Pires, spokesperson for PayPal. “The PayPal system was built by one of the most highly regarded cryptographers in the industry, Max Levchin. Max built PayPal’s financial system from the ground up using high-level encryption.” The other type of encryption, mainly deployed by small businesses, is a key algorithm, used by both public-key and private-key cryptography. Via this method, a user sends data by means of the public-key which is encrypted and the receiver, who is the only party who can decrypt the information, uses the private-key. This is how credit card information is protected when a customer makes an online order from your Web site. The disadvantage of this type of key is that if a site is successfully hacked, then the user’s information is exposed to danger. Especially, when you take into account that credit cards usually pass through the mail, charge slips can be lost with such crucial information clearly printed and cards are often stolen, encryption is really secure. On the whole I should say that Nsauditor security and vulnerability scanner allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found, you will surely recede the “black pack” of troubles waiting for you. It is able to make customers feel safer while contacting your company for the provided goods or services. In this respect SpotAuditor is a comprehensive solution for recovering passwords and other critical business information saved in computers, it recovers more than 40 programs passwords. SpotAuditor is All-in-one password recovery program that offers administrators and users a comprehensive solution for recovering passwords and other extremely crucial business information saved in users' computers. Once you get the program no great resources will be required for protecting your valuable computer information. http://www.softrating.com/password-recovery-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/firewall.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 The area of network security comprises the methods and provisions called to impede illegal access, misuse, alteration, or denial of the computer network and its resources. All this is monitored by Network administrator. The individually assigned IDs and passwords allow access to information without additional intervention in public, private computer networks, used in business, by governmental organizations, agencies and individuals which surely correlates and balances their activities. By computer network, we undestand a collection of interconnected computers and devices that allows sharing of resources and information. Computer networking or Data communications (Datacom) is a discipline that deals with computer networks. Network Security comprises the activities in an organization, enterprises, and other institutions. It does as its title explains, secures the network, monitors different processes being done, keeps an eye on decoy resources not to exploit computing techniques applied by users. Depending on the type of business weather it is small, medium or large, Security Management techniques also differ. The larger the business scope the more advanced software are needed to provide the functioning of the system from foreign intrusions. Wireless Security is known to be very important at Home for several reasons. If the wireless network in your home is not safe, your online activitie can be spied. Hackers pass a long and tricky way for exposing the weak points in networks and trying to locate them. For Securing your Home Network it’s very important to choose the right tools. In this aspect Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is worth mentioning about which is a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. It can also audit password and security policies as well as make a variety of network attack probes. ShareAlarmPro is an Advanced All-In-One Network Access Control and Folder Monitoring Software. It allows easily to perform secure network monitoring, eliminate unwanted guests from penetrating into your systems. With ShareAlarmPro you are protected and well-informed about files and folders access over network. In this concern I think it necessary to represent one more of the tools provided by NSASOFT. Security Manager Plus is a network Security scanner which provides detailed inventory of the network assets, assesses network vulnerabilities and identifies devices that are exposed. By deploying missing patches/updates and service packs, Security Manager Plus automatically improves the deficiency or the threat towards the system also providing solutions to decrease possible risks in IT environment. Security manager Plus offers the following features: Vulnerability Scanning, Open Ports Detection, Hardware / Software Inventories, Patch Management, Windows Change Management, Audit Reports, PCI DSS Compliance Reporting. There are several measures that need to be taken to protect home network security from possible malicious attacks. I would, first of all, use Encryption. So if you have forgotten your password and need to Recover Passwords or Confidential Information saved in your computer SpotAuditor can Really Help You to do it ! SpotAuditor is an Advanced All-In-One Password Recovery Solution for recovering passwords and other critical business information saved in computers, it recovers more than 40 programs passwords! SpotAuditor recovers Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Outlook Express, MSN messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Messenger, Google Talk, Gmail Notifier, Google Desktop, ICQ, Trillian, Miranda IM, RQ, Camfrog Video Chat, Easy Web Cam, RDP, VNC, Dial up, RAS, VPN, WinProxy, Total Commander (Windows Commander), SmartFTP, Far, IpSwitch Messenger, IpSwitch IM server, IpSwitch Messenger, IMail server, WS_FTP, CuteFTP, File Zilla, FlashFXP, SecureFX, WebDrive, FTP Voyager, CoreFTP, CoffeeCup Direct FTP, AutoFTP, FTP Control, FTP Navigator, FFFTP, DeluxeFtp, 32bit FTP passwords, Internet Download Manager password and reveals IE Auto Complete Fields saved passwords, recovers passwords stored behind the asterisks. Another way of securing your wireless access is to limit which computers are allowed to use it. Also very important to Change Default Administrator Passwords (and Usernames), to apply Encryption Technology, to Change the Default SSID, since it can be the start. If your competitors notice a a roughly designed network they are much more likely to attack it. So my tip is to change the default SSID the moment wireless security is applied to your network. Securing your network should be treated with the utmost priority. If your network security policy is designed and applied correctly you will never find yourself engaged in a confrontation with intruders. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/home-network-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 For centuries people have been collecting and storing different types of information for various reasons. Today, thanks to the new information technologies the process of collecting and providing information throughout the world is as easy as never before. Though technologies made this process digital, convenient, and dynamic, still information security should be the main concern for those who own and control any type of information, especially when it concerns public, business and government sectors. But there is a good news! The same technological progress also provides effective solutions to protect and secure the digital data. We will have a look at information security aspects and some of its solutions. Why Information needs security? We all make use at least of one modern technology in our everyday, business, and public life – computers, laptops, mobile devices, interactive terminals etc. Many people register their personal information to Internet, some for employment, and others for business and social communication purposes. And while we, the users are running through this, we want to be assured that our information would be used and secured in a proper way since we never lose the sense of private life and security. You might have seen many times the privacy policy statements provided by service or product providers on the Internet saying that your personal details won’t be revealed and misused. Information Security is the protection of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction. It is based on the principles of the consumers’ interests and human rights. In many countries it is a legal requirement . Protecting information is critical for business and governmental institutions which deal with huge volumes of confidential information about their employees, customers, products, research, and financial status. Most of this information is now collected, processed and stored on electronic computers and transmitted across networks. So now, we can imagine what could happen if this kind of information would be available to everyone – it will cause an incredible damage like lost business, law suits or even bankruptcy of the business. The Core Aspects of Information Security Of course, securing information is about securing the system or network that the information is stored in. But apart from all this there should be a concise understanding of information security core aspects in order to plan, implement and maintain an effective security policy. That policy should be compliant with local laws and industry standards. 1. Information Classification Information value needs to be assessed to have appropriate security requirements for different types of information. Not all information is equal and so not all information requires the same level of protection. This requires information to be classified due to its value. So a thorough risk management should be realized. Obviously, the more sensitive or valuable the information the stronger the security control needs to be. 2. Access Control The protected information should be available only to those people who are authorized to access that information and to control its development. That is why all the computers, software and networks which process the information, should be set up with access control and provide authorization mechanisms. 3. Cryptography Cryptography is a main asset in information security. It is the process of converting the secured data into unusable form while the information is in transmission or just is in storage. This is done for preventing unauthorized users from reading and interpreting the sensitive data they could accidentally get or access. Unusable information could be transformed back to the usable one by an authorized user, who has the cryptographic key. This converse process is decryption. 4. Defense-In-Depth Information security assumes not only the protection of stored data but also its protection on the stages of creation, development and disposal. In other words, it is “responsible” for the whole life-time of the information. During its life-time information may “travel” through different processes and systems and even change its format and value. Defense-in-depth allows controlling information life-time and adequately reacts on information transformations and external threats. It is a comprehensive and detailed approach to information security. It is a multi-layered defense system where each component of the information has its own protection mechanisms. 5. Backups and Disaster Recovery These days nobody and nothing is insured from unexpected and unprecedented cases. So does the information. To provide the business continuity and information completeness companies and other institutions of high significance employ disaster recovery planning (DRP) and back-ups policy. Information back up is the periodical reservation of data copy on extra systems to have at least one reserved copy in case of data loss or destruction. DRP is focused on taking the necessary steps to resume normal business operations as quickly as possible. It is executed immediately after the disaster occurs and details what steps are to be taken in order to recover critical information. 6. Hardware and Software An effective information security system incorporates a set of policies, security products, hardware and software technologies and procedures. The correct and targeted deployment of all those components should make up an effective information security. But how to find reliable and comprehensive software applications for information security? Here are some of the highly rated and industry recognized solutions for information monitoring and security. a. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor Nsauditor is Network Security and Vulnerability Scanner that gives you the power to scan, detect and correct any potential security risk on your network. Nsauditor allows monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking enterprise network for all potential threats. The application also includes firewall system, real-time network monitoring, packet filtering and analyzing. Nsauditor significantly reduces the total cost of network management in enterprise environments by enabling IT personnel and systems administrators gather a wide range of information from all the computers in the network without installing server-side applications on those computers. Read more … b. NetShareWatcher - Network Shares and Permissions Monitoring NetShareWatcher is network security improvement software. It allows network administrators to monitor network shares and identify shares which are violating data access policy of their organization. NetShareWatcher is very handy. Once you configure it a first time, you can forget about network sharing problems. You only need to select restricted groups or users and every time NetShareWatcher will automatically detect network shares with an access log list. Read more … c. ShareAlarmPro - Network Access Monitoring Software ShareAlarmPro allows easily performing network shares and folder monitoring, blocking unwanted users attempting to access secured shares and confidential files over network, detecting and loging accessed files and folders. With ShareAlarmPro you are protected and well-informed about files and folders access over your network. The software includes Firewall and intrusion detection system based on security events log analyzer; in addition software allows monitoring security events and permissions changes. http://sharealarm.nsauditor.com/ http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/information-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 The extension of general information systems has brought about with itself a bunch of privacy and security concerns not only for separate users but also for huge organizations. Here several aspects may be considered: all the private employee data and the company’s important information is recorded in computers, besides there ere organizations that perform all their management and business activities via internet. All these points confirm the necessity of an organization to be responsible and