Stopping Breaches with Agile Security

It is very important for the network security to improve so that they can address the rapidly changing environment they are in. Unfortunately, many companies suffered damaging and also embarrassing attacks on their network. It has also dealt a devastating blow to the security industry because it has exposed their technologies, systems, services and procedures, which most people rely on. Nowadays, the traditional in IT security is not enough in protecting the IT network.

The traditional security measures and tools we used to have are made to deal with a slow changing setting. In fact, they weren’t built to deal with the fast changing resources, applications as well as systems that are now too common nowadays. They weren’t built to quickly react against the changing attacks. Computer forensics believes that there are hundreds of millions of new malware in the Web each day and many of these can be seen attempting to breach security systems of companies. These fast evolving threats means that the defense are slowly getting left behind.

As the reality has shown, traditional security tools lose their edge and capabilities to protect the systems quickly. Thus it is important for security to evolve so that they can react to the fast changing environment. It is safe to say that the security must become more mature and agile. Agile security can deliver a much better and effective protection because of the four core elements.

Unlike traditional security that is blind to the changing attacks and environment, agile security can see much better. Because of it, agile security can provide better access to all the unprecedented amount of information; they yield more visibility on the assets of the network, the operating systems, the applications, protocols, users, services, network behavior and also network attacks like viruses and malware.

Since there is visibility, it thus generates data. With data, security can make effective decisions, which requires learning. The learning of security includes the application of data that is generated both locally and from larger communities. Agile security will correlate the events with the knowledge they have gathered, which is an important avenue to understand and make decisions, thus enabling prioritized, informed and automated response.

The only constant thing in the world is change and it also applies in network security. Networks, targets and attacks will change and security must respond to that by changing as well. Agile security can automatically adapt and modify its defenses to provide better protection in the changing environment.

The most important responsibility of security systems is protecting the sensitive data and assets of companies or individuals. Security systems must have policies on allowed applications, prohibited activities and supported devices. Suspicious events must be prioritized and must be reported to security officials like digital computer forensics. Agile security must be flexible in responding to events, risk prioritizing and distributing threat intelligence to deliver the best possible protection and solution.

Agile security’s four important elements, seeing, learning, adapting and acting will deliver a much more effective protection because these elements provides the ability of responding to the continues change in the environment.

Nowadays, if you want to see if the security solutions you have can really adapt to the changing environment in the world, you have to look for these important features or essential functions that are built into the agile security.

Agile security must have defense optimization or the ability to tune their security policies automatically to keep with the changes in their environment. No guesswork, but instead an optimized and ensured protection. Agile security must be able to enforce policy compliance and the ability to lock or support networks; preventing undesirable or unauthorized changes, thus reducing the available vulnerabilities in the system. Last but not the least, agile security must have an open structure, which makes it able to support customization as well as modification in their capabilities, but it has to be done only by experts in security or individuals who have completed computer forensics training.

It is important for organizations to have agile security that has the capabilities to adapt to their environment to ensure better protection for their assets and data. Indeed, traditional defenses have been refined and improved to do well today, but they are still nothing compared to agile security.

The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce. It is the owner and developer of 20 security certifications. EC-Council has trained over 90,000 security professionals and certified more than 40,000 members. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies. They also offer trainings in computer forensics.

More information about EC-Council is available at www.eccouncil.org.

Network Security – Protecting the Home Users, SMEs and Large Enterprises

Nowadays, the computer and the Internet play huge roles in running businesses, whether it is at-home, small, medium or large enterprises. The computer and the Internet is used in marketing and presenting the products, studying the market, interacting with clients and most of all conducting transactions with clients or business partners.

With the great importance of Internet and computer in running any business, clearly there is a huge importance of securing the network particularly those networks where sensitive and important data has been stored. In fact, it is very common in every news headlines, publications or televisions that computer networks from different companies have suffered security breaches and that lead to huge losses in their financial and social status in the business world.

This is why it is important to have a network security service that not only checks the vulnerabilities in the system but also protect those vulnerabilities from being exploited, much better if the services can prevent any attack from ever happening to the company. What do you think will happen when clients lost their important information when they were conducting business with you?

Yes, it is embarrassing but it is just the start. Since the system has been compromised you will have to pay huge amount of money just to fix the system, perform computer forensics, strengthen security and recover the stolen data. The company’s reputation will be damaged and it could lead to loss of investments and customers which could lead to the company’s downfall. So how can an at-home, small, medium or large enterprise protect their networks?

In fact, the answer should never be hard because there are many ways to protect and secure computer networks. Some attacks that threaten most business are when hackers steal the credit card or personal information of the clients of the business or exploiting their social security numbers. So in order to prevent this from ever happening companies and institutions must perform a regular security audit on their system. Large companies and institutions like hospitals and universities are required to accomplish this task. However, there are some businesses that do not have the enough resources to perform this task and these are small and medium enterprises making them the most vulnerable to these attacks.

Since hackers will employ different means for them to breach or gain access to the company’s system; companies must replicate all or at least most of those methods when auditing their security system. An audit on the system will check the vulnerabilities or weaknesses of the system’s structure; this is what every security expert and digital computer forensics professional call as penetration testing. Penetration testing is all about isolating each security threat, whether it is mild, moderate or critical; furthermore, it is used to determine the best set of actions against each threat.

In a pen test, the key areas of the system have to be targeted to completely enforce the company’s network security. It will help prevent any financial loss from frauds, hackers or extortionists or the lost of revenue because of unreliable business processes and systems. Not complying with the?recommendation could possibly lead to loss of important data, penalties, bad reputation from the media and the public sector and ultimately losing the business. For the employees, it could mean losing the job and if a certain employee is the source of the problem, he or she would face prosecution and possibly land behind bars.

When it comes to regular home user or at-home businesses, there are a few basic details one has to accomplish, particularly if they have a wireless network system in their home. There are easy and effective ways to protect the network from hackers and other users who want to piggyback on the system.

Add security by changing the SSID or the name of the network. Disable SSID broadcast and DHCP Control Mac Address Filtering. Add more security in your system by adding WEP encryption to block other mechanisms and means of the hackers. And further improve your security by setting a random 10 characters pre-shared key to ensure that the network is safe and secured; locked by a random mix of numbers and also letters. Together with effective firewall and anti-virus software, at-home businesses can strengthen the security of their system, no need for any computer forensic course or any other security training, but it won’t hurt to have them.

The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce. It is the owner and developer of 20 security certifications. EC-Council has trained over 90,000 security professionals and certified more than 40,000 members. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies. They also offer trainings in computer forensic.

More information about EC-Council is available at www.eccouncil.org.