Posts Tagged Network Security

What Is Threat Monitoring

Posted by centexitguy in Security on August 27, 2017

28th August, 2017

Threat Monitoring is a technique used to improve security of a system or a facility and helps in identifying a potential security breach in the network. It aims at continuously monitoring a network to check if there are any security violations on the device. For example, whenever a person makes repeated failed login attempts, a warning signal is sent to the monitoring center that an intruder might be trying to guess the password.

How It Works?

Threat Monitoring involves day-to-day analysis and evaluation of security data to identify any cyber-attacks or breaches. It collects and correlates information from various processes to identify patterns in order to check if there are any threats to the system.

Benefits

Threat Monitoring helps to detect activities such as an outsider breaching into the network or if any internal process is compromised. While it can be difficult to detect such susceptibilities in overall system security, Threat Monitoring provides a proactive solution to identify such issues beforehand. The technique works by recognizing the anomalies of such illegal activities by correlating information about networks with factors like IP address and URLs.

Threat monitoring provides several benefits such as:

  • It can help security professionals to check what is happening on their network.
  • It also assists them to find any vulnerability in their network or applications and how to fix these problems.
  • Threat Monitoring helps to check if the network usage aligns with company’s policy agreement.

Need For Threat Monitoring for Businesses

Here are the two major reasons why threat monitoring is necessary for small businesses:

  • The data of your organization is more important than you think. The biggest mistake that few companies make is that they think they have nothing worth stealing. From a small password to the employees’ data, there is a lot of information that a company wants to keep private. Threat monitoring can help to prevent such issues.
  • You are considered an easy target. You are at a same level of risk as large companies, even though you have less budget to deal with, because these criminals take the path of least resistance.

Threat Monitoring can prove to be a reliable tool when it comes to the security of your network and online portal, no matter how big or small is your work. Proactive approach of Threat Monitoring makes it important for businesses to implement it across their network.

To know more about threat monitoring and its benefits, contact Centex Technologies at (855) 375 – 9654.

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Steps To Secure Your WiFi

Posted by centexitguy in Security on August 23, 2017

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A Layered Approach To Network Security

Posted by centexitguy in Security on July 25, 2017

25th July, 2017

Cyber criminals today are getting tech savvy and coming up with more sophisticated hacking techniques, thus a meticulous approach is required to address all the potential causes of an attack.

Moreover, as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and the Internet of Things (IoT) trends continue to rise in the workplaces, it has led to an increase in the endpoints that are vulnerable to attacks. Cyber security professionals must follow a layered approach to address the multiple aspects of network security.

Given below are the different layers that must be incorporated in a network security program:

Physical Security

The first step towards protecting your network should be to ensure security of all the computer systems and other devices connected to the network. Establish proper access control systems to prevent unauthorized usage. Limit the number of employees who can use computers that contain sensitive information. There should also be certain restrictions on accessing the corporate network, such as allowing only those devices that that have proper security software installed.

Computer Security

Unpatched software vulnerabilities provide the easiest backdoor for the hackers to gain access to your company’s network. Therefore, it is critical to fortify the computer systems’ security by installing anti-virus software, creating an application whitelist, removing unused programs and services, closing unwanted ports etc. Restrict software downloads by any employee except the system administrator. Software updates and patches should be downloaded directly from the vendor’s website.

Application Security

This layer focuses on securing the different web applications to ensure that they receive only genuine and relevant traffic. This may be done by using email spam filters, secure socket layer (SSL), virtual private network (VPN), XML security system etc. You can even set role based access control systems that prevent the ability of employees to view, create or modify files that are not related to their work.

Network Security

This is an important layer between the computer and application security. It involves real time monitoring of network anomalies, blocking unwanted traffic and monitoring bandwidth usage to ensure availability for critical processes. With network security, organizations can not only prevent breaches but also boost productivity and efficiency.

We, at Centex Technologies, provide network security solutions to businesses in Central Texas. For more information, feel free to call us at (855) 375 – 9654.

