The online world has grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years. This provides the public with some amazing resources – the ability to access information with the touch of a finger, the ability to communicate via fast and inexpensive methods, and more functionality and ease of use are being introduced every day. Unfortunately, as with all good things, there is also a dark side.

While there are plenty of people who use the internet and computers responsibly and honestly, there are predators and hackers out there who spoil the fun for everyone if their dirty deeds go unchecked. There are a lot of ways for these people to compromise your computer and your network. Below we will review just a few of the ways that your network can be compromised.

Two destructive network breaches fall under a category known as “destructive behavior.” One involves the complete obliteration of data within your network. It is called “data destruction” and it is just what it sounds like. It happens when someone breaches your network and deletes data. If your network is business-related, this can be devastating. Experts say that it is no less destructive than a fire that destroys your computer equipment.

Some perpetrators have more than simple destruction in mind. They do something called “data diddling” which means that they alter the data in your system. They might change data in spreadsheets or other documents, or they might tamper with your accounting system. Some examples of things that have really happened involve the accounting system specifically. “Hackers” have broken into a network, accessed the accounting system, and changed the account numbers on direct deposit paychecks to go into their own accounts. Thefts like this take some time to track down – first the employee has to not get paid, investigations have to be made, and someone has to think to double-check the direct deposit account information. In some cases, companies have cut new paper checks and it has taken months to retrieve the lost funds.

Another way in which networks are vulnerable is in the realm of confidentiality. A lot of times, companies possess information that, if shared with a competitor, could be very bad for business. In this case, predators are not looking to alter or destroy data, they are merely trying to find out information they’re not supposed to know. If someone were to find out financial performance information before a public release of said information it could affect the stock negatively. If a company is planning to roll out a new product and someone gets that information and gives it to a competitor, or leaks the information to the public, it could hurt the company’s sales. Even more frightening is the possibility of someone breaking in to view confidential employee-related data – like home addresses, social security numbers, and bank account information.

All of these network attacks happen because outside users are able to gain unauthorized access to a network. To access information, change data, or delete data, the attacker gains access to a network and is able to execute illicit commands – either at the normal user level or at the administrator level. Both are bad, but luckily both can be avoided if you take these threats seriously and develop sound policies regarding your network security .

A penetration test (in the IT vernacular referred to as a “pen test”) is also known as “ethical hacking”, and this network security tool provides an essential function in vulnerability assessment. By actively seeking out and deploying attacks and penetration efforts against your network, you are more likely to uncover vulnerabilities and be able to take action to block holes in your security and pre-empt attacks on the perimeter defences.
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Penetration testing includes both script-based and human-based attacks on the network in order to seek out and exploit vulnerabilities. The difference between this and say, criminal hackers looking to cause mischief or theft of data, is that you control the “attacker”. The “attacker” reports back to you on whether they were successful and if so, how to stop such an attack from being successful in real-life. Penetration testing will reveal network security holes but more than this, it will be able to provide you with a realistic risk assessment including the impact on your business should such an attack succeed. Knowing what such an attack may cost your business will provide you with the ability to quantify the business risk and determine whether you do in fact, need to implement a solution.

“Black Box Testing” involves a penetration test where the attackers have no knowledge of the network infrastructure. They are working from what a real, external hacker would be using – online connectivity and any human intelligence or reliance on human nature, in order to discover vulnerabilities.

“White Box Testing” involves attackers who have full knowledge of the network infrastructure and are seeking out vulnerabilities and scenarios to take advantage of perceived weaknesses.

An intermediate form exists, known as “Grey Box Testing” where some knowledge is provided, known also as “partial disclosure”.

The aim of these differing forms of testing is to compel imaginative ways to hack into the network, compromising network security . While having full knowledge of a system may lead the ethical attacker to use an obvious defect in network security, they may pass over and completely miss a less obvious but more severe vulnerability. Blind or black box testing does not allow for precise testing of certain components of the network because they don’t know how the network is established but, this form of testing does lead to more imaginative attack scenarios being developed and hence, a more realistic prospect of stopping a real attacker with mischief in mind.