keep an eye on computing systems and find out the real way of protecting oneself. The best way to be safe is to investigate and understand what common tricks are, and how to avoid getting into the wicked trap of hackers. For more vividity let’s see what these words hacker and cracker mean. The core of the hacker definition used (and as it is used according to the hacker's Jargon dictionary), a hacker is someone who just wants to know everything from a system just out of his pleasure, we with you as average users just acquire knowledge for using a system correctly and not exploiting it . People who apply this with the intention finding security flaws and holes in a system they are hackers. The other intruders who don’t tend to vandalize the systems but to learn and apply some tricks to create viruses, break into system etc., are called crackers. They don’t gain any new skills, knowledge or valuable information of an organization but make sure for themselves that they are apt to create a virus. To confront such problems in future, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was passed in 1984. It provided a number of legal measures to prosecute the “malicious” trespassers”. The concepts of INTERNET, its PRIVACY and SECURITY are surely interconnected. Privacy determines to what extent the individuals are interconnected. Security concerns the level of the misused information available on the Internet. Today millions of computers are connected together. All these seemingly “minor” nuances significantly have their “immence” negative impact on current Business. The Internet is also capable of defaming other’s privacy as a publisher of information by misusing communicating information, just as television, newspapers and other media are. SECURITY AND PRIVACY PROTECTION can be provided by Security Programs, legal Acts, Law Enforcement. You can gain a lot of valuable information if you attend http://www.internet-security-magazine.com that concisely represents all Latest Internet Security News, Internet Security related Topics summarizing the whole knowledge you have on Internet usage. Keeping Your Data Safe is one of the key points of Internet Protection. Although there is no full-100% security but there are several ways and methods you can protect yourself – and make it extremely difficult for hackers to read your data. Limit the Information Available since the less information available, the less information hackers have to work with except the cases like ordering products online – so it will not work in every case. Another important aspect of security is attention to detail. Like reading the fine print on a contract, reading everything on a page before you agree to something is extremely important and can save you from serious problems. Uses of Encryption Encryption is something that makes data unreadable without special knowledge. Using encryption is something you can do to maximize your security without having to abstain from giving personal information out. There are many techniques which will help you out substantially if a hacker does find your files. It is often too difficult, and too much trouble for a hacker to try and crack an encryption – there are far too many people who don’t use any at all for a hacker to waste his time on someone who does. Law Enforcement is also a helpful factor that dramatically reduces percentage of malicious users penetrating into your network Systems. As the Internet grows and changes at a very high speed , new security and privacy issues will appear. As the environment changes, the privacy and security issues will be reconsidered. There is no doubt that the issues the Internet creates are likely to change, as the Internet and society continue to adapt to each other. Recognizing and assessing all these aspects gives us the possibility to discern the current impact and also future direction of Internet Privacy and Security specifics. Overall, I hope you have learned how to keep your data safe, secure, and away from malicious users. If you read this article thoroughly and make use of Nsauditor security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found, you will surely recede the “black pack” of troubles awaiting for you. Just beware; hackers are coming up with new methods of security breaking methods as fast as security experts are detecting and eliminating the older ones. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/internet-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 How will a hacker possibly act when performing his “black deed”. He will surely install a "rootkit"(malware) which can be obtained via Internet. A rootkit is software that gives the intruder a privileged hidden access to a computer by destroying standard operating system functionality or other applications. The rootkit is essentially a program or sequence of programs, that is interpreted or carried out by another program rather than by the computer processor which makes a quick work of modifying the system so the intruder is in control. So this is carried out by installing modified twofolds of common system tools falsifying log files or special kernels by means of which similar results are achieved. As a result the most trivial commands can me be modified so as to not show where the files have been stored. Very Smart Indeed!!! Thus to defeat this malware an intrusion detection system (IDS) has been developed. IDS is a device or software application that monitors network or system activities for malicious activities or policy violations and produces reports to a Management Station. Intrusion detection is a monitoring process that have become a necessary addition to the security infrastructure of nearly every organization. Some systems may attempt to stop an intrusion attempt but this is neither required nor expected of a monitoring system. Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) are primarily focused on identifying possible incidents, logging information about them, and reporting attempts. In addition, organizations use IDPSs for other purposes, such as identifying problems with security policies, documenting existing threats, and deterring individuals from violating security policies. In other words, Network intrusion detection system (NIDS) is a device or software application that tries to detect malicious activity such as denial of service attacks, port scans or even attempts to crack into computers by monitoring network traffic, producing reports to a Management Station. A NIDS reads all the incoming packets and tries to find suspicious moments known as signatures or rules. If, for example, a large number of TCP connection requests to a very large number of different ports are observed, one could assume that there is someone conducting a port scan of some or all of the computer(s) in the network. Often valuable information about an ongoing intrusion can be learned from outgoing or local traffic as well. Some attacks might even be staged from the inside of the monitored network or network segment, and are therefore not regarded as incoming traffic at all. It also (mostly) tries to detect incoming shellcodes in the same manner that an ordinary intrusion detection system does. A NIDS is not limited to inspecting only incoming network traffic. For sure it is an independent platform that identifies intrusions by examining network traffic and monitors multiple guests. Network intrusion detection systems gain access to network traffic by connecting to a network hub, network switch configured for port mirroring, or network tap. In a NIDS, sensors are located at choke points in the network to be monitored, often in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) or at network borders. Sensors captures all network traffic and analyzes the content of individual packets for malicious traffic. An example of a NIDS is Snort. Snort is a free and open source network intrusion prevention system (NIPS) and network intrusion detection system (NIDS), created by Martin Roesch in 1998. Snort’s open source network-based intrusion detection system (NIDS) has the ability to perform real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Snort performs protocol analysis, content searching, and content matching. The program can also be used to detect probes or attacks, including, but not limited to, operating system fingerprinting attempts, common gateway interface, buffer overflows, server message block probes, and stealth port scans. We acknowledge 2 main types of IDS: those protecting networks, and those protecting individual hosts. For host based IDS, it is performed by means of tools that monitor the filesystem for changes. System files that have been somewhat altered, but should not have without our interruption are a dead give away that something is amiss. Anyone who gets in, will evidently make changes to the system. Here is the first but not the only step. Now he can get back in through a backdoor, or to attack someone else, in this aspect having to change or add files to the system. For home desktops and home LANs, this is assumably not a quite necessary component of security policy. And here a tool called tripwire appears to save the situation. This is a tool which is apt to monitor various aspects of the filesystem by means of comparison against a database detecteing any dangerous points. Tools like tripwire are designed to be installed only on a known "clean" systemfile. To deter such kind of malware, we should turn to ShareAlarmPro network tool that allows network administrators and users easily perform network shares monitoring. Using ShareAlarmPro you can monitor users attempting to access secured shares and confidential files, detect and log network access to shared folders, monitor security events, monitor accessed files, disconnect users from open files or deny network users access, monitor sharing permission changes. ShareAlarmPro includes intrusion detection system based on security events log analyzer. Security Event Log Monitor monitors the security event logs of Windows NT/2000/XP servers or workstations and notifies user on selected events detection. ShareAlarmPro also monitors your shares permissions and alerts if “Everyone”, “Domain Users” or other selected broad access group is added to the permissions of a share. With ShareAlarmPro you can monitor files or folders creation, deletion or any attribute change in your shares. Program keeps log for all detected events (access to shared folders, security events, folder watcher events) in HTML format. Often, network intrusion detection systems works with other systems as well. They can for example update some firewalls' blacklist with the IP addresses of computers used by (suspected) crackers. The term firewall originally referred to a wall intended to confine a fire or potential fire within a building such as firewall (construction). A firewall is a Network Security device or set of devices designed to permit or deny network transmissions based upon a set of rules and is frequently used to protect networks from unauthorized access while permitting legitimate communications to pass. Many personal computer operating systems include software-based firewalls to protect against threats from the public Internet. Many routers that pass data between networks contain firewall components and, conversely, many firewalls can perform basic routing functions. A Router is a device that forwards data packets across computer networks thus performing the data "traffic directing" functions on the Internet. There are four different types of intrusion prevention systems : 1. Network-based Intrusion Prevention (NIPS): monitors the entire network for suspicious traffic by analyzing protocol activity. 2. Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems (WIPS): monitors a wireless network for suspicious traffic by analyzing wireless networking protocols. 3. Network Behavior Analysis (NBA): examines network traffic to define threats that bring about unusual traffic flows, such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, certain forms of malware, and policy violations. 4. Host-based Intrusion Prevention (HIPS): an installed software package which monitors a single host for suspicious activity by analyzing events within that host The majority of intrusion prevention systems make use of one of three detection methods: signature-based, statistical anomaly-based, and stateful protocol analysis. 1. Signature-based Detection: This method of detection uses signatures, which are preconfigured and predetermined attack patterns. A signature-based intrusion prevention system manages the network traffic for matches to these signatures. As soon as a match is found, the intrusion prevention system takes the appropriate measure. Signatures can be classified into exploit-based or vulnerability-based signatures. Exploit-based signatures refer to patterns in exploits which are protected against, while vulnerability-based signatures analyze vulnerabilities in a program, its execution, and conditions necessary for exploiting vulnerability. 2. Statistical Anomaly-based Detection is a method of detection which monitors baselines activity of average network traffic conditions. After a baseline is created, the system intermittently samples network traffic by means of using statistical analysis to compare the sample to the set baseline. Accordingly if the activity is outside the baseline parameters, the intrusion prevention system acts accordingly. 3. Stateful Protocol Analysis Detection: This method identifies deviations of protocol states by comparing observed events with “predetermined profiles of generally accepted definitions of benign activity. So as an author of this article I come to the conclusion that since well-known antivirus and personal firewall solutions are no longer effective enough to protect endpoint systems against well-organized attacks, and we can't keep our systems accordingly”equipped” an changed as quickly as new vulnerabilities come about. The best solution to Intrusion prevention is building a safe and profound basis first for detecting and then for eliminating it. Just Beware ill and malicious Network Structures. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/intrusion-detection.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Network Access Control (NAC) is a computer network security tool that tries to implement endpoint security technology, user or system against fraudulent transmissions and network security enforcement. Network Access Control (NAC) by means of a set of protocols defines and implements a policy that describes how to secure access to network when attempt is made to access it. On of the definitions Paul Rubens gives who is a frequent contributor to Internet.com and writes regularly for ServerWatch.com, EnterpriseStorageForum.com and EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet.com to NAC is as follows: “Network Access Control aims to do exactly what the name implies—control access to a network with policies, including pre-admission endpoint security policy checks and post-admission controls over where users and devices can go on a network and what they can do”. There are several basic terms that make it easier the core understanding of Network Access Control: 1. Security policy A security policy is a document that determines and represents the rules, laws and practices for computer network access. A security policy is a document that outlines the rules, laws and practices for computer network access. This document regulates how an organization manage its sensitive information.. 