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What Is Deep Packet Inspection?

Posted by centexitguy in Security on February 21, 2017

21 February, 2017

Deep packet inspection (DPI) can be defined as a technology that is used to scrutinize the contents of the data packets being sent and received on a network. It is a type of packet filtering that is mainly applied to verify if the data is free of Trojans, viruses, malware etc. and is being transmitted in the right format. The technique allows the users to identify, categorize, block or reroute data packets that contain a malicious code.

Deep packet inspection combines the firewall technology with intrusion detection and prevention systems. It is mainly used by internet service providers to monitor network traffic and allocate bandwidth according to the contents of the data packets.

How does deep packet inspection work?

When you share information over the internet, it is converted into a packet with a header that describes the origin, source and type of data. The content of the data packet is usually not monitored. However, when a network provider uses deep packet inspection, the content is thoroughly scanned and recorded to ensure that it is in compliance with the security protocols. This could be related to the presence of a malicious code or suspicious software.

Benefits of deep packet inspection

  • It can help to protect against denial of service (DoS) attacks, differential denial of service (DDoS) attacks and buffer overflow attacks.
  • Deep packet inspection is used by many cyber security agencies to monitor web traffic, online user activities, regulate malware threats and protect extensive local or wide area networks.
  • The ability of DPI devices to inspect data packets meticulously helps to prevent malware from breaching or manipulating a network.
  • The data provided by deep packet inspection can also be used for network analytics and bandwidth management.

Potential misuses of deep packet inspection

Despite its numerous advantages, deep packet inspection has many limitations as well. Some of these have been discussed below:

  • DPI helps to prevent various hacking attacks but it can be also be used to exploit the same vulnerabilities to breach the security of the target network.
  • It requires frequent updates and patch installations to function in an optimal manner.
  • It can be used by hackers to track user information anonymously.
  • DPI slows down the computer which affects the performance of other applications.

Centex Technologies is a renowned IT security consulting firm in Central Texas. We can help you improve your organization’s network infrastructure. For more information, feel free to call us at (855) 375 – 9654.

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Securing Your Home Network

Posted by centexitguy in Security on May 13, 2016

May 13, 2016

Home routers are an easy target for the cybercriminals, on account of their poorly configured security settings.  Once the hackers are able to breach the network, they can track, block, redirect or tamper with the user’s online activities. They may also infect the system with malware and make it a part of the botnet so that it can be used to initiate hacking attacks on other computers. It is, therefore, important to have a secure network to avoid or minimize the consequences of a hacking attack.

Given below are some tips to increase the security of your home network:

Change Important Default Settings

When a router is initially set up, it has a default IP address and log in password. Hackers are very well familiar with these default credentials and may use them to gain access to your network. Therefore, you must change the IP address to something which is not commonly used. You should also change the service set identifier (SSID), a unique name for your wireless local area network. A default SSID or one that includes your personal information can be easily breached, so make sure it is lengthy as well as contains both numbers and alphabets.

Turn Off Remote Access

Most routers come with a remote access feature, which allows you to access your network from any location. Though it may be useful for the authorized users, the hackers may also be able to log in without having to breach the login credentials. Thus, you must disable remote access on your router or use proper restrictions and change the default port number to something that cannot be easily cracked.

Enable MAC Address Filtering

MAC (Media Access Control) address filtering allows you to limit the number of devices that can access your home network. Create a whitelist of the MAC address of all your devices so that only the authorized users can use the internet. In such case, even if the hacker has your username and password, he will not be able to connect to the network.

Encrypt Your Network

There are many options for you to encrypt the information shared over your network. The most basic form of encryption is WEP. Though it can be easily cracked, WEP encryption is compatible with most hardware devices. On the other hand, a stronger type of encryption, WPA2, is a good option to access internet securely on latest devices.

We, at Centex Technologies, provide complete network security solutions in Central Texas. For more information, feel free to call us at (855) 375 – 9654.

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