Computer Tips -Tech Info

Tag: Network Security

Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 11 – Why?

Alright, so you’re still reading this series and you’re thinking. Look, I’m not protecting national security secrets. All I’m doing is (running a business|emailing my grandkids|using the web for research).

True, good point. You’re not at the defense department. OK. Let’s say you just use your computer for email and web browsing. That’s low priority stuff right? No sensitive information on your PC? Do you ever do banking online? Yes – then you should be concerned… No? You should still be concerned… here’s why…

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December 23, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 10 – use good passwords

In a small, trusted network you might be able to get away with weak passwords for file sharing for instance. What’s a weak password? Anything you might find in a dictionary. Most people don’t realize this, but there are programs designed to crack passwords. They’re designed to take a dictionary file and run through it trying every combination possible. It might take a while, but this kind of brute force attack can be VERY effective against a weak password.

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December 22, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 9 – Know your network

Once more into the breech… Ok you’ve taken account of the software and services on your pc. The next thing we need to talk about is knowing your network. Do you have any wireless access points? Not sure? Print servers? How many pcs? Are any of them portables? Public access? Are all of them secured?

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December 21, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 8 – Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Deep breath time. We’ve covered a lot of good topics and it’s important at this point to take a close look at what we’ve talked about and think. “Am I overwhelmed?” If so that’s fine. Maybe you don’t have enough time to think about all of this network security stuff. Maybe, no matter how hard you try it doesn’t make sense.

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December 20, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 7 – Wireless Networking

OK – the last couple of entries got into some heavy lifting and some real learning on your part. Learning about what software needs to run, what services are running, updating them to keep current on security patches. We even talked about securing services listening for outside connections and limiting them to what is absolutely necessary. Now we’ll take a deep breath and get into another area… Wireless network security.

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December 19, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 6 – Secure your services

This one is going to be tougher. Of what we’ve looked at so far this will probably take more work and learning than any of the others. The good news is, depending on your situation you may need to do less here. IF you have decided that your pc (or network) has ports open to the outside world, so that incoming connections can be listened for. You NEED to do this. For every service that is accessible from the outside world…

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December 18, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 5 – Update your software

Okay – so after the last article you’ve inventoried what software you use on a PC and you know what services (server’s) the pc runs that you’ve told it to. You even know what passes as “normal” startup programs. Now it’s time to put that to use. It’s time to keep up with updates for the operating system, any of the programs you use form time to time, and any programs that listen as a service (actively listen for incoming network connections.)

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December 17, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 4 – Know your software

Ok, so you’ve got a hardware firewall and you’ve got antivirus. You’re safe right? Well, not entirely. I’ve mentioned the flaws of antivirus. It’s always a step behind. A firewall doesn’t protect against unknown viruses, so what else is there to do? I’m going to tackle this in two steps. The first is to know what software is running on your system. Isn’t there a lot of that? How can I keep up?

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December 16, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 3 – Antivirus

Ok, the first two entries thus far, hardware firewalls and software firewalls have been fairly operating system independant. A hardware firewall is best, but if that’s not possible a software firewall will do until you get a hardware firewall setup. This next item is (currently) a must have for Windows users. However, Mac and Linux users may see the day soon when it is an essential part of security for those systems as well. These days I am stunned to see PC’s that don’t have an antivirus program installed.

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December 15, 2005
Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 2 – A Software Firewall

Do I really need a hardware firewall? I’m running XP Service Pack 2 with the built in firewall? (or norton, or zonealarm?) Well, personal firewalls (the name that software firewalls go by) are good for a great many things that hardware firewalls AREN’T. They do have their limitations though and I’ll try to cover those in this post. Of course, a software firewall is running on the pc that you use to connect to the internet and one of the functions it serves is to “close the doors and windows” or those open ports that a computer can listen for connections on.

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December 14, 2005