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Issue
April 2007
Welcome to the April edition of BH Consulting's
Security Watch Newsletter.
In this month's issue we provide some updates to what has been going on in BH
Consulting, highlight some interesting news stories, discuss using nMap to audit
your anti-virus security, give an overview on Microsoft Exchange Continuous Data
Protection, discuss the area of password resets and provide a number of useful
tips.
About BH Consulting
BH Consulting was founded in answer to demands for an independent consulting
firm to assist clients gain a competitive edge by achieving IT Operational
excellence in deploying, managing and securing their IT infrastructure. With
over 20 year’s experience, we provide you with access to in-depth expertise,
experience and technical know-how. Backed with our quality processes and
commitment to deliver, BH Consulting provides clients with quality solutions at
cost effective rates.
 Support
Focus Ireland
If you have found any items in our
Security Watch Newsletter to be of use to you we ask that you
make a donation to
Focus Ireland who
work tirelessly supporting the homeless throughout Ireland. Focus Ireland
aims to advance the right of people-out-of-home to live in a place they call
home through quality services, research, and advocacy. The objectives of
Focus Ireland are to respond to the needs of people out-of-home and those at
risk of becoming homeless, through a range of appropriate high quality services,
to provide emergency transitional and long-term accommodation for people
out-of-home, to campaign and lobby for the rights of people out-of-home
and the prevention of homelessness. No sum is too small and all is
put to excellent use.
BH CONSULTING NEWS
Black Hat Europe 2007.
One of the best security conferences available are the
Black Hat
series of seminars. The content at these seminars can be quite interesting
with many speakers revealing new security exploits, techniques or threats.
This year's
Black Hat Europe conference held in Amsterdam was no different.
Our own senior consultant, Brian Honan, attended the conference
and noted a number of new technologies being introduced without the underlying
security being considered. Brian blogged about this issue at our
Security Watch Blog.
In particular those companies looking at implementing RFID technology should
visit the RFIDIOT website of Adam Laurie, CSO for
The Bunker,
or review Adam's
presentation to get a better
understanding of the issues.
Brian Honan Addresses SANS Dublin Community
Night
Over 110 people from around the world attended the
SANS Dublin
training event in April and
SANS hosted their Community Night as part of the event. Brian Honan
presented to the attendees on the numerous resources available from SANS in
securing their systems and in tackling cyber crime. Paul Gillen, Head of
the Garda Computer Crime Unit, talked to the community on current trends in
cyber crime in Ireland, while Mike Poor spoke about "Network Early Warning
Systems" and Arrigo Triulzi talked about the "Time To Live of a Website."
Global Security Week 2007
The theme for
Global Security Week is “Privacy in the 21st Century” and will take
place from the 3rd until the 9th of September.
Last year’s highly successful theme was “Identity Theft” and the above theme is
a nice continuation of that topic. Given the increasing amount of personal data
belonging to each individual held online and the rapidly increasing number of
privacy breaches, the theme “Privacy in the 21st Century” is one we believe is
very topical.
Here in Ireland we will host a number of events during the week to help promote
awareness of this issue. Other events will be held worldwide by the volunteers
on the project. All events relating to the week will be posted on the
Global
Security Week website.
If you are interested in getting involved please
contact us.
Countering Militant Islamist Radicalisation
on the Internet
The
Institute of European Affairs are publishing a
book titled
"Countering Militant Islamist Radicalisation on the
Internet" on May the 8th 2007. This book examines some of the ways to
counter the threat posed by the growing rise in militant Islamist radicalisation
on the Internet. Our Senior Consultant, Brian Honan, was one of the information
security experts interviewed by the Institute on this subject. The book is
available directly from the
Institute of European Affairs.
Brian Honan to Address the
Information Technology Association Galway.
The Information Technology Association of Galway (ITAG)
has invited Brian Honan to address their May meeting on the subject of "Incident
Response - Preparing for the Inevitable". ITAG was established in 2000
representing international and indigenous IT companies based in Galway with the
aim to promote, strengthen and grow the information Technology industry in
Galway.
BH Consulting presents "Managing
Information Security with ISO 27001"
Information security is becoming more and more a business critical issue as
executives and IT professionals are responsible for ensuring the safeguarding of
client information, corporate data and compliance with various regulatory and
legal requirements.
The ISO
27001 Information Security Standard enables those responsible for
securing corporate information and associated assets to demonstrate they have
taken a very powerful step in complying with internationally recognised best
practices in information security.
BH Consulting and the
Centre for Software Engineering are hosting a
two day course
“Managing Information Security with the ISO 27001
Information Security Standard”. This course provides a framework that
will enable those responsible for securing sensitive information assets using a
quality based approach to identify key assets and how best to manage the
associate threats and risks.
The subjects covered include:
- Overview of information security
- Introduction to the ISO 27001 Information Security
Standard
- Identifying key information assets
- Identifying risks
- Strategies for mitigating and managing risk
- Implementing appropriate security controls
- Monitoring the effectiveness of security controls
More information is available from the
Centre For Software Engineering’s website.
BH CONSULTING WEBSITE UPDATE
We strive at BH Consulting to provide information that is
relevant and useful in securing and running your business. To this end we
provide a range of whitepapers available for download
free from our
white papers page.
LATEST THREAT LEVELS
Get more information on the latest updates on current threats at
our online resources page;
FEATURES
Using the nMap Port Scanner to Audit Your Antivirus Security
Port scanners provide a first step toward detecting and discovering the services
and network applications listening on your network. When you’re faced with an
unknown computer, programs such as the free Foundstone SuperScan 4.0 and the
open-source port scanner Nmap show you ... Click
Here
for more.
Exchange CDP: Exchange 2007
Continuous data protection (CDP) systems have gotten a lot of attention
in the Exchange Server world over the last year or two. After the devastation
caused by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, many organizations that had previously
been satisfied with their disaster recovery arrangements started to look for
better protection...Click
Here
for more
Security Annoyances: Password Resets
Resetting passwords for users who forget them is the bane of every
administrator. A META Group survey indicates that this thankless task alone
costs companies with 10,000 users well over half a million dollars a year...
Click
Here
for more.
Cool Exchange Tools You Might Have Missed
I try hard to keep up with the Exchange market, and as a contributing editor for
Windows IT Pro, I get a steady stream of press releases from companies that
offer Exchange-related solutions. However, sometimes I miss things, and maybe
you do too, so I want to point out a few interesting products that might have
escaped your notice..... Click
Here for more.
Access Levels for Security Administrators
Q: I was recently hired as a security administrator responsible for overall
information security, including log management and access review. Software that
I’m testing to review user and group access requires that I have administrative
access to run the discovery tasks, but I don’t. I have to ask someone who has
administrative access to install and run the discoveries for me...... Click
Here
for more
FREE SECURITY SCAN
In partnership with
Qualys, BH Consulting
are offering a for a free Network Security Scan so you can check how healthy
your network is. To find out more about what this service can do for you, visit
our free
Network Security Scan.
Alternatively contact
us or visit our website to get more details on our
risk assessment service.
This issue of Security Watch is being brought to you by BH Consulting.
If you have found this issue to be of use please support our drive to raise funds
for
Focus Ireland.
Each
Security Watch eNewsletter, and the special Security Alert issues, are produced
independently by the Windows IT Pro Custom Media Group and is distributed by
various Microsoft security partners. Each eNewsletter contains up-to-date
information about security strategies, technologies, and alerts. Each Security
Alert contains the latest information about security threats.
Additional news courtesy of
Silicon Republic,
Cnet,
Silicon and
Zdnet
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