Computer and Network Security: Why It's Important

Any business, whether long standing or just starting out, needs an adequate view and understanding of network security. Any kind of business or corporation keeps lists of vendors, customers and their accounts, budget access and spending, and more within their secured networks. This is all vital information that is, essentially, the lifeblood of any company. When you have assets at risk, such as developmental research, it's important to have a network security system in place that you're entire company knows how to work and is informed on.

Security within a company goes way beyond the night watch guard in the parking lot. It also goes beyond one simple technology. It's a unique system that has to be appropriated piece by piece so that each branch of the company's security works in tandem with each other.

Computer security, albeit just one aspect of security as a whole, is arguably the biggest portion of company security and integrity. Think about it. All of the information within your company is stored on servers that employees access and have certain control over. That security can be taken advantage of through employees however. Whether an employee has malicious intent through his actions or not, it's still a concern that needs to be noted.

Firewalls, data encryption, controlled access, and more need to be added within a proper security network in order to maintain optimal online company security. Computer company Dell is now offering a network security suite program intended to cover all online security fronts. Many security companies on the market offer excellent security measures, but it's odd to see an actual computer company offering the same type of services.

The new Dell Endpoint Security Suite is utilizing interconnected programs and capabilities such as threat detection and protection, authentication services, and encryption on all employee computing devices. Dell is looking to offer services such as data encryption instead of complete hard drive encryption. Brett Hansen, the executive director of end user computing software and mobility at Dell, made a very valid point against full hard drive encryption. Hansen expressed that should a password be lost to the hard drive, the entire disk has basically lost its use. He also claimed that during full disk encryption, entire programs become encrypted. Thus when a program needs to be updated, the entire thing must be decrypted for it to update properly. This, of course, can take a lot of valuable time.

This is just a taste of what the security protocols on the new Dell Endpoint Security Suite can do and, by the looks if it, you may want to take advantage of it. Apple has had its share of certain people trying to gain access to the security of their devices. The CIA has actually been attempting to decrypt Apple's processors and Xcode in order to create back doors to different applications and programs within the Apple operating systems.

Between people like the CIA trying to hack into Apple device security so that they may have "lawful electronic surveillance" become more possible and  employees intentionally or unintentionally putting your company's information and data at risk, it's easy to see why your company's network security is so important. Your company's information is invaluable, so make sure you have all of your bases covered.

Sources located here, here and here.

Read More

McAfee's 2011 List of Threats

With the New Year fast approaching, tech enthusiasts are very excited about all of the latest technology that is being introduced in 2011, but what about the possible security concerns that come with all the new technology? On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, McAfee released their 2011 list of threat predictions. The company said, "The list comprises [the] most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google's Android, Apple's iPhone, Foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals."

"We've seen significant advancements in device and social network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, in a statement. "These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss."

McAfee will have to work especially hard to fend off the increasingly sophisticated malware that will be targeting Apple in 2011. So far, the Apple Mac OS platform has been decently secure, said McAfee. The iPhone and iPad are growing increasingly popular in the business realm though, and McAfee is afraid that with the general lack of knowledge about how to secure these Apple devices Apple botnets and Trojans could be a frequent occurrence and become a serious issue.

The biggest thing that people need to be really careful about is social networking sites. McAfee said that sites like Twitter and Facebook can easily fall prey to problems like URL shortening scans. They continued saying that they knew that utilizing abbreviated links does make it easier to condense your 140 character limit Tweets, but sometimes these links are also an easy way for criminals to mask and direct users to malicious Web sites. Each minute there are more than 3,000 tiny URLs created. Due to these astronomical numbers, McAfee said that they expect to see an increasing number of URLs that will be utilized for spam, scamming, and other malicious purposes.

Although a recent study showed that only 4 percent of adults really use location-based services, companies are continuing to release location-based features including Foursquare, Google Latitude, Facebook Places, and more. McAfee warns that the information that is shared on sites like these could easily enable cyber criminals to formulate a targeted attack. They also predicted that in 2011 there will be an increase in the use of this type of tactic across most of the popular social networking sites.

A lot of these location-based services that people utilize are used via their mobile phones. Because of this, McAfee is also predicting a “rapid escalation” in the number of mobile attacks due to “widespread adoption of mobile devices in business environments, combined with historically fragile cellular infrastructure and slow strides toward encryption."

McAfee also said that the increased use of Internet TV connections could pose a serious security risk. If manufacturers just rush into releasing their products, they could run into some major issues with suspicious and malicious apps on platforms such as a Google TV device. "These apps will target or expose privacy and identity data and will allow cybercriminals to manipulate a variety of physical devices through compromised or controlled apps, eventually raising the effectiveness of botnets," McAfee said.

These weren’t the only things that McAfee had on the threat list that they released. The list also included:

Hacktivism: McAfee is predicting that there will most definitely be a rise in the number of possibly politically motivated cyber attacks. "More groups will repeat the WikiLeaks example," McAfee said. They continued saying that unlike WikiLeaks though, the strategy will be much more sophisticated and leverage social networks.

Friendly Fire: McAfee is saying that there will also be a rise in the use of malicious content that is disguised as an e-mail from a source that you know. There is “signed” malware that works to imitate legitimate files that McAfee is afraid will be much more prevalent. They also said that “friendly fire,” which is a threat that seems to come from your friends but really is a virus such as Koobface or VBMania, will become a much more prevalent choice by cybercriminals. McAfee also said that these attacks go hand-in-hand with social network attacks and that these social network attacks could quite possibly eventually overtake e-mail attacks.

