Maintaining robust network defenses requires a proactive approach to keep pace with today's rapidly evolving network security threats. One crucial element of an effective network security strategy is penetration testing, or staged attacks in network ...
Until recently, many enterprises stood back and watched rather than investing in Grid computing technology. While few managers argued that tapping idle computing power can be beneficial, and that important applications can be built over a grid infrastructure, to many the . . .
Last month, some cretin Out There writes Yet Another Worm called Blaster that can infect whole networks at once. That is, it can infect whole networks of Windows computers whose administrators haven't upgraded their operating system to incorporate the latest security . . .
Worms, worms are everywhere! The recent and prolific spread of Internet worms has yet again demonstrated the vulnerability of network hosts, and it's clear that new approaches to worm containment need to be investigated. In this article, we'll discuss a new . . .
Mike Frantzen recently committed OS fingerprinting capabilities to PF, OpenBSD's stateful packet filter, based on Michal Zalewski's p0f (passive OS fingerprinting) code. The functionality was also added to tcpdump. From the p0f README. . .
Perimeter defense is a lost battle. Like old generals, we're still fighting the last war, in which our network was a castle with impregnable walls, a well-defined entry point across the drawbridge (head-end router), portcullis (firewall) and guards (IDS). Today's infosec . . .
As I sat one morning working on some loose ends, my e-mail inbox signaled the arrival of some new message. Experience is the best teacher, and my experience told me this was a new worm or virus. The attachment was . . .
Road warriors know the frustration: you're in a foreign city and want to find a Wi-Fi access point. Normally that means looking on the Internet for site directories that can tell you where the nearest hotspots are located, such as WiFinder . . .
Despite the best efforts of developers and standards bodies, wireless LANs (WLANs) are still the poster child for unsecured networks. Wireless network-security protocols contain enormous loopholes, coverage areas leak like a broken faucet, and many administrators do not even bother to . . .
How about a project that combines hardware construction, community building, network hacking and, of course, Linux and other free software? Best of all, the stuff you need to get started is cheap and standardized, and there's a great balance of helpful . . .
A new software tool could allow sensitive data could be pilfered through the air from laptops, mobile phones and handheld computers. An eavesdropper can use the program to identify nearby devices that use the Bluetooth wireless protocol. If the gadget's . . .
During the 802.11 Planet Expo in Boston, wireless security company AirDefense monitored WLAN activity and published their findings in the July 2003 edition of WLAN Watch newsletter. These are some of the fun facts AirDefense stumbled across. Suspicious and malicious activity . . .
A strange two-wheeled creature was skimming through the halls of the Alexis Park Hotel on Sunday--a robot that sniffs out network vulnerabilities. Created by two members of a loose association of security experts called the Shmoo Group, the robot is . . .
In our saga that began several weeks ago, we're trying to create a firewall setup that allows no inbound access by default that can be modified remotely to allow a small window of inbound SSH connectivity. Remember that this machine must . . .
Once more I sat at the control console and went through the D-Link wireless access point's forms to enable WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption. I knew it wasn't exactly the best encryption on the planet, but it was better than nothing . . .
Nowadays companies and organizations face the problem where massive attempts at illegal intrusions hit their network on a daily basis. In spite of the latest technological improvements in security, it's still the network users who are often unknowingly inviting security breaches . . .
Even the most experienced network administrator can get stumped when configuring Linux routers, says Tony Mancill, author of Linux Routers: A Primer for Network Administrators, 2nd Ed. from Prentice Hall PTR. There are significant differences in the configuration processes for Linux, . . .
Here's how Army Lt. Col. Clifton H. Poole, who teaches classes on wireless security at the National Defense University, gets his kicks on I-66: Several times a month, Poole turns on a laptop computer in his car as he . . .
Securing a wireless Lan remains complex and costly because of immature standards and a lack of interoperability, according to a report by Meta Group. Several approaches have emerged over the past two years that adequately address some of the security . . .
Despite fears that a flaw in the software that controls most of the routers and switches in the Internet would lead to widespread attacks and outages, security monitoring companies say they have seen little indication of that happening. . .
Port scanning is a prosaic area of network security . For the network administrator, it is the equivalent of knocking on all the doors of a house to see if anyone is around. In an age when any open holes in . . .