Protecting Network Systems
Securing Email
Spam is classed as sending an email(s) to recipients that would not usually want or choose to receive the message in a attempt to either scam or attract publicity to a certain website. Most spam is used for commercial advertising, often for things that aren't as legitimate as they may seem. Some spam is sent but with email hoaxing, this is making the email address appears as someone different in an attempt to gain interest although often, depending on the email provider, will be discarded into the junk or spam folder. Luckily there are ways we can protects ourselves from spam, the main things being S/MIME, email filtering and Spam Guard.With many mailboxes a user can set up email filtering, this will filter all emails into selected folders, for example banking, statements, friends etc. This is an effective way to send unexpected emails directly into a spam folder.
Spam Guard includes methods and protocols to protect against Spam, here are the main ones. Users can use a DNS blackhole list (DNSBL) or a real time blackhole list (RBL). Both of these methods will recognise the DNS of the email sender and if it matches a domain name on the blacklist the message will either be blocked or sent to the spam folder. Another way to protect emails is with S/MIME. This stands for secure multi-purpose Internet mail extension and it is a widely used method of securing emails. This protocol will encrypt all incoming and outgoing emails which is vitally important for any organisation that may be exchanging sensitive information.
Securing Wireless Networks
There are many ways of protecting yourself when using wireless networks. The obvious being password protecting the network using WEP or WPA/WPA2. Both methods encrypt the used data when being broadcast on the wireless network. Wired equipment privacy (WEP) encrypts data over a wireless network and is designed to provide the same level of security as wired LAN networks. Wireless networks are broadcast using radio waves meaning they are more vulnerable to tampering. WEP is considered a very weak method of encryption data which results in interception being relatively easy if someone needed to. WPA stands for Wi-Fi protected access, it is another method used to secure wireless networks. WPA was designed to work with existing Wi-Fi products already configured with WEP and improve upon WEPs security features. WPA is considered for more secure than WEP.There are extra ways that a user can protect themselves on a wireless network. Firstly is to change the SSID of the network. The SSID is just the name that the network is identified by. By default the SSID will probably include the routers provider name eg netgear, sky, virgin. This makes it easy for a hacker to be able to access the router settings as the default user name and password is generally the same on all models of each brand of router. Another way to protect the network is to disable DCHP unless it is absolutely necessary. DCHP assigns an IP address to each device when it connects to the network. Disabling this and giving each device a static IP address will help prevent unknown devices connecting to the network.
Lastly, and a more complicated but a secure way of securing the network is using MAC association. MAC association is configured by providing the DHCP server (within the router settings) with a list of all of the devices MAC addresses that you would allow to access the network. These devices will be assigned an IP address as usual when connecting but devices that are not registered on this list will be unable to connect. It is possible to mask you MAC address and pretend to be another device but this is very complicated and most hackers wouldn't waste the time.
Transmission media
There are two main types of cable for transferring data in a network. These are and unshielded cable and a shielded cable. Using shielded cable can provide more security, this is because when using an unshielded cable, an attacker would be able to place a tapping device on the cable and gain access to any data flowing through that cable. A shielded cable will provide an extra layer of protection meaning the attacker would not be able to listen in.Personal Access Control
Personal Access Control allows users to have different methods to protect their data, these are:Something you know - Such as passwords, PIN numbers etc. This is the most common type of access control although it certainly isn’t the most secure. Anybody can potentially guess a password using specialist software. Something you have - Such as an ID card. This is often paired with 'something you know' which together provides quite a secure access method but on its own can be very insecure, if someone can get gold of an ID card then they have access to everything. Something you are - Such as fingerprints. This is definitely the most secure as they can't be stolen or forged easily at all. Its still not a rock solid access method though as someone may force you to open whatever may be locked with the biometrics.
