Computer Security | Part 3
Main Techniques Of Defense Of The Computer Or Server
Antivirus: Protects your PC from malicious software known as viruses. A good antivirus should be constantly updated to have continuously operating the scanner in real time. To better use the user must initiate a regular scan PC devices (hard disks, CDs, DVDs and floppy disks), to verify the presence of viruses, worms. To prevent the spread of viruses is also useful to check all the files that you receive or that are sent via email by making them check all antivirus successfully configured to do so.
Anti-spyware: software readily available on the web version freeware, shareware or pay. It has become a very useful tool for the removal of “spy files,” the fact spyware that can steal information about the user’s online activities and to send them to an organization that will use them to profit from it.
Firewall: Install and well-configured firewall guarantees a system of access control by checking all traffic flowing through it. Protects against attacks from outside and blocks any programs on your computer trying to access the Internet without the user’s control.
Digital Signature, Encryption: You can protect sensitive documents and data from unauthorized access using special safety mechanisms such as encryption, digital signature, and use of digital certificates and encryption algorithms to identify the certifying authority, a website, a person, or a software.
Backup: more than a defense system is a useful way of recovering data that may be lost or damaged. The backup is to perform a backup of the data of a personal computer or otherwise considered important to prevent data from being lost or illegible.
Honeypot: a honeypot (literally “honey pot”) is a system or piece of hardware or software used as a “trap” or “bait” for purposes of protection against attacks by hackers. Usually consists of a computer or a site that seems to be part of the network and contain valuable information, but which in reality is quite isolated and has no sensitive content, or critical, could also be a file, a record, or an unused IP address.
Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a software and hardware device (sometimes a combination of both) used to identify unauthorized access to computers. Intrusions, it could be those produced by crackers experts, automated tools or by inexperienced users who use semiautomatic programs. IDSs are used to detect all attacks on computer networks and computers. An IDS consists of four components. One or more sensors used to receive information from the network or from computers. A console used to monitor the network and computer and an engine that analyzes data collected from sensors and shall identify any flaws in computer security. The scan engine is supported by a database where are stored a set of rules used to identify security breaches.
Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) are tools, software or hardware, dedicated to analyze the traffic of one or more segments of a LAN in order to identify anomalies in the flow or probable computer intrusions. The most common NIDS are composed of one or more probes located on the network, which communicate with a centralized server, which typically relies to a database. Among the abnormal activity that may occur and be detected by a NIDS include: unauthorized access, spread of malicious software, scan abuse of privileges belonging to persons authorized to intercept traffic (sniffing), denial of service (DoS).
Steganography: Steganography aims to keep it concealed the existence of data to those who know the key likely to extract them, while the encryption is not to make the data accessible to those unfamiliar with the hidden key. Cryptanalysis is an attack on the cryptography, which aims to extract the encrypted data without the key. The objective of Steganography is therefore to extract the hidden data, but simply to prove its existence.
Authentication system: it might be useful, especially on farms, the use of software for secure authentication with a second factor authentication based on a set of characters arranged in a pattern divided into rows and columns known by the user who will then enter into a combination of values to demonstrate that they possess the correct data. Another system, more sophisticated, is that of user recognition by using the fingerprint as a form of authentication.
Study: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons.