2. Network management This is the management of computer networks. There exists a wide range of software and hardware products that help network system administrators to manage a network. Network management covers a wide area, including: 3. Security: Ensuring that the network is protected from unauthorized intruders. 4. Performance: Eliminating obstacles hindering network activities. 5. Reliability: Making sure the network is available to users and is able to face software malfunctions. 6. Network Admission Control Abbreviated as NAC, Cisco's Network Admission Control is a set of technologies and solutions that use the network infrastructure to enforce security policy compliance on all devices seeking to access network computing resources. 7. Network Access Protection Abbreviated as NAP, Microsoft's Network Access Protection is a policy-enforcement platform built into the Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server Code Name "Longhorn" operating systems to secure the system from attacks. Network access control (NAC) • Prohibits guests from bringing down the network • The insider threat to the network • Allows network admins to take immediate countermeasures in cases of necessity on individual devices • Protects against spyware and malware. Safe Access is a complete NAC solution that stops unauthorized access, prevents malicious attacks enforcing your organization's security policies. Safe Access is flexible enough to control all devices and end users. However when “guests” sometimes try to access secured shares and confidential files. Here comes to help ShareAlarmPro - Network Access Monitoring Software - Advanced All-In-One Network Access Control and Folder Monitoring Software! ShareAlarmPro is a tool that allows you to see parameters of the workstation which tries to establish a connection with your computer. The remote workstation, user, path, OS, permissions of the accessed folder, connection time will available via this tool. ShareAlarmPro allows easily perform network shares and folder monitoring, block unwanted users attempting to access secured shares and confidential files over network, detect and log accessed files and folders.With ShareAlarmPro you are protected and well-informed about files and folders access over network. The software includes Firewall and intrusion detection system based on a security events log analyzer, in addition software allows monitor security events and permissions changes. This software also provides you with the ability to manage and monitor all shares on your workstation, disable or enable default administrative shares, hide your workstation on the network, view the number of the users currently connected to each shared resource on your workstation. ShareAlarmPro also lets you easily browse your LAN and view all shared resources irrespective of whether they are hidden or not as well as view connections to shared resources on remote workstations. ShareAlarmPro includes folder watcher functions. You can perform folder monitoring and folder content change tracking. With ShareAlarmPro you can centralize all alarms, thus having the opportunity to monitor several shares on multiple servers from a single location. workstations. The program logs all detected events ( access to shared folders, security events, folder watcher events ) in an HTML format. If your company is involved in financial services, health care or government work, regulatory requirements make network access control something you should be looking to implement right away. But whatever industry your company works in, security considerations mean that network access control is something you are going to want to implement sooner or later. No matter how long it takes to implement, now is the time to start making plans. http://www.softrating.com/network-access-control-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-access-control.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Internet Security is a fashionable and fast-moving field; the attacks that are catching the headlines can change significantly from one year to the next. Regardless of whether they’re directly relevant to the work you do, network-based attacks are so high-profile that they will surely have some impact, even if you only use hacker stories to get your client to allocate increased budgets to counter the more serious threats. It is said that networks can be secured by encryption, by firewalls. A Network Attack can be defined as any method, process or means used to maliciously attempt to compromise the security of the network. In fact, there is «a group» between the attackers, who try to find loopholes, and the vendors, who develop patches for them. exploits that are not only well known but for which tools are available on the Net. The individuals performing network attacks are commonly referred to as network attackers or hackers or crackers. A few different types of malicious activities performed by network attackers and hackers are summarized here: Unauthorized usage of user accounts and privileges: • Stealing hardware • Stealing software. • Running code to damage systems. • Running code to damage and corrupt data. • Modifying stored data. • Stealing data. A few reasons why network attackers attempt to attack corporate networks are listed here:greed, Industrial espionage, Politics, Terrorism, Racism, Criminal payoffs. Threats to the network can be initiated from a number of different sources, hence the reason why network attacks are classified as either external network attacks/threats, or internal network attacks/threats: External threats: External threats or network attacks are carried out by individuals with no assistance from internal employees or contractors. These attacks are typically performed by a malicious experienced individual, a group of experienced individuals, an experienced malicious organization, or by inexperienced attackers. External threats are usually performed by using a predefined plan and the technologies (tools) or techniques of the attacker(s). These attackers are highly skilled on network design, the methods on avoiding security measures, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs), access procedures, and hacking tools. They have the necessary skills to develop new network attack techniques and the ability to modify existing hacking tools for their exploitations. In certain cases, the attacker could be assisted by an internal authorized individual. Internal Threats: Internal attacks come from dissatisfied or unhappy inside employees or contractors. Internal attackers have some form of access to the system and usually try to hide their attack as a normal process. For instance, internal disgruntled employees have local access to some resources on the internal network already. They could also have some administrative rights on the network. One of the best means to protect against internal attacks is to implement an Intrusion Detection System, and to configure it to scan for both external and internal attacks. With respect to network attacks, the core components which should be included when you design network security are: 1. Network attack prevention. 2. Network attack detection. 3. Network attack isolation. 4. Network attack recovery. A hacker or network attacker is someone who maliciously attacks networks, systems, computers, applications; and who captures, corrupts, modifies, steals or deletes confidential company information. Hackers these days are classified according to the hat they wear. This concept is illustrated below: Black hat hackers are malicious or criminal hackers who hack at systems and computers to damage data or who attempt to prevent businesses from rendering their services. Some black hat hackers simply hack security protected systems to gain prestige in the hacking community. White hat hackers are legitimate security experts who are trying to expose security vulnerabilities in operating system platforms. White hat hackers have the improvement of security as their motive. They do not damage or steal company data, nor do they seek any fame. Grey hat hacker: These are individuals who are somewhere between that of black hat hackers and white hat hackers. Since there are many different types of network attacks, a few can be regarded as the the Common Types of Network Attacks. These network attacks are discussed in this section of the Article: Data modification or data manipulation belongs to a network attack where confidential company data is interpreted, deleted, or modified. Data modification is successful when data is modified without the user being aware that it was tampered with. A few methods of preventing IP address spoofing attacks are listed here: 1. Encrypt traffic between routers and external hosts. 2. Define ingress filters on routers and firewalls to stop inbound traffic where the source address is from a trusted host on the internal network Sniffer Attacks: Sniffing refers to the process used by attackers to capture and analyze network traffic. The contents of packets on a network are analyzed. The tools which attackers use for sniffing are called sniffers or more correctly, protocol analyzers. While protocol analyzers are really network troubleshooting tools, they are also used by hackers for malicious purposes. Sniffers are used to monitor, capture and obtain network information, such as passwords and valuable customer information. When an individual has physical access to a network, he/she can easily attach a protocol analyzer to the network and then capture traffic. Remote sniffing can also be performed and is typically used by network attackers. There are protocol analyzers or sniffers available for most networking technologies including: Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Ethernet, Fiber Channel, Serial connections, Small Computer System Inter-face (SCSI), Wireless. To protect against sniffers, implement Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) to encrypt network traffic so that any captured information cannot be interpreted. Password Attacks: Password based attacks or password crackers are aimed at guessing the password for a system until the correct password is determined. There are two ways in which password based attacks are performed: Online cracking and Offline cracking A dictionary attack occurs when all the words typically used for passwords are attempted to detect a password match. There are some technologies that can generate a number of complex word combinations and variations. A few methods of preventing brute force attacks are listed here: Enforce the use of long password strings. Implement an intrusion detection system Flood the network with invalid data until traffic from authorized network users cannot be processed. In the long run the network would eventually become overloaded. Physical destruction of the network. Crashing a router for instance would prevent users from accessing the system. Discussing Skill Issues how to struggle Network Attack we can't mention about tight configuration management which is the most critical aspect of a secure network. Several tools are available to help the systems administrator keep things tight. In managing the most Secure aspects of Network Security as a safe backup should be mentioned about Nsauditor Network Security Auditor which is is a network security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities. Nsauditor is Network Security and Vulnerability Scanner that gives you the power to scan, detect and correct any potential security risk on your network. Nsauditor allows monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking enterprise network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found. One of the most secure tools and the most widely sold solution managed is the implementation of firewalls. This is a machine that stands between a local network and the Internet, and filters out traffic cleaning the work area. It may not require as much effort to manage a firewall as to configure every machine on your network properly in the first place, but it still needs some. This long lasting description and survey of course can theoretically assist in managing of the effective working process however in the long run, additional cautiousness and being well- equipped with modern tools is the most corresponding way to avoid malicious treats and counterparts. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-attack.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Do you want to know a secret? Security isn’t about hacking, nasty, malicious software or the vulnerability of the day. Security is about maintaining a system and process that provides access to critical data without exposing your company or customers to excessive risk. Auditing is one of the most important aspects of maintaining that system, because it provides the opportunity to test assumptions about the security posture of networked systems and compare that posture with standards and regulations. Auditors ask the questions “How do you know that you are secure?” and “Can you prove that your security technology works?” Network Auditing software is a vital means for providing and enabling the process of carrying out most important vulnerability procedures of entire network. Network security is apt to provide the safety of the entire network eliminating the upcoming hazards that will evidently abrupt the working process. An information security audit is an audit on the level of information security in an organization. Within the broad scope of auditing information security there are multiple types of audits, multiple objectives for different audits, etc. Most commonly the controls being audited can be categorized to technical, physical and administrative. Auditing information security covers topics from auditing the physical security of data centers to the auditing logical security of databases and highlights key components to look for and different methods for auditing these areas. When centered on the IT aspects of information security, it can be seen as a part of an information technology audit. It is often then referred to as an information technology security audit or a computer security audit, technology (IT) infrastructure. As a general information IT is the area of managing technology and spans wide variety of areas that include but are not limited to things such as processes, computer software, information systems, computer hardware, programming languages, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the domain space known as Information Technology (IT). The evaluation of obtained evidence determines if the information systems are safeguarding assets, maintaining data integrity, and operating effectively to achieve the organization's goals or objectives. These reviews may be performed in conjunction with a financial statement audit, internal audit, or other form of attestation engagement. IT audits are also known as "automated data processing (ADP) audits" and "computer audits" Various authorities have created differing taxonomies to distinguish the various types of IT audits. Goodman and Lawless state that there are three specific systematic approaches to carry out an IT audit: 1. Technological innovation process audit. This audit constructs a risk profile for existing and new projects. The audit will assess the length and depth of the company's experience in its chosen technologies, as well as its presence in relevant markets, the organization of each project, and the structure of the portion of the industry that deals with this project or product, organization and industry structure. 