Penetration testing should be a regular scheduled activity and performed at least once a year and every time the network infrastructure is added to or changed. Penetration tests are also a serious component of risk audits conducted to determine network operation and integrity. Script-based penetration testing is relatively inexpensive because of the level of automation involved and is eminently suitable for white box testing. Black box testing, on the other hand, is labor intensive because it involves real people emulating real life hackers and such a penetration test will involve more than simply running an online attack against the network, for instance, rummaging through company trash for computer information, and this dramatically increases the cost.

Network security requires constant care and monitoring. With Nsauditor Network Security Auditor, Systems Administrators are able to gather a wide range of information from all the computers in the network without installing server-side applications on these computers. It is a multi-purpose tool designed to scan networks and hosts for vulnerabilities, and to provide security alerts.
Nsauditor Network Security Auditor significantly reduces the total cost of network management in enterprise environments by enabling IT personnel to audit and monitor remote network computers for possible vulnerabilities. The software network auditor module checks network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it, discovers network services and checks them for vulnerabilities.
Nsauditor is a complete networking utilities package ( more than 45 network tools in one ) that includes a wide range of tools for network auditing, scanning and monitoring. 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 discover NetBios names, audit MS SQL servers, scan for common Adware traces, discover services, devices, processes, installed applications, disks, shared resources, hardware resources, users, local groups and much more. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor has a centralized network monitoring interface, which allows to monitor the entire network from a single computer.
Nsauditor Network Monitoring module shows you detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your system, including the owning process name, remote address and state of TCP connections, country of origin and service name/description. When you start Nsauditor it will enumerate all active TCP and UDP endpoints, resolving all IP addresses to their domain name versions. You can close established TCP/IP connections by right-clicking on a connection and/or request IP address whois information or trace route.
Nsauditor “Adware Scanner” tool scans network computers for common Adware traces. Adware Scanner searches system registry and gives you a quick look at the Adware, malware and spyware installed on your computer or in the range of network computers. Using colored icons Adware Scanner shows harmful objects.
Removable devices create additional challenges for network security protection. Portable storage devices can be used both to download confidential data as well as to introduce a virus into the company network. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor “Removable Explorer” tool gives IT staff more control over unauthorized and dangerous removable devices ( USB device, CD-Rom and DVD ) by allowing them to scan the network for all removable devices that are connected to any one of the network computers. Removable Explorer displays remote network computer USB devices, CD-Rom, DVD drive or other removable storage device information and state, drive type, first and last plug in time, serial number, revision, device name, device vendor and more.
Nsauditor performs event log based intrusion detection, monitors the security event logs of Windows 2000/XP/2003 servers or workstations and notifies of the possible intrusions/attacks by using E-mail, Net Send, Speech Recognition method or by playing user selected voice file.
In summary, Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a very complete network tools package for a surprisingly low price.
Application Info: http://www.nsauditor.com/downloads/index.html
Application Screenshot: http://www.nsauditor.com/images/screens/nm1.jpg
Download URL: http://www.nsauditor.com/downloads/nsauditor_setup.exe

About Nsasoft
Nsasoft is a provider of Network Information and Security Utilities. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor, BlueAuditor, ShareAlarmPro and SpotAuditor are used at thousands of companies and organizations. Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is one of the most widely used Network Security Audit and Information Utilities. Nsasoft offers Network security software for remote network monitoring and management, network status and performance monitoring, computer protection and internet security systems. For more information about Nsasoft, visit http://www.nsauditor.com

Network security is one of the most important factors to be considered while setting up a network at home or at the office. An unsecured network will result in loss of information and data. Network Security in Austin Texas plays a very important role to the people of Texas as their computers may be given a potential threat from the internet.

More over cyber crimes are increasing tremendously these days which is to be considered as a matter of great importance. Austin Texas Network Security should be strengthened by all the computer users of Texas so that they can be safe about their data and information.

Most people in Texas do not still know what network security is and the dangers that can be caused by the security breach. Any one can get into the computer of an unsecured or unprotected network and can use the data or information that is available in the system.

If the Austin Texas Network Security is too weak then hackers can easily modify the data or even destroy the data present in the computer. Network Security in Austin Texas depends on the protection and the security of the network in which the computer is connected to.

Network security is basically not about updating programs in the system and rather it is removing the malware, spyware and other intruding programs that damage the capability of the system. Network Security in Austin Texas should be made available to all the people in the city and everyone should be aware of the potential dangers of an unsecured network.

