If you’re connected to the Internet (especially with an “permanently on” connection such as cable or DSL), you’re at risk for intrusion from hackers or with infection from a virus or spyware. This can happen without your knowledge. You can be browsing, logging on and off various web sites, etc., and be compromised. But, you can protect yourself from this type of intrusion by following a few simple steps.
1.. Use a firewall to block all incoming relations from the Internet to air force that should not be publicly available. By default, you should deny all incoming relations and only allow air force you explicitly want to place forward to the outside world.
2.. Enforce a password policy. Complex passwords make it hard to crack password files on compromised computers. This helps to prevent or limit hurt when a computer is compromised. 3.. Ensure that programs and users of the computer use the lowest amount of privileges necessary to complete a task. When prompted for a root or UAC password, ensure that the program asking for administration-amount access is a legitimate application.
4.. Disable AutoPlay to prevent the automatic launching of executable files on network and removable drives, and disconnect the drives when not required. If write access is not required, enable read-only mode if the option is available.
5.. Turn off file sharing if not needed. If file sharing is required, use ACLs and password protection to limit access. Disable anonymous access to mutual folders. Grant access only to user financial statement with strong passwords to folders that must be mutual.
6.. Turn off and remove unnecessary air force. By default, many operating systems install auxiliary air force that are not critical. These air force are avenues of attack. If they are removed, threats have less avenues of attack.
7.. If a threat exploits one or more network air force, disable, or block access to, those air force until a patch is applied.
8.. Configure your email server to block or remove email that contains file attachments that are commonly used to spread threats, such as .vbs, .bat, .exe, .pif and .scr files.
9.. Isolate compromised computers quickly to prevent threats from spreading further. Perform a forensic analysis and restore the computers using trusted media.
10.. Teach employees not to open attachments unless they are expecting them. Also, do not do software that is downloaded from the Internet unless it has been scanned for viruses. Simply visiting a compromised Web site can produce infection if certain browser vulnerabilities are not patched.
When it comes to doing business online, security is a two-way street. Safe online transactions demand smart behavior on the part of consumers and proactive security policies and procedures on the part of Web sites.
Businesses that sell goods or air force online also have a responsibility to keep their transactions secure and confidential. And the more sites know about current e-commerce security threats, the better job they can do at protecting their transactions. Your browser should comply with industry security standards, such as SSL Certificate. SSL(Secure Socket Layer) is a security Protocol.
Posts Tagged ‘Hackers’
10 Points to keep your network secure and safe from hackers and viruses
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Keep Hackers From Your Joomla Admin
Thursday, January 7th, 2010It is becoming more standard for hackers to try to brute force attack your Joomla administrator to gain access to your administrator. Using this method they bombard your admin form with thousands of usernames/password until they find the right combination. Since Joomla doesn’t let you choose the admin username when installing they by now know the username, this makes it twice as simple. If you want to add bonus security, and who doesn’t, it is fortunately very simple.#1: Exchange the admin usernameThe first thing to do is exchange the default admin username. First login to your control panel (evenly cPanel) and go to your database editor (normally phpMyAdmin), then select the Joomla database and browse to the jos_users table. The original user is user id 62, so edit that entry. Pick a username other than “admin”. Doing just this step will stop nearly any chance of being hacked since most will just try the default username.#2: Choose a better admin passwordNow you’ll need to have an admin password that is hard to guess. You’ll want to have at least 8 characters with a mix of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers and special characters.#3: Use .htaccess protectionWith .htaccess protection there will be 2 logins needed to get into your Joomla admin. BuyHTTP’s Joomla hosting financial statement are protected by a firewall that involuntarily blocks would-be hackers after 5 disastrous login attempts. .htaccess protection can be enabled by logging in to cPanel (or your hosts control panel) and clicking the Password Protect a Directory button. You can then select the “public_html/administrator” directory to protect, and add users who you want to be able to login.These few, simple steps will exponentially increase the security of your Joomla installation.