Botnets: McAfee Labs is predicting that with the merger of Zeus and SpyEye that there will be more sophisticated bots that will be produced because of the advancements for bypassing security mechanisms and law enforcement monitoring. McAfee Labs also says that they expect to see an increase in botnet activity that begins to adopt data-gathering and data removal functionality, instead of the more common use of sending spam.

Well, one thing that can definitely be taken from McAfee’s 2011 list of threats is that there are definitely threats out there that users want to avoid. Security is a big issue that many people tend to avoid, including myself. Protection and caution is necessary and is something that people really need to pay a little more attention to.

A Tech Travel Agent from Rentacomputer.com, the Worldwide Technology Rental Company will schedule installation of projectors, computers, and office equipment on a permanent or temporary basis in over 1000 cities worldwide. Call 800-736-8772

We have 3987 Installers, Technicians and Engineers stationed worldwide to serve you.

Read More

Summer Travel with Your Computer

Let's face it. With computers becoming more and more mobile, many people are traveling with their laptops, smartphones, tablet computers, and even desktops in some cases. Vacation doesn't necessarily mean a vacation from EVERYTHING in 2010. We still check in with the office, we still check our email, and we still surf the internet or play games. But what happens if you have a problem? How do you prevent a problem from occurring? If you're planning to take you computer on the road this summer, here are a few tips for you to keep in mind:

- Remember when you are on a public network, you are vulnerable than you would be at home on your own network. Unless you have a firewall, any data that can be shared on your home network can be shared with the other people using the same network you are, whether it be in a restaurant, hotel, or other spot.

- Purchase and take along a car adapter. My personal laptop battery only lasts about two-three hours. That was a bit disappointing when I recently found myself in the backseat of my grandfather's car for a five-hour drive to Florida. I was able to get a little work done and play a few computer games, but over half of the trip was spent wishing I'd charged my iPod. So, take your car adapter along for long rides, or don't use power-hungry applications.

- If you are going to have to rely on your battery more than usual, make sure your computer is running smoothly. Get yourself a tune-up, defrag your hard drive, run a few malware removal programs and delete or disable programs you no longer use for quicker boot-up and optimum performance.

- Be aware of thieves. Sure, we worry about people stealing our data but if someone has physically stolen our computers, data stolen over unsecure networks is the least of our worries. According to LoJack for Laptops, 600,000 laptops are stolen from cars and hotel rooms each year. Fortunately, there are laptop locks you can purchase that prevent this from happening. Also, use common sense. If your computer is in your car and you need to run into a store, don't leave it in plain view. Keep it in a suitcase or in your car's trunk.

- Power down. If you're done working with your computer, turn the power off completely. Wireless connections and even Bluetooth connections can leave you vulnerable to attacks.

- Find out where you can get reliable tech support and computer service. Many hotels offer tech support but many do not. If you find yourself with a problem, you don't want to be stuck, trying to find someone who can help get you up and running again. A quick call to a company like Computer Service Now (1-877-422-1907) can take care of any of your problems, no matter where you are located.

---

Looking for Computer / PC Rental information? Visit the www.rentacomputer.com PC Rental page for your short term business PC needs. Or see this link for a complete line of Personal Computer Rentals.

Read More

Never Use These Passwords

Computer security is more important than ever these days and one of the most simple things you can do to protect yourself is come up with a password that is not easy to guess. Sure, it's tempting to come up with something easy for your own benefit; with all of passwords we have to remember these days, you probably find yourself forgetting your passwords if you don't keep careful documentation of them, but an easy password is like an invitation to anyone looking to steal your information.

According to researchers at the University of Maryland's James Clark School of Engineering in College Park, unsecured computers are hacked into over 2,000 times a day or every 39 seconds. Study leader Michel Cukier says it's a lot more common than you think, "Most of these attacks employ automated scripts that indiscriminately seek out thousands of computers at a time, looking for vulnerabilities. Our data provide quantifiable evidence that attacks are happening all the time to computers with Internet connections. The computers in our study were attacked, on average, 2,244 times a day."

Hackers are experts at coming up with passwords. For example, many people use their user name as their password. If you think you're being clever, guess again. 43% of the time, hackers are able to guess passwords by simply guessing that it's the user name. So what other kind of passwords are common and easily guessed? Below is a list of the ten most common passwords:

1. User Name
2. User Name with 123 at the end
3. 123456
4. the word "password"
5. 1234
6. 12345
7. passwd
8. 123
9. test
10. 1

If any of these sound familiar, you probably need to change your information immediately. In addition, you might want to reconsider your user name if it's one of these top ten common user names:

1. root
2. admin
3. test
4. guest
5. info
6. adm
7. mysql
8. user
9. administrator
10. oracle

Once a hacker gains access to your computer, any number of things can happen. According to the study, the first things they do are check your software configuration, change your password, check your hardware and software configuration again, download a file, install the downloaded program and run the downloaded program.

But why are they doing this? Often, they are creating a "botnet." A botnet monitors your computer and reports back to the hacker. They can lead to fraud or identity theft, disrupt other networks or damage computer files, and lots of other criminal activity.

---

Looking for Computer / PC Rental information? Visit the www.rentacomputer.comPC Rental page for your short term business PC needs. Or see this link for a complete line of Personal Computer Rentals.

Read More