2. Innovative comparison audit. This audit is an analysis of the innovative abilities of the company being audited, in comparison to its competitors. This requires examination of company's research and development facilities, as well as its track record in actually producing new products. 3. Technological position audit: This audit reviews the technologies that the business currently has and that it needs to add. Technologies are characterized as being either "base", "key", "pacing" or "emerging". Others describe the spectrum of IT audits with five categories of audits: 1. Systems and Applications: An audit to verify that systems and applications are appropriate, are efficient, and are adequately controlled to ensure valid, reliable, timely, and secure input, processing, and output at all levels of a system's activity. 2. Information Processing Facilities: An audit to verify that the processing facility is controlled to ensure timely, accurate, and efficient processing of applications under normal and potentially disruptive conditions. 3. Systems Development: An audit to verify that the systems under development meet the objectives of the organization, and to ensure that the systems are developed in accordance with generally accepted standards for systems development. 4. Management of IT and Enterprise Architecture: An audit to verify that IT management has developed an organizational structure and procedures to ensure a controlled and efficient environment for information processing. 5. Client/Server, Telecommunications, Intranets, and Extranets: An audit to verify that telecommunications controls are in place on the client (computer receiving services), server, and on the network connecting the clients and servers. And some lump all IT audits as being one of only two type: "general control review" audits or "application control review" audits. A number of IT Audit professionals from the Information Assurance realm consider there to be three fundamental types of controls regardless of the type of audit to be performed, especially in the IT realm. Many frameworks and standards try to break controls into different disciplines or arenas, terming them “Security Controls“, ”Access Controls“, “IA Controls” in an effort to define the types of controls involved. At a more fundamental level, these controls can be shown to consist of three types of fundamental controls: Protective/Preventative Controls, Detective Controls and Reactive/Corrective Controls. Occasionally corporate networks are deployed and then left unattended and uncontrolled. While these networks still perform their intended function, they are left open to attack. Consider too the role of the IT department; constantly deploying new services, software and hardware. Add to the mix any number of staff members, each of whom depend upon the network on a daily basis, and you can quickly see how robust network security and management is paramount to the continued smooth operation of this most important business asset. The best way, most cost effective way to achieve it is with reliable network auditing software. An up to the minute snapshot of the network is critical to those who are charged with keeping it running; and maintaining up-to-date records in between physical audits and upgrades will ensure that, when undertaken, those processes go smoothly. I consider it necessary to share with you Vital information on Networt Auditing Reveal: 1. First, an audit confirms the existing topology and device configuration; and 2. an audit lists any vulnerability found. Confirming topology and configuration gives IT administrators assurance that a.) the network itself is configured to maximize efficiency and security and b.) all devices attached to the network are properly configured to the same purpose. Comprehensive network auditing will also reveal any vulnerability negatively impacting network performance and hampering operations. Network auditing software further identifies devices and components that need to be replaced and any missing software updates. The component diagram of a network plots all the components found, showing all access routes available on that network. The accuracy of this diagram is critical. Changes made to the network must be reflected in the overall component diagram. Good network auditing software will ensure that all routes on the network are scanned and accounted for regardless of network size or the location of networked devices. An audit will further your insight into your network by retrieving hardware information such as memory, processors, display adapters, storage devices, motherboard details, printers, and ports in use. It also provides data about what people have accessed and the actions that were performed. There are steps that organizations must take to become compliant to any number of industry specific regulations. For a network, one starts with a pre-assessment, where the IT infrastructure of the company is reviewed including application architecture, policies, procedures and processes, and the overall network design. Once this is done there must be efforts to standardize policies and processes across the entire IT domain. Once the policies are set up and in place, staff must be informed and trained for adhering to procedures in order to keep the organization compliant. It would also be beneficial for the organization to invest in network auditing software that monitors the network and system access to maintain management oversight into the network and its users and to improve network security. Regular network audits, assisted by auditing software, help organizations to maintain compliance with the relevant industry standards. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a network security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found. Nsauditor is a complete networking software package that includes more than 45 network tools and utilities for network auditing, scanning,network connections monitoring and more. Overall, Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a very complete package. The product contains a built-in database of known network security vulnerabilities, which allows you to select the items for scanning and add custom entries. Nsauditor can reveal and catalog a variety of information, including installed software, shares, users, drives, hotfixes, NetBios, RPC, SQL and SNMP information, open ports. The effectiveness of the administrative, physical and technical controls on the network must be tested. Process and procedure policies safeguard the administrative security of the network, or that which is controlled by human actions. Physical safeguards meanwhile extend from actual physical card-key access to the data center to any steps taken to protect data and systems from natural disaster or environmental hazards. Technical controls would involve testing the IDS systems, firewalls, encryption and other security technologies deployed. Technical controls, however, often require a penetration test which examines the network from the outside in, on the network perimeter. This kind of test typically starts with border routers and firewalls, and then moves into the core of the network where sensitive data is stored. From there checks are made to see if any vulnerability exists within the hosts. Mainframes and the distributed network of servers typically contain the PHI databases that are restricted to particular users. In this instance it's important to ensure, for example, that restricted accounts cannot obtain escalated privileges gaining unauthorized access to certain areas on the network. Another example is the problem of default system administrator accounts that are often, but never should be, left blank. A proper network audit will find and report these and other open point of possible attack. Of course the report will need to be acted upon to ensure that the corporation continues in compliance with its own policies and with outside regulatory requirements. The Value of Network Auditing is in diminishing the upcoming huge problems small problems that will seem unmanageable. The whole idea of compliance and auditing really just boils down to common sense in my opinion. To avoid the complicated process of engaging the services of professionals for keeping the whole computing process in form and to help you out of the situation is one key issue that is still a pending issue. It is still to be determined to seek such a way out or to make use of the innovations of computerized world. I sincerely hope this article was of help to you, and as always welcome your feedback. Till Next Time! http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-auditing.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Planning and setting up a secure network system is critical, but maintenance and upgrades of such networks is not less important. For rapidly growing network systems it is vital to track its development by different aspects such as software and hardware which forms up network structure. For this reason overall network structure should be distinctly defined and inventoried. This will enable administration team to keep their hands on the system pulse, track and visualize network structure by its components and functionality levels. In addition, if you simultaneously employ an effective network monitoring system then you will gain top control over your network structure and performance. So, how to gain control over a network anatomy? The network inventory system should be your core tool. Control Your Network Structure Each system, no matter complex or not, is a collection of many items which relate to each other on different interaction bases by making up the system components and so, the whole... the system. The more a system grows, the more difficult to track and locate all its components on different levels. So here is the question: why you need it? For example you have a network failure, but it is not possible to immediately identify and diagnose the failure point. It could be a failure of just one single component (device or software) and since you deal with a network system, a chain of interactions, then the whole system may be affected and crash down. Now, imagine how much resources and time you need to first identify the component in your network which causes system failure and then locate it properly to fix the problem. Many start-up telecom providers often suffer this issue. Thousands of people/subscribers are connected to the same server at a common data center. When something goes wrong all these subscribers may lose service access. Time and resources for analyzing and locating the crash point might be enormous. And sometimes damages and rating loss is hard to regain. Deploying network inventory systems also provide the opportunity for preventive and corrective measures in terms of network structure and functioning. Itemized and inventoried networks are more accurate and may be easily controlled and reviewed. Network Inventory Software The good news is that there are special software solutions for implementing network inventory. Proposed solutions vary both in approach and in feature set. Some are agent based software, while others run without agent. Some collect and display information only, while others provide visual monitoring and audit-and-advise tools on network structure. Solutions may be also classified by environment – business use or home use, OS and platforms etc. Typically, network inventory software enable collecting hardware and software inventory data from remote computers connected to the network with an array of audit methods. They provide information about operating system, service packs, hot fixes, hardware, software and running processes on remote machines. This data is auto-generated and reported in different formats. Since today’s IT market offers many solutions, you should narrow your search criteria, for example, by operating systems. Here is powerful network inventory software for Windows-based systems. Nsasoft Hardware Software Inventory is one of the popular network inventory solutions for Windows. It is a comprehensive software pack for home, office and enterprise networks. The software scans all computers on a network and generates complete reports about computers hardware and software. This information is added to the centralized database and then users can generate reports about each or all of the PCs on a network. Interested? Then explore Nsasoft Hardware Software Inventory here. Still need more? Then view the reviews and rewards by professionals. http://www.nsauditor.com/network_inventory_software.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-inventory.