Austin Texas Network Security comes into a role where the people of the city are working with an always on internet connection where the chances of getting a security breach are high. With high speed internet connections coming to reality people should be very much aware of the network security.

Every person in the city of Texas who has a system and which is connected to a network which can be a local area network or a wide area network should be very careful about his network.

Austin Texas Network Security is used by the people only when their system is affected by a virus program or there has been a loss of data in their system.

Most companies forget the danger of an unsecured network which can result in a great loss to the company as the company secrets and their information can go destroyed without Network security in Austin Texas.

If one system is affected by a virus which is connected to an unsecured network every person in that network has the chance of getting that virus very easily if Austin Texas Network Security not proper.

A malicious code can cause the whole system to crash without the knowledge of the user of the system if the Network security in Austin Texas is weak.

The damage is very strong that even a bank’s network or an airline or any company in the city can be completely shut down due to poor Austin Texas Network Security. The damages due to these are increasing every year and so the people should be careful about their computers and make sure it is secured while it is connected to a network.

Apr 11, 2007 (Nsasoft) — Nsasoft today announced the release of a new version of its popular network security scanner, Nsauditor Network Security Auditor 1.5.5. It is a Windows based multi-purpose tool designed to scan networks and hosts for vulnerabilities, and to provide security alerts. Nsauditor is a complete utilities package that includes more than 45 network tools and gives you the possibility to get information about operating systems, service packs, hotfixes, installed software and running processes on remote PCs. The tools are wide-ranging, from a basic portscanner to more complex SQL and web server scanners, and a set of related utilities and reporting options. Nsauditor is an excellent solution for auditing all types of computer assets in the corporate networks.

Nsauditor significantly reduces the total cost of network management in enterprise environments by enabling IT personnel to scan and monitor network for possible vulnerabilities. The software checks your network for all potential methods that a hacker might use to attack it. With Nsauditor Network Security Auditor, Systems Administrators are able to 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.

A network monitor 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 fireawall system and view data on the associated process.

Nsauditor includes scanning tools that examine Microsoft SQL servers for exposed services and vulnerabilities, and another which discovers and walks through available SNMP nodes on the network.There are also agents that scan MS RPC named pipes and SunRPC services, and a tool for auditing NTLM passwords, by capturing password hashes from NTLM sessions and brute-force decrypting them. Nsauditor also includes event monitor that examines the local Windows logs and triggers when a specific event ID is detected. The trigger can send email to an admin, send a Windows network message or play a sound file (even speak a custom message with a text-to-speech tool).

Nsauditor “Adware Scanner” tool scans network computers for common Adware traces and gives you a quick look at the Adware, malware and spyware installed on local or network computers.

In summary, Nsauditor Network Security Auditor is a very complete network tools package for a surprisingly low price.

Application Info: http://www.nsauditor.com/network_security/network_security_auditor.html

Application Screenshot: http://www.nsauditor.com/images/screens/nm1.jpg

Download URL: http://www.nsauditor.com/downloads/nsauditor_setup.exe

Network security is one of the most important factors to be considered while setting up a network at home or at the office. An unsecured network will result in loss of information and data. Network Security in Austin Texas plays a very important role to the people of Texas as their computers may be given a potential threat from the internet.

More over cyber crimes are increasing tremendously these days which is to be considered as a matter of great importance. Austin Texas Network Security should be strengthened by all the computer users of Texas so that they can be safe about their data and information.

Most people in Texas do not still know what network security is and the dangers that can be caused by the security breach. Any one can get into the computer of an unsecured or unprotected network and can use the data or information that is available in the system.

If the Austin Texas Network Security is too weak then hackers can easily modify the data or even destroy the data present in the computer. Network Security in Austin Texas depends on the protection and the security of the network in which the computer is connected to.

Network security is basically not about updating programs in the system and rather it is removing the malware, spyware and other intruding programs that damage the capability of the system. Network Security in Austin Texas should be made available to all the people in the city and everyone should be aware of the potential dangers of an unsecured network.

Austin Texas Network Security comes into a role where the people of the city are working with an always on internet connection where the chances of getting a security breach are high. With high speed internet connections coming to reality people should be very much aware of the network security.

