Internet Security

Am I At Risk?

Yes! The Internet is the pathway to your business computer(s) for any individual anywhere in the world any time you are connected. All it takes is one individual with the knowledge and desire to damage your business, or obtain information about it. Connecting to the Internet is like moving into a high-crime neighborhood. It doesn't matter whether you connect using a T1 line, a DSL line, ISDN lines or a plain-old-telephone line (POT) the door to your home is unlocked. Our purpose is to lock all the doors to overt and inadvertent damage to your company's data, software and/or hardware.

What Are The Risks?

Lost revenues from down e-commerce servers,

Lost opportunities for business because your web-site is not available,

Lost sales because your email is not functioning and inbound orders are missed,

Loss of image because of the infected emails sent from your computer/network,

Loss of competitive edge because your competition has stolen your data, customer list, etc., and

Incurring recovery costs that exceed the combined costs of all preventive measures

What Am I Exposed To?

Surveillance and Theft: Your interaction with the Internet (including email) can be monitored, copied and redirected, or paused, altered and forwarded on. Login on to your LAN across the Internet without encrypting the data provides the means for the theft of passwords, company data and personal data.

Spyware: These small applications collect your Internet browsing habits (where, what and when). The information gathered is reported back to a designated site, and is sold, along with your email address possibly more, to individuals or companies that will then place you on their email list for their products or services. When running on your computer they can redirect you to certain websites, consume computer resources and compromise your identity. Two of the leading anti-spyware products available is Ad Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. It can be found at www.download.com. To protect against installing spyware software, download and install Spyware Blaster. Be sure to update the reference files in all three of the programs mentioned before running them.

Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks: These are malicious scripts, code or programs that target the operation of web and/or file servers by consuming the available resources of the machine to the degree that it can not function properly. SYN Flood, IP Spoofing, Ping-of-Death, Smurf and Fraggle are just a few of the names given to different DoS attacks. These types of attacks are normally directed to a specific, or range of, IP address(es) by a person or organization.

Viruses: Most viruses deliver a script, macro or program (called a payload) that when executed (opened, run or just previewed) installs itself on the host PC. Its primary objectives are to protect itself, reproduce and spread to as many other computers as possible. Electronic mail (email) has become the favorite delivery method for viruses, but it is not the only one. Some viruses can be contracted by simply opening a web page that is infected. Others, such as the Code Red II virus, probe the Internet for other computers for weaknesses to infect.

Some viruses, such as the Klez.H and I variants are "network aware." This means that they will spread themselves through your local area network (LAN) to other computers and servers where a drive is shared. Cleaned computers will be re-infected unless appropriate measures are taken. Some are so sophisticated that they have their own email engine thereby bypassing the security features in most email packages.

While the majority of viruses are benign, some viruses are more malicious. Their goal is to disable or destroy information and/or the functionality of its host computer once it has spread itself to other machines.

What Can Be Done?

Each company's needs are different. They can be as simple as a personal firewall, updated anti-virus software with daily virus definition updates, and practicing safe email handling when the company has only one computer. More sophisticated measures are required for companies that need to protect their LAN, WAN and member computers. The goal of any Internet security measure taken should be to stop it before it gets inside the company. The security measures must include any and all tele-commuters.

Call us today at 847.277.9909 to discuss your company's Internet security needs.