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 In Network Security article we learned about security measures and intrusion detection systems which monitor networks for threats coming from outside by unauthorized users. But external threads are not the only reason for crashing or failing of network systems. Every network administration specialist would tell you that in many cases network failures are first caused by internal issues like overloaded servers, slow performance of network connections or incompatibility issues on deployed software or devices. This article observes the concept of network monitoring, its areas and solutions. Monitoring and its Mission Network Monitoring System (NMS) is not aimed at tracking network related problems only but it is also a strategic measure that assists in optimization of data flow and access in an unexpectedly changing environment. In other words monitoring focuses not only on security issues but mainly on optimization, effective management and deployment of networks. Network Monitoring is basically used for determining: - status of servers (overloaded, crashed etc.) - user activity and data transmission (network traffic) - snail-paced webpage downloads - connectivity performance level (end-to-end response time) Network monitoring is commonly done by sending a “ping,” or test, to each computer or system on the network. Monitoring of networks is implemented based on server and protocol types. To monitor a web server, monitoring software periodically sends HTTP request to get a page. Email servers are monitored by sending a test message through SMTP and retrieving response via IMAP or POP3 servers. As a rule, most of network monitoring systems test server in the interval of from once-per-hour to once-per-minute. Some other monitoring systems also audit and find routing issues which can cause undesirable performance degradation or downtime. This type of network measurement is known as Route Analysis. Another important area of network measurement is Network Tomography. NT studies network's structure, internal characteristics and health of various links in a network using information derived from end point data. Monitoring of Corporate Networks Obviously, business and enterprise networks require more serious and professional approach in establishing of effective and reliable network monitoring system. Monitoring of internal corporate networks is a critical IT prerequisite, because its successful engagement can save money, dramatically increase employee productivity, help set up optimal infrastructure solutions and provide safe collaboration environment for the company. You would be pleasurably surprised if you know that monitoring is a valuable asset to office and project managers in terms of overseeing the whole activity within company network. How to set up an effective NMS? Think of network monitoring system as your deputy who supervises network, alarms and reports of your network events and problems. There are three main components that build up an effective network monitoring solution. NMS should be armed at least with dedicated power lines, back-up generators and reliable software. Dedicated power lines help the system to stay always up and running, the back-up generators periodically make backup copies of the system data and the software is the tool for effective and visual control of monitoring and analysis. NMS is the most critical part of any IT network system, as it is the “guy” that sounds alarm if something is wrong. The successful setup of network monitoring system depends on the selected solution of software and hardware combination. Some network monitoring software only scan the network retrieving the data while others also provide possibility to audit and generate various traffic and statistical reports, and analyze the current state of the network system, even suggest optimal solutions to make the situation better. Such software is great asset to the system administrators and thus the more comprehensive monitoring software the better the virtual control over the network. Nowadays IT market is rich in various network software solutions and it makes difficult to choose amongst them. For obtaining an optimal software solution for your network monitoring you might first want to consider such factors as targeted solution, ability to handle voluminous data, ability to generate various reports on system status and security, customizability and of course easy-to use feature. So if you are interested in obtaining a software which comprises all these features in it for your network monitoring and audit you should have closer look at some popular software solutions such as NBMonitor and Nsauditor highly rated by authoritative reviewers. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-monitoring.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Software that analyzes a network to determine its openness to unwanted intruders is represented as Network scanner. A network scanner is a computer program that envisions a network to determine which computers and services are available to be exploited. Network Scanner is an IP scanner for network analysis that will enable you to detect an ullimited number of network computers in a few seconds. Network scanner operates very quickly due to multi-directed scanning when every computer is scanned separately. You can change the number of computers scanned at the same time. You can export the scan results to html, txt or xml. A vulnerability scanner is a computer program that searches the Internet looking for computers that are vulnerable to a particular type of attack. The scanners have a large database of vulnerabilities that they use to probe computers in order to determine the vulnerable ones. Both commercial and free vulnerability scanners that exist are also called "vulnerability scanners". The Key Features that can also be considered an advantage to this technological structure are as follows: 1. Easiness of usage. Even an inexperienced user will be able to scan the network in several seconds. 2. Good performance. The program uses multi-threaded scanning which incomparably enhances network scan rate. 3. Scalability. You can scan either several computers from the list or whole subnets the number of which in the list is not limited. 4. Network resource audit.which is called to check access rights to resources both for the current user and for any specified user. 5. Available to all users. No administrator privileges are required for scanning. 6. Exporting the scan results to html, txt or xml. I t also provides the following technical positions: • Automatically detects local and external IP range. • Lets you mount shared folders as network drive, and then explore them via Windows explorer. • You can specify any particular port that you want to search, and Network Scanner will report back if the port is open in network computers. • Network Scanner will ping all computers within the IP range that you specify, and will report back names, IP address, and MAC address of all the computers that are alive. • Network Scanner is able to detect even hidden shared folders, and also reports if some shared folder is writable. • Network Scanner supports Wake-On-LAN remote shutdown, and lets you send network messages. To be more definite, Wake-on-LAN (WOL) is an Ethernet computer networking standard that allows a computer to be turned on or woken up by a network message. • It does not even require any installation. Just download, and provide the IP range that you want to scan. • Network Scanner is completely free, and is a very useful tool for network admins and security administrators. In the sphere of Network security Auditing, Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a network security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found. Nsauditor is a complete networking software package that includes more than 45 network tools and utilities for network auditing, scanning, network connections monitoring and more. In other words, A Network enumerator or network scanner is a computer program used to retrieve user names, and info on groups, shares and services of networked computers. This type of program provides the security of that network. Ethical hackers often also use the information to remove the glitches and strengthen their network. Malicious (or "black-hat") hackers can, on entry of the network, get to security sensitive information or corrupt the network making it useless. If this network belonged to a company which used this network on a regular basis, the company would lose the function to send information internally to other departments. That is why technological Innovations come to rescue in such critical moments reducing the burden of Business world making its operational structure more firm and secure. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-scanner.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Can you make sure for yourself how Secure Is Your Network? Do you consider it vital implementing perfect network connection? If you manage this it will mean securing your working process since life and technologieas are ever changing and requiring persistent observation and attention. Security Vulnerabilities are among the foremost concerns for network and security professionals as it provides a critical threat for efficiency and effectiveness of an organization to meet the ever-increasing speed with which exploits are written and propagated. It is extremely important to identify network security vulnerabilities proactively before a hacker does it for planning an attack on the organization. Network security vulnerabilities are significant threat to control measures of an organization. In computing system a vulnerability is considered a weak point giving way an intruder to shatter system's information safety assurance. 1. The individually assigned an IDs and passwords allow access to information without additional interventionin in public, private computer networks, used in business, by governmental organizations, agencies and individuals which surely correlates and balances their activities. For sake of all these Security Management system ( intrusion detection system) has been implemented which is called to to detect and to ‘’shelve’’ attacks. Vulnerability management comprises the regularly repeated process of identifying, classifying, and correcting the software vulnerabilities(deficiencies) in computing systems.. In the meantime it is worh mentioning that attack can be considered active when it tries to change a system or affect its functioning. A "passive attack" aims at making use of information from the system but does not influence the system itself. Vulnerabilities may have the following reasonable causes: 1. Complexity: Large, complex systems enhance the possibility of deficiency in a system. 2. Familiarity: Using common, widely-known code, software, operating systems, hardware enhance the possibility that an attacker can have the knowledge and tools to detect the deficiency. 3. Password management flaws: The weaker the passwords the easier to break them. The password that is stored on the computer can be accessed by a program easily since users re-use the same passwords between many programs and websites. 4. Website Browsing: Automatically installed on the computer systems harmful Spyware or Adware may become a reason for a vulnerability as the computer systems after visiting certain websites, become infected enabling others to possess the collected valuable info. 5. Software bugs: The bugs left in a software by a programmer may enable the attacker to misuse the intended tool. So the most important circle in most information systems is the human being. He takes certain measures to physically protect the necessary personal info. In practice, it is possible to minimize the number of intrusions by keeping systems up-to-date, using a security scanner or hiring an appropriate staff responsible for security. If you have the intention of acquiring a stable networking basis and avoid additional possibility of data loss, Nsauditor Network Security Auditor can be of great help to you appearing as an all-in-one tool for monitoring the safety of your network, providing a safe background for further activities. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is an Advanced All-In-One Network Tools Suite includes more than 45 network tools and utilities for network auditing, scanning, network connections monitoring and more. Nsauditor is Network Security and Vulnerability Scanner that gives you the power to scan, detect and correct any potential security risk on your network. Nsauditor allows monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking enterprise network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found. It also helps network administrators to identify security holes and deficiencies in their networked systems. A network monitor tool provides some insight into services running locally, with options to dig down into each connection and analyze the remote system, terminate connections, block unwanted network connections with incrusted firewall system and view data on the associated process. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-security-and-vulnerability.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Every business encircles the frame of tangible assests of the company activities in order to get a clear picture of the security risks they encounter and how to best deal with these threats. After drawing the necessary and acceptable boundaries one must choose the various tools by means of which network security is achieved: firewalls and proxy servers, encryption, logical security and access controls, anti-virus software, and auditing systems such as log management, etc. Firewalls are a very basic part of network security. Firewalls flow through a system trying to authenticate, monitor and report traffic. The process of encryption involves encoding that is converting a simple text into a number of unreadable characters or codes. If the encrypted text is stolen in transit, the content is unreadable to the viewer. Logical security comprises software security measures for an organization’s systems, such as ID and password access, authentication, access rights and authority levels. These measures are to make sure that network or a workstation activities are performed by only authorized users. Application Security rotates around these three main functions: - Programming - Processing - Access Having physical access such as electronic, security guards, choke and cameras is very important to provide the security of your applications and data. With processing it is important that the procedure monitors and reveals falsified and incomplete data, incomplete processing, duplicate transactions processing simultaneously in one and the same place. Finally, access, it is important to realize that maintaining network security against illegal access is one of the main goals for companies as threats can come from a few sources. It is very important to change system access passwords regularly and to track the made changes. The second point to be concerned with is remote access, people accessing your system from the outside through the internet. Setting up firewalls and password protection to on-line data changes are apt to protect against unauthorized remote access. Among the specific tools used in network security you should get to know about Nsauditor Software to secure your network. This is a network security scanner that allows to audit and monitor remote network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checks your network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it. Nsauditor is a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network security auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. The program includes more than 45 network tools for scanning, sniffing, enumerating and gaining access to machines and contains a built-in database of known network security vulnerabilities, which allows you to select the items for scanning and add custom entries. Nsauditor can reveal and catalog a variety of information, including installed