Every person in the city of Texas who has a system and which is connected to a network which can be a local area network or a wide area network should be very careful about his network. Austin Texas Network Security is used by the people only when their system is affected by a virus program or there has been a loss of data in their system.

Most companies forget the danger of an unsecured network which can result in a great loss to the company as the company secrets and their information can go destroyed without Network security in Austin Texas. If one system is affected by a virus which is connected to an unsecured network every person in that network has the chance of getting that virus very easily if Austin Texas Network Security not proper.

A malicious code can cause the whole system to crash without the knowledge of the user of the system if the Network security in Austin Texas is weak. The damage is very strong that even a bank’s network or an airline or any company in the city can be completely shut down due to poor Austin Texas Network Security.

The damages due to these are increasing every year and so the people should be careful about their computers and make sure it is secured while it is connected to a network.

A network is two or more computers linked together in order to share data. From a security standpoint, the problem with networks is that unauthorized individuals might also be able to access that data. Network security is a term that encompasses your overall system for keeping your network as impenetrable as possible, be it hardware, software, or company policies.

Whether your network consists of two computers or two hundred computers, there are certain basic security measures you should have in place. Most of these measures aren’t complicated or expensive, and they don’t require any particular expertise in networking or computer security.

One of the most basic steps for securing your network is to have anti-virus software in place. Anti-virus software periodically sweeps your computer looking for known viruses. You can also choose to run a anti-virus test at any time. Once run, the software generates a report that lists the viruses detected. You are then able to select which, if any, of the viruses detected you want quarantined and removed. It’s more important that you keep your software up to date because new viruses are created and released every day.

Next, make sure you have a firewall in place. A firewall is like a gatekeeper. It’s a hardware/software combination that allows you to decide what goes in and out of your network. You determine the “trust level” to which your firewall is set. The trust level dictates which network connections will be automatically allowed and which will require specific permission. Firewalls come with a “default” setting which is unlikely to be stringent enough to meet your security needs. For optimum security, you should always manually set the trust settings to a higher degree of scrutiny.

Firewalls and anti-virus software are essential for another very important reason: they help protect your system from adware and spyware. Adware and spyware range from annoying to very dangerous. Adware slows down your system, and generates irritating pop-up ads that interfere with your work. Spyware is much more serious. It tracks your computer usage habits, and basically opens up a door to your network that allows hackers to penetrate your system without your knowing it.

Another simple measure is to regularly download patches for your software. Computer programs are tested for vulnerabilities and possible exploits before they are distributed to the public. However, it’s impossible to detect every single vulnerability in advance. As new exploits are discovered, companies “patch” their programs and software to prevent the exploitation of that vulnerability. Without these patches, the software and programs on your computer remain vulnerable.

Network security also depends on common sense. Weak passwords can cause big problems, but are easily avoided. Never use easy-to-guess passwords like your last name, phone number, or birth date. Always use a combination of letters and numbers. Your best bet is to avoid real words altogether and use a string of numbers and letters that stand for a saying or phrase you can easily remember.

Another common sense security measure is to delete suspicious-looking email. More importantly, never open or download an attachment from an email address you don’t recognize. Doing so could be inviting a virus right into your computer. When in doubt, follow this simple rule: delete without opening.

If your business, you should also put in place security policies to govern the behavior of authorized users. Even authorized users can pose a serious security risk, sometimes without realizing it. For instance, “I love to dance, I love to sing” could be “1L2D1L2S,” with the number 1 replacing the letter I.

Here are a few elements of a solid network security policy:

• Require your employees to change their passwords every 3 months.

• Do not allow employees to post their passwords on their desk or cubicle

• Immediately terminate a departing employee’s access to your network.

• Operate on the computer network equivalent to the “need to know” basis. Only allow an employee access to the programs and data that are essential to his or her job.

• Put all of your security guidelines down in writing, and post them where all of your employees can see them.

You want your network security policy to be tight, but not completely rigid. That is, if a given security measure is proving to be unworkable or a serious inconvenience, be willing to adjust. You can often achieve the same result through different means.

Last, but certainly not least, review your network security on a regular basis. A network that’s secure today may not be secure a few months down the road. Hackers are smart and are constantly developing ways to bypass security measures. Be smarter than the hackers by staying on the cutting edge of network security technology.