Security Tips

· Privacy breaches: How to avoid making headlines - Privacy breaches continue to make headlines with increasing frequency. Bank of America, Ameritrade and now Time Warner have all taken a hit in customer perception after unencrypted backup tapes were lost or stolen. Experts say an ounce of prevention can easily prevent resulting lawsuits and damage to the company's reputation.
· Five steps for beating back the bots - Miscreants are hijacking and linking thousands of compromised computers, called botnets, to launch coordinated attacks. Large enterprises may have hundreds of compromised hosts being used by a single attacker. And numerous attackers are likely using multiple sets of computers. Defending against botnet attacks is challenging and complex. Read Dave Dittrich's list of five practical steps you can take to identify and rid your network of bot infection.

What to Do?

What things should a computer security administrator do to help secure a network?

· Perform a Gap Analysis - Perform an online security gap analysis to help determine basic vulnerabilities and legal liabilities.
· Security Penetration Testing - Scan your network from the outside, or have it scanned, for vulnerabilities. Fix them. Scan again. Repeat until your network is invulnerable from the outside. Then start scans on the inside.
· Install Reliable Security Software - Install the appropriate security software on all PCs and Servers.
· Use Secure Passwords - Generate and use good, solid passwords. One of the easiest ways to break into a system is via weak passwords.

Hot Topics

· Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage' - A new type of extortion plot has been identified, unlike any other cyber extortion, according to the FBI. Hackers used an infected website to infect computers with a program that encrypts the users file. Then the criminal demanded money for the key to decrypt the files. Enhanced versions of this attack threaten large numbers of users with loss of important data, loss of money, or both.
· Phishers Increasingly Using Keystroke Loggers - According to the Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG), the use of keystroke loggers to steal computer users' personal and financial information has increased tenfold in the past six months. The keystroke logging software is surreptitiously placed on users' computers via browsers with unpatched known vulnerabilities.
· Tape Loss Spurs Time Warner to Encrypt Back Up Data - Following the disappearance/loss of 40 backup tapes containing current and former employee data, Time Warner has announced that it will begin encrypting all the data it saves to backup tapes. The container holding the tapes was lost during shipment to an off-site records and storage facility managed by a third party.
· Time Warner employee data missing - Time Warner Inc. said Monday that data on 600,000 current and former employees stored on computer backup tapes was lost by an outside storage company and that the Secret Service is now investigating.
· A Case Study: Demonstrated ROI Isn't Everything - When evaluating ROI, consider that quantifiable results often can't be demonstrated for security, as more than one company has learned.