software, shares, users, drives, hotfixes, NetBios, RPC, SQL and SNMP information, open ports. Reports can be generated in HTML and XML format. ShareAlarmPro includes folder watcher functions. You can perform folder monitoring and folder content change tracking. With ShareAlarmPro you can centralize all alarms, thus having the opportunity to monitor several shares on multiple servers from a single location. Work stations. The program logs all detected events (access to shared folders, security events, folder watcher events ) in an HTML format. Here are represented some common security threats that will surely help you to get started in creating your company's threat list: • To make stronger the currently used computer and network passwords,records of physical assets. Do they exist? Are they backed up? • Data backups • Logging of data access. The time someone accesses data, it is this logged, what, when, where, etc, all the info is recorded. • Access to sensitive customer data, e.g., credit card info. To verify if this information be accessed from personalities outside. • Access to client lists. If there exists a backdoor access into the client database. • Emails. Employees need to be educated on how to spot potential spam and if there is a company policy that outgoing emails to clients not have certain types of hyperlinks in them? Each company should develop a complete list of all the assets, prioritize the ones necessary ones specific for him accordingly. • Developing Your Security Threat Response Plan • Implementing Network Access Controls Which should also include steps such as; encryption, digital signatures, ACLs, verifying IP addresses, user names, and checking cookies for web pages. A very critical approach towards the possessed resources and evaluation of Security controls requires the auditor to look at a system with the eyes of a hacker and imagine how things could be arranged to acquire unauthorized access. The system should be monitored and tested appropriately. Evaluating security controls requires testing three elements: people, process, and technology. Because of the weakness of each of these bonds an organization may become very vulnerable to attack. Summing up, Security controls are the guarantees that a business uses to reduce risk and protect assets. Policy determines what security controls are needed, and those controls are selected by identifying a risk and choosing the appropriate countermeasure that reduces the impact of an undesirable event. The evaluation of security controls in its simplest form validates whether or not the control adequately addresses policy, best practice and law. Testing security controls for effectiveness and measuring them against standards are of the best ways to help an organization meet its obligations to shareholders and regulatory responsibilities. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-security-auditing.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Network Security Software is an important part of the information security software used implemented for establishing and providing safe and clean information to avoid malicious intrusions from aside. Network security is a major challenge for network operators and internet service providers in order to prevent it from the attack of intruders. Network administrators make use of various tools the most convenient of which appear security softwares for handling the issue of network security. Network Security Software is subdivided into several categories, such as antivirus software, web vulnerability scanners, intrusion detector software, firewalls and many others. Network security has several important applications. For example, a firewall is considered an anti-virus software. Which is able to separate and remove malware. Although most anti-virus software won’t detect an intruder but for anti-virus software to be effective one should keep it up to date. Anti-spyware or anti-adware are other similar applications are used search your computer and track the applications that can possibly influence your network's security. An intrusion detection software is the most vital constituent of any network Intrusion detection systems(IDS)that is called to compare different data and to dintinguish between them the malware one at once informing the administrators of the intrusion. But this is applicable for larger computer networks. Getting acquainted with Network Security Threats we should say that with the massive expansion of computer information network, where every person wants to remain connected through the internet, network security threats have greatly increased over the past few years. One of the solutions to Network security solutions is Scanning of information. For a detailed overview of the most prominent network security threats for the year 2010, read the article 'Top 10 Information Security Threats' by Kevin prince published in Network Security Edge. To secure your network Security you should by all means get acquainted with Nsauditor Network Security Auditor. This is a network security scanner that allows to audit and monitor remote network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checks your network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it. Nsauditor is a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network security auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. The program includes more than 45 network tools for scanning, sniffing, enumerating and gaining access to machines and contains a built-in database of known network security vulnerabilities, which allows you to select the items for scanning and add custom entries. Nsauditor can reveal and catalog a variety of information, including installed software, shares, users, drives, hotfixes, NetBios, RPC, SQL and SNMP information, open ports. Reports can be generated in HTML and XML format. ShareAlarmPro includes folder watcher functions. You can perform folder monitoring and folder content change tracking. With ShareAlarmPro you can centralize all alarms, thus having the opportunity to monitor several shares on multiple servers from a single location. workstations. The program logs all detected events ( access to shared folders, security events, folder watcher events ) in an HTML format. It is extremely important to improve network security for sake of wellness of your business. Network operators and administrators must be enough educated and informed to implement correspoding countermeasures not only to alleviate a dangerous situation but also to prevent a negative outcome. On the whole, the best plan for protecting software is anticipating the worst and being on the alert for possible surprises. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-security-software.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Forgetting password happens to everyone but what to do when weed to regain access to password-protected files or systems? Password Cracking is the series of oprations of getting back passwords from the data stored in a computer system. We usually either try repeatedly to guess the forgotten password or recover a forgotten password replacing it with an entirely new password applying password cracking. Passwords recovery software is called to aid users to recover passwords for lost or forgotten email accounts. SpotAuditor is a comprehensive solution for recovering passwords and other critical business information saved in computers, it recovers more than 40 programs passwords. SpotAuditor is All-in-one password recovery program that offers administrators and users a comprehensive solution for recovering passwords and other extremely crucial business information saved in users' computers. Cracking a Password is related to the functioning of the loss of information in a transmitted message. The process of password cracking requires in its possession a large number of possible candidate passwords to monitor the password substitution, each of which undergoes a scrupulous checking. Other methods applied by password cracking cover dictionary attacks, pattern checking, word list replacement, etc. Due to the significant growth of computing technologies, the methods and potential capacities of password cracking have greatly enlarged. A tool called graphic processor can enhace password cracking by 50 to 100 times as compared to general computers. Such a tool can snap apart a 10 letter password in a day. Password prevention is also very crucial. One of the best mechanisms is to ascertain that intruders can’t even gain access to the coded password. For example if encrypted passwords are stored in the file shadow which is accessible only to programs having enlarged privileges it will be much difficult and even almost impossible to be broken by evil intruders. As Stuart Fox mentions in his article in “TechNewsDaily” magazine:”For your confidential information to be safe you should use a 12-digit randomized password”, experts say. Richard Boyd, a senior researcher at GTRI says that "Eight-character passwords are insufficient now. If eight characters is all you use, and if you restrict your characters to only alphabetic letters, it can be cracked in minutes". So to say more complex security measures are required now.”Code breaking software uses two techniques to break through password protections. The first is a large dictionary of common password phrases, which can crack simplistic passwords like 12345 and similar patterns. The other, brute force, simply tries every possible eight-character combination until it hits the right one. Brute force invasion used to require an unreasonable amount of time, but increasing computing power has allowed off the shelf computers to accomplish that task, Davis said. "If you have a 12 character password, and if your password is a combination of just gobbledygook letters, I think only an intelligence agency or some well funded organization would be able to break it in a reasonable amount of time," Boyd said. Unfortunately, even 12 random character passwords may soon become too weak to provide sufficiently required protection. "If you have a Trojan that records keystrokes, you screwed," Davis said. But like every aspect of computer security, password protection is a game of cat and mouse between hackers and security experts. Some banks in Europe have already begun issuing their customers special handheld devices that generates single use passwords, Davis said. By constantly rotating the password, the device defends against Trojans, and alleviates the need to memorize multiple random passwords. Of course, it's only a matter of time until hackersmake out how to defeat that technique as well. Any technique that's within time becomes banal and simplified," Boyd said, "people make some headway in breaking. In any case, additional readiness to these kind of “black” cases and alert mind to protect one’s prosperity and detect possible “trespassers” will never harm. http://www.softrating.com/password-recovery-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/password-recovery.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Changes, operating systems, network environments and user expectations usually make programs obsolete much faster than expected. We have inadvertently deleted files or even formatted disk drives and later discovered that critical data was unintentionally erased. Here a Key Recovery Program comes to help designed to read and decrypt and/or de-obfuscate the key to its original state. When the key is returned to its original state, it may be used to reinstall its corresponding software. Other reasons for needing a data recovery utility may include: virus infection, unexpected shutdowns or software failure. Panic is a normal response when data is lost or erased. Furthermore such disasters inevitably happen when time is of the essence. The pressure to do something is intense and the problem compounded. Emergency data recovery is a high risk business, but especially when the basic tools need to be identified and evaluated before work can begin. A product key, also known as a Software key, is a specific software-based key for a computer program. It certifies that the copy of the program is original. Activation is sometimes done offline by entering the key, or with software like Windows XP online activation is required to prevent multiple people using the same key. Computer games use product keys to verify that the game has not been illegally copied; for example, one could not play Battle.net powered games such as Diablo II or StarCraft online without an original/unique product key. Likewise, one is not allowed to play online with two identical product keys at the same time. Product keys consist of a series of numbers and/or letters. This sequence is typically entered by the user during the installation of computer software, and is then passed to a verification function in the program. This function manipulates the key sequence according to a mathematical algorithm and attempts to match the results to a set of valid solutions. Selecting a data recovery program isn't something that should be done in the midst of an emergency. The key to a successful recovery is not just regularly backing up protection but also having the best data recovery tool ready to use when disaster strikes. If you've got a solid networking background and are looking for an all-in-one tool for monitoring the safety of your network, Network Security Auditor is well worth the download. NsaSoft Product Key Explorer retrieves over 3000 product keys from network computers and allows track the number of software licenses installed in your business. With this key finder software you will be able to track the number of software licenses installed in your business, find and recover a lost or forgotten product keys, save and keep an up-to-date backup of all your software license keys in a central location. Excellent tool for network administrators, or businesses undergoing a software license compliancy. When it comes a selecting a data recovery program there are important decisions to be made: 1. Choosing between free, shareware and commercial data recovery tools. If the exercise involves critical data recovery the decision is academic. Go for the best data recovery tool every time and that means using a commercial product. Free data recovery options are rarely successful and adequate commercial options are not expensive. 