Sunday 09 January 2005
How A Criminal Might Infiltrate Your Network
If you are a System Administrator, you may wish to have a read through these articles:
How A Criminal Might Infiltrate Your Network
Note the author's warning at the end of the article: Once a network has been thoroughly hacked, the system administrator has three options: update their resume, hope the hacker does a good job running the network, or drain the network. You will of course need to take action to deal with the attack.
The author goes on to consider a number of options available to clean a hacked system and why they are not the best options here. I made a list here:
- You cannot clean a compromised system by patching it; patching only removes the vulnerability
- You cannot clean a compromised system by removing the backdoors
- You cannot clean a compromised system by using some "vulnerability remover."
- You cannot clean a compromised system by using a virus scanner.
- You cannot clean a compromised system by reinstalling the operating system over the existing installation.
- You cannot trust any data copied from a compromised system.
- You cannot trust the event logs on a compromised system.
- You may not be able to trust your latest backup.
- The only proper way to clean a compromised system is to flatten and rebuild it.
10 Immutable Laws of Security
These laws which are discussed in the article and listed here in summary form are as a result of the way computers work and require a bit of common sense on the part of the user:
- If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
- If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
- If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore
- If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your website, it's not your website any more
- Weak passwords trump strong security
- A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy
- Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key
- An out of date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all
- Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the Web
- Technology is not a panacea
10 Immutable Laws of Security Administration
These laws which are discussed in the article and listed here in summary form reflect the basic nature of security and cannot be patched against:
- Nobody believes anything bad can happen to them, until it does
- Security only works if the secure way also happens to be the easy way
- If you don't keep up with security fixes, your network won't be yours for long
- It doesn't do much good to install security fixes on a computer that was never secured to begin with
- Eternal vigilance is the price of security
- There really is someone out there trying to guess your passwords
- The most secure network is a well-administered one
- The difficulty of defending a network is directly proportional to its complexity
- Security isn't about risk avoidance; it's about risk management
- Technology is not a panacea
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