Butti mohammad

Butti mohammad

• 1.
  Marwan AlSuwaidi
• 2.
   With anincreasing amount of people getting connected to networks, the security threats that cause massive harm are increasing also.  Network security is a major part of a network that needs to be maintained because information is being passed between computers etc and is very vulnerable to attack.  Over the past five years people that manage network security have seen a massive increase of hackers and criminals creating malicious threats that have been pumped into networks across the world.
• 3.
   According toITSecurity.com the following are ten of the biggest network threats:  “1.Viruses and Worms”,  “2.Trojan Horses”,  ”3.SPAM”,  “4.Phishing”,  “5.Packet Sniffers”,  ”6. Maliciously Coded Websites”,  ”7. Password Attacks”,  “8.Hardware Loss and Residual Data Fragments”,  “9. Shared Computers”,  “10.Zombie Computers and Botnets”
• 4.
   A Virusis a “program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes.  Viruses can cause a huge amount of damage to computers.  An example of a virus would be if you opened an email and a malicious piece of code was downloaded onto your computer causing your computer to freeze.
• 5.
   A TrojanHorse is “a program in which malicious or harmful code is contained inside apparently harmless programming or data in such a way that it can get control and do its chosen form of damage, such as ruining the file allocation table on your hard disk.”  In a network if a Trojan Horse is installed on a computer and tampers with the file allocation table it could cause a massive amount of damage to all computers of that network.  Solution: Security suites, such as Norton Internet Security, will prevent you from downloading Trojan Horses.
• 6.
   SPAM is“flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it”.  I believe that SPAM wouldn’t be the biggest risk to a network because even though it may get annoying and plentiful it still doesn’t destroy any physical elements of the network.  Solution: SPAM filters are an effective way to stop SPAM, these filters come with most of the e-mail providers online. Also you can buy a variety of SPAM filters that work effectively.
• 7.
   Phishing is“an e-mail fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out legitimate-looking emails in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients.”  In my opinion phishing is one of the worst security threats over a network because a lot of people that use computers linked up to a network are amateurs and would be very vulnerable to giving out information that could cause situations such as theft of money or identity theft.  Solution: Similar to SPAM use Phishing filters to filter out this unwanted mail and to prevent threat.
• 8.
   “A packetsniffer is a device or program that allows eavesdropping on traffic travelling between networked computers. The packet sniffer will capture data that is addressed to other machines, saving it for later analysis.”  In a network a packet sniffer can filter out personal information and this can lead to areas such as identity theft so this is a major security threat to a network.  Solution: “When strong encryption is used, all packets are unreadable to any but the destination address, making packet sniffers useless.” So one solution is to obtain strong encryption.
• 9.
   Some websitesacross the net contain code that is malicious.  Malicious code is “Programming code that is capable of causing harm to availability, integrity of code or data, or confidentiality in a computer system.”  AVG report that “300,000 infected sites appear per day”  Solution: Using a security suite, such as AVG, can detect infected sites and try to prevent the user from entering the site.
• 10.
   Password attacksare attacks by hackers that are able to determine passwords or find passwords to different protected electronic areas.  Many systems on a network are password protected and hence it would be easy for a hacker to hack into the systems and steal data.  This may be the easiest way to obtain private information because you are able to get software online that obtains the password for you.  Solution: At present there is no software that prevents password attacks.
• 11.
   Hardware lossand residual data fragments are a growing worry for companies, governments etc.  An example this is if a number of laptops get stolen from a bank that have client details on them, this would enable the thief’s to get personal information from clients and maybe steal the clients identities.  This is a growing concern and as of present the only solution is to keep data and hardware under strict surveillance.
• 12.
   Shared computersare always a threat.  Shared computers involve sharing a computer with one or more people.
• 13.
   “A zombiecomputer, or “drone” is a computer that has been secretly compromised by hacking tools which allow a third party to control the computer and its resources remotely. (WiseGeek.com [15], 2009)”  A hacker could hack into a computer and control the computer and obtain data.  Solution: Antivirus software can help prevent zombie computers.