2. Cheap data recovery versus best data recovery. Fortunately these options aren't mutually exclusive. The best products facilitate easy data recovery. They will non-destructively scan your disk drive and report on the level of success that can be expected from paying for the full product. Anyway, standard key generation, where product keys are generated mathematically, is not completely effective in stopping copyright infringement of software as these keys can be distributed. The copyright infringement of software (often referred to as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind is extremely common. Most countries have copyright laws which apply to software, but the degree of enforcement varies. Peer-to-peer file sharing technologies have lowered the threshold of knowledge needed to acquire massive amounts of information. Large networks have been created which are dedicated to share knowledge, but these same networks can be used to infringe copyright. Peer-to-peer file sharing is a form of file sharing using peer-to-peer networking. P2P allows users to download files such as music, movies, and games using a file sharing software client that searches for other connected computers (called ‘peers’). Similarly, other computers on the network are able to search for files on your computer. This differs from traditional file downloading that searchers servers for the requested file. In summary should be said that approaches and opinions and also mechanisms of solving the matter-of-fact may differ. One is for sure; additional cautiousness will never hinder. On the contrary it will always foster professional and business security plus promising prosperity. http://www.softrating.com/data-backup-software-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/product-key-recovery.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Nowadays with the enforcement of Software Compliance rules IT administrators have made one of their goals ensuring the software they apply is licensed or not. Unlicensed software may have undesirable aftermath not only in the financial aspect but also it may harm a firm’s reputation. Here may also be cases when software license has expired but it comes to be used after it. This is not legal. It is illegal when licensed software is applied or distributed to more than one computer if it is not mentioned about it in the agreement that the copyright holder given his permission for it. Software agreements differ and you should make it clear for yourself if it is really what you expect from a particular Software package. To restrain oneself from such a situation one should know well own company’s compliance policy. The thing is even if you license software, you don’t own it, and you only lease it. The owner is the publisher. To prevent unpleasant surprises regular compliance audit should be performed. It is very important to understand the core essence of software licensing agreement of your company to be able to follow up if it is in compliance with common licensing rules. For each installed software copy a license should be purchased. If software needs to be replaced, then the old one also needs to be removed. So if you have lost your product key you will instantly find your product keys with Product Key Explorer! Since software is self-enforcing and you pay for it, it can be considered as an investment. But is it safe? I am sure, with "Product Key Explorer" you can prevent losing your investment and money, and you are completely safe. Product Key Explorer - Quickly Find over 3000 popular software product keys from your local machine or from network computers! Product Key Explorer quickly recovers and displays product key, including Windows 7 keys, Windows Vista key, Windows XP product key, Microsoft Office 7 product key, MS office 2010 key, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe CS5, CS4, CS3, SQL Server, Electronic Arts games and more than 3000 popular software products installed in your local machine or in network computers. In order to install Microsoft Office, Windows, or other software, one must have access to a product key (CD Key) for that product. With this key finder software you will be able to track the number of software licenses installed in your business, find and recover a lost product keys, save and keep a modern backup for the existing license keys.. You can save product keys as Tab Delimited Txt File (.txt), Excel Workbook (.xls), CSV Comma Delimited (.csv), Access Database (.mdb), SQLLite3 Database, Web Page (.html) or XML Data (.xml) file, Print or Copy to Clipboard. NsaSoft Product Key Recovery Software - Find product keys for software installed on local or remote computers, recover software license keys from crashed hard disk drive. So if you have chosen a just and legal way of getting software license you should first become well acquainted with all the process and nuances, secondly track all this everlasting process to get rid of obsolete versions and third hold frequent audits and be aware if your license term has expired or not to pay for it since l software licensing is self-enforcing. When your time period expires, and you haven't paid or extended its legal functioning, the software turns itself off becoming obsolete. You will no longer have access to the software or your data. http://www.softrating.com/inventory-software-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/software-license-compliance.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Website Security is possibly today's most noisy and multiaspect field that is a prior task in any organization. It is worth saying for an introduction that Web is a system of interconnected documents accessed via the Internet. On the whole the term called “WEB”is known to be a human knowledge and culture storage, which enables users in remote sites to share their ideas and thoughts in all aspects of a common computing project. Since unknown “intruders” are concentrated on web applications, customer databases should somehow be well-protected. As a result, industry is paying increased attention both to the security of the web applications and also to the underlying computer network and operating systems. Web application security is a branch of information security dealing mainly with security of websites and web applications. Web application security mainly relies on the principles applicable to Internet and Web system security. Web applications use such programming languages as PHP, Java EE, Java, Python, Ruby, ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET or Classic ASP. Hackers find different ways compromising the corporate network or the end-users accessing the website, e.g by drive-by downloading(during viewing an e-mail message, clicking on a false pop-up window). The majority of web application intrusions occur through cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection attacks Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of web security vulnerability which enables attackers to penetrate into web pages viewed by others. SQL code injection exposes a security vulnerability occurring in the database layer of the application. It is an example of a more general class of vulnerabilities that can occur whenever one programming or scripting language is housed inside another. SQL injection attacks are also known called SQL insertion attacks. Web security has also its Standards and Technology: Open Web Application Security Project is an open-source application security project that includes corporations, educational organizations and individuals all over the world. This community works to create all available articles, methodologies, documentation, tools, and technologies and to protect all his achievements has created the Web Hacking Incident Database. As for technical solutions, they are used to cover the overall process of designing, building and testing secure web applications. At a high level, these solutions include Black Box testing tools such as web application scanners, vulnerability scanners and penetration testing software. Unlike source code scanners, web application scanners don't have access to the source code and detect vulnerabilities by performing attacks. White Box testing tools include measures for preventing exceptions in the security policy of an application or through “deceptions” in the design, development, deployment, upgrade, or maintenance of the application. Fuzzing-Tools used for input testing. Fuzz testing or fuzzing is a software testing technique, that provides invalid, unexpected, or random data to the layers of a computer program. Web application firewalls (WAF) is used to provide firewall-type protection at the web applications. Password cracking tools for testing password strength and implementation. If you visit NSAudtor.com you will make sure that the full network security list is available here. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a network security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities. Nsauditor is Network Security and Vulnerability Scanner that gives you the power to scan, detect and correct any potential security risk on your network. Nsauditor allows monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities, checking enterprise network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it and create a report of potential problems that were found. One of the biggest shortcomings of Web applications environment is its failure to provide a strong authentication mechanism. In other words, security measures designed to protect a communications system against falsy transmissions don’t seem to be effective. Rather annoying seems to me the frequent failure of attempts from side of developers applying available and effective securing mechanisms. It's no longer secure to manipulate on the Web using best practices. Security companies have been getting more cautious with offerings and are designing a large variety of solutions for the consumer market aimed at helping Web intruders make more intelligent and informed decisions about the sites they visit and the code they download. So in the aftermath the only true way out is not only to arouse confidence in your visitors but also to prove that your Site is protected against fraudulent transmissions. Find Security threats before hackers overtake you. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/website-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Nowadays possessing a computer has become a real necessity since most of the cultural activities are being carried out by means of computing. Via Internet connection people gain information on different spheres(news, weather, sports, recipes, yellow pages and a million other things) thus emphasizing the existing of computer as not only a luxury but also a necessity. The term Wireless network connection itself dictates that it is a type of computer network connected by no cables. Wireless telecommunications networks are generally applied and implemented using a transmission system called radio waves. Radio waves may occur naturally-as a result of lightning or by astronomical objects and artificially-generated radio waves which are appliable for mobile radio communication, broadcasting, navigation systems, computer networks and other applications at the physical layer of the network structure. Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) are implemented within a relatively small area, i.e. within a person's reach and is called personal area network (PAN). Personal area networks may be connected with USB and FireWire. By means of bluetooth data is exchanged over short distances by means of short wavelength radio transmissions from mobile devices. The Bluetooth Core Specification provides the liason of two or more piconets to form a scatternet, in which certain devices serve as bridges, simultaneously playing the master role in one piconet as primary and in the other a secondary role. Most WLAN hardware has got easy enough to set up that many users simply plug it in and start using the network without taking care of security. Nevertheless, taking several measures to configure the security features of your wireless router or access point is time well spent. Several measures should be taken in order to disable broadcasting; 1. Enable Encryption: encrypt your data so that only the intended recipient is supposed to be able to read it. 2. Unnecessary Traffic needs to be restricted allowing only incoming or outgoing traffic. 3. Change the Default Administrator Password. It is well known that if not changed the default passwords are easily obtained Wireless security is important in the home for the same reasons why it is important in corporations. If you have an unsecured wireless network in your home, anyone in close proximity can spy on your online activities. Depending on how your home network is configured, someone could even gain full access to your computer’s hard drive over an unsecured wireless network. Wireless security can be broken into two parts: Authentication and encryption. Authentication mechanisms can be used to identify a wireless client to an access point and vice-versa, while encryption mechanisms ensure that it is not possible to decode data. What You Need To Know is To Secure Your Wireless Network. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a network security and vulnerability scanner that allows auditing and monitoring network computers for possible vulnerabilities BlueAuditor - Scan and Monitors mobile devices in a wireless networkwill surely help you. BlueAuditor is a wireless personal area network auditor and easy-to-use program for detecting and monitoring. BlueAuditor detects and monitors Mobile devices in a wireless network and allows network administrators to audit wireless networks against security vulnerabilities associated with the use of Mobile devices. BlueAuditor enables the user to save the data of the detected mobile devices in an .xml file and supports the most Microsoft drivers available on the market. All the mentioned features are provided with a user friendly graphical interface. The downside of a wireless network is that, unless you take certain measures, anyone with a wireless-ready computer can utilize your network. A hacker can apply an insecure wireless network to spy on you, or even to steal Internet . In this article I have explained that unless you take some basic security precautions, your wireless network is very susceptible to intrusion. The Internet represents a new market, a new market of currency, and a new way for businesses to conduct operations electronically. While new technologies often increase opportunities, they also bring about controverse measures to undermine those opportunities. Let’s hope that in the aftermath all these efforts will not be in vain but only promising. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/wireless-network-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Network systems are one of the key players in contemporary business life. Some networks are private while others are open to public access. The obvious example of a public network is the Internet. Conversely, most big companies today prefer private networking accessed locally by limited number of people. Rapidly growing networks became even portable and dynamic and now may be accessed from homes or hotel rooms while on the road through normal telephone lines. No matter whether your network is private or public it should have robust security and be safely protected. In this article we will discuss where network security starts and will describe common measures taken for its safety. Why to secure? This question might always come to your mind especially when you deal with public networks. For example, you may state that not Internet but you as a user should secure yourself from it on client side (personal PC with antivirus or spyware) not to grab a Trojan or malware threat into your system. And of course, you seem to be right from user’s point of view. The problem of network security becomes a more serious issue when you deploy a private network system which targets and serves particular group of people to communicate, collaborate and share. Planning Security Network security is a process which involves all activities, provisions and policies that organizations and system administrators undertake to protect the integrity and continuity of operations, communications, data and their values in their network. In order to have an effective network security you should have security strategy. Planning and elaboration of such strategy is the preparatory part which guarantees a stable and targeted safety for your network. It assumes monitoring of the system, identification of threats and their solutions. a. Identification of Threats To heal the patient you should first know his disease and its source. Though providing network security is a complicated task but it may be ensured in this quite simple logic. Revealing threats is one of the key points in planning. Threats to networks may be of different essence. Viruses and Infections Viruses occur in programs developed by fraudulent programmers and are designed to replicate themselves and infect systems when triggered by a specific event or service. Trojan horse Software containing Trojans are a malware. Trojans seem to be harmless and even useful but instead they facilitate unauthorized access to the system and change system configuration or infect it. Examples of such applications may be games, converters, browser toolbars, desktop gadgets, widgets etc. As the name describes it always seems desirable and useful, thus users are tricked into downloading and installing them. Vandal Applications or Applets Vandals are software applications or applets that cause destruction to networks and systems. Unlike Trojan horse programs vandals exceptionally aim at crashing or destructing the system to the “pieces” without accessing or manipulating any data. Attacks Network systems are attacked for different purposes; - Reconnaissance attacks aim at information-gathering and data collecting to compromise networks - Access attacks exploit network vulnerabilities to gain entry to e-mail, databases and to manipulate the data - Denial-of-service attacks, also known as DoS attacks, block access to part or all of a computer system. Such attacks are theoretically almost impossible to track and stop. Data Interception Data interception is eavesdropping of networks communications. Interception may also be used for not only catching the data being transmitted over a network but also altering those data packets. Unauthorized Access and Intrusion User authentication is the base activity for network security. Authentication is made mostly with a username and a password which are unique per user. There are also some other types of authentication such as authentication via user’s mobile phone, ATM card, fingerprints etc. Any unauthorized access to network may be considered as intrusion to system. Social engineering It is another form of obtaining confidential information related to network security such as posing as a technical support person and asking for people's passwords. E-mail spoofing is one of the popular means in social engineering. It is an attempt to trick the user into making a damaging statement or releasing sensitive information such as password. This list of threats may be expanded endlessly and be frustrating. If one has ever faced any of these threats (and you might have at least one case still being a simple PC user) then damages and loss caused to your insecure network may be really tangible and irretrievable. b. Risk Management Risk management is one of the essentials of network security planning. It is very important to understand risks and know how to handle them. Certainly risks and their definitions vary for different organizations and business areas. It depends on the security priorities and the policy adopted by the company. Risk management for network security is a periodic activity which contains network analyzing and monitoring for vulnerability and threats. c. Firewall When we speak about network security we immediately associate it with concept of firewall. Firewall is like “supervisor” enforcing access control policy between two connected networks. Once user is authenticated, firewall enforces access policies to establish what services are allowed to be used by users. Tools such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems provide protection for all areas of the network and enable secure connections. Network Firewalls are of two types – software based and hardware based. Typically, individual PC stations use Firewall Software meanwhile networks use dedicated Firewall Devices. Firewall Devices are designated for protecting many computers connected through a network. Thus choosing and deploying optimal firewall solution for your networking is so significant. However, no firewall can detect or stop all attacks, so it’s not sufficient to install a firewall and then ignore all other security measures. d. Backups Even in case of effective security your system is not ensured against technical and electronic faults, often caused by hardware failure. To prevent any loss or critical damages to your network you must plan and realize periodic backups of the data and transmission logs. This will help easily recover your data in the event of such system failures. It is more than obvious... better to live with backups than to suffer of loss. e. Software Let’s assume you have already identified your threats, setup risks management policy, and deployed an effective firewall for your network. What is next? Now you need a software system which will enable managing and centralized control over all ongoing measures and activities in your network system. Nowadays IT market is rich in different network solutions software and it makes difficult to choose amongst them. For obtaining an optimal software solution for your network security you might first want to consider such factors as targeted solution, ability to handle voluminous data, ability to generate various reports on system status and security, customizability and of course easy-to use feature. Today many companies specialize in reviewing and rating of software and applications available in market. Rating is provided through such factors as features, user-friendliness, performance, support, value for money etc. So if you are interested in deploying effective software and tools for your network security you should have closer look at some popular ratings by authoritative reviewers. P.S. None of these approaches alone will be sufficient to protect a network, but when they are layered together, they can be highly effective in keeping a network safe from attacks and other threats to security. In addition, well-thought-out corporate policies are critical to determine and control access to various parts of the network. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/network-security.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 EDue to growing of IT hacking activity worldwide, people are becoming more and more concerned about their security system failures. Throughout your business or everyday life you probably came across with such issues as hacking, system security, data protection etc. The ‘cancer’ of modern technology, hacking, is having rapid development and expanding its targets absorbing business, state and other confidential systems. If you are running a business which deals with huge amount of data and networking then you should really care about your systems’ security and protection... But is it possible to ensure system security in this age of technology and networks? The answer is ‘Yes’ and we will find out how it works. Anatomy of Hack When protecting against hacking it is essential to understand precisely its anatomy and the phases it passes from preparing the attack to gaining access. Usually hack passes this type of activity cycle. 1. Reconnaissance: trespasser or attacker gathers information on potential target and plans his attack. This may be complemented with either passive or active reconnaissance. a. On Active Reconnaissance phase attacker carefully probes the network structure with an objective of finding open hosts and ports, routers, operating systems. b. Passive Reconnaissance assumes monitoring and scanning of system data or operating system components to identify available parts for hacking. 2. Scanning: this is the scanning of the target system to detect its vulnerable points for access. This kind of exploit points can be found in different parts of the system like open ports, software and hosting systems. 3. Access or Attack: at this phase attacker is gaining access to the targeted system and launches their attack. Hacking can have different forms and affects; system and servers hacking, passwords cracking, viruses and worms, cryptography, sniffers, manipulating of log files, service denials or termination, protocol attacks etc. Most hackers are inclined to maintain access of the system and periodically attack it. If the system is not protected and monitored properly they succeed mostly. In such cases damage and data loss cannot be measured and reverted. The White Hat Concept The process of monitoring, testing and securing of IT systems is called Ethical Hacking or White Hat (also known as penetration testing, intrusion testing, red teaming). Ethical hackers or white hat hackers specialize in scanning, securing and protecting systems and networks. They are penetration testers who deploy various testing techniques and tools, to uncover system security vulnerabilities and protect them from external intrusion. Ethical hacking assumes not only scanning and securing systems. It also handles the task of exploring different aspects of hacking and engagement of effective methodologies. a. Detection of vulnerable parts in the system b. Defining level and extent of the usage of accessed information c. Catching potential threats and preventing them successfully d. Capability of tracking any attempts of external access to system Identify your security priorities Actual needs bring in new problems and require optimal solutions. The more a company expands the more it requires utmost attention for IT system and network security. Before you hire any ethical hacker service you should first distinctly identify security priorities for your system or network. You may need to review your company’s privacy policy or business requirements to understand what to protect and when, thus revealing your system security cases. Mostly, when possible to identify possible direction or sources of danger, planning and implementation of penetration testing will be more effective. Time to ‘eth-hack’! Today they are many companies and experts who provide ethical hacking services. Except reviewing their experience and portfolio you should also do some research on methodologies and tools they utilize for ethical hacking. While getting acquainted to some new software you may find some of them comprehensive or useless for you. Furthermore, some of them provide user-friendly features and GUIs so that one could find them handy for personal use. If you find one actually you will save your time and money planned for testing your system security. Many companies focus on reviewing and rating of software and applications available in market. Rating is provided through such factors as features, user-friendliness, performance, support, value for money etc. So if you are interested in deploying effective software and tools for your IT security you should have closer a look at some popular ratings by authoritative reviewers. Here is the list of recommended and highly-rated software for monitoring and securing IT systems and networks. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/ethical-hacking.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400 Firewalls are one of the most important tools providing network security. A firewalled system is an automated process blocking possible attacks and does not require much of human interference. The essence of firewall is in the ability to track the source of every file circulating in the local area network for solving the matter of “undesirable” viruses. Personal firewall is a technology that helps to prevent intruders from accessing data on your PC via the Internet or another network, by keeping unauthorized data from entering or exiting your system. Hackers don't just target national global organizations. They focus on tax returns, network passwords, bank account numbers. Although a firewall is sufficient enough to keep intruders from accessing your system remotely, it is necessary for you to make certain by visiting a Web site that will test your system and try to find Internet security deficiencies just the way a cracker would. Preparing to make life even more difficult for hackers with the launch of its latest security offering Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is representing a complete networking utilities package that includes a wide range of tools for network auditing, scanning, monitoring and more. It can also audit password and security policies as well as make a variety of network attack probes, such as stealth port scans, HTTP / CGI server auditing, registry auditing. The program can sniff and use brute-force and dictionary attacks on LM and NTLM password hashes and expose the insecure ones. All these advantages not only makes it easier to deal with different computing programs but also secures their functioning. Different companies take certain measures of protection from hackers. On the whole the principle is the same. First, making sure your network is clean by browsing there for possible flaws and secondly, taking countermeasures for elliminating intrusions from aside. For example, Cisco ASA (Adaptive Security Appliances) firewalls are the newest technology in firewall solutions put out by Cisco which are represented both as a firewall and an anti-malware appliance. The need for the of information circulation around the planet for the people to make use of and share has given rise to networking, its tools and applications. Networking has become a core center since the Networked world, where every-every thing is available on-line and without remote boundaries has made everything possible for us to reach thousands of kilometres away! That is why I consider it very crucial to secure it and beware of Malicious Hackers. http://www.softrating.com/network-tools-reviews.html http://www.network-security-magazine.com/articles/firewall.html Tu, 30 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0400