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Issue
July 2007
Welcome to the July 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, provide a brief overview of
the upcoming seminar for Global Security Week, discuss a number of issues
relating to Microsoft Exchange Server and highlight how to log remote desktop
connections.
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
Final Version of “Cyber-Security Check
List” by the US CCU is now available.
The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, an independent
research group that supplies the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with
information on the consequences of cyber-attacks and evaluates the
cost-effectiveness of countermeasures in place to prevent such attacks, has
released the final version of its “Cyber-Security
Check List”. This list is a comprehensive guide to help those
responsible for managing the security of their information and is broken down
into the following categories, hardware, software, networks, automation, humans
and suppliers.
Brian Honan reviewed earlier drafts of this document and provided feedback and
insight which has been incorporated into the final version. The US Cyber
Consequences Unit have made the list available for posting on any responsible
website and is available for download at
BH Consulting’s site
here.
Brian Honan to Speak at COSAC 2007.
Our Senior Consultant, Brian Honan, has been selected to address
the 14th COSAC
International Computer Security Symposium in September of this year.
Brian will present to the symposium the lessons learnt from his work to
establish an independent, trusted and vendor neutral Computer Emergency Response
Team to provide services to businesses, organisations and citizens in the Irish
Republic.
Brian will share with attendees the various steps and pitfalls that can face
anyone looking to set up their own CERT team, be that at a departmental,
company, sector level or larger. More details on Brian's presentation are
available at the
COSAC website.
COSAC is a
highly prestigious event with many quality speakers and topics scheduled over
the three days. Best of all it is located in Ireland which provides Irish
professionals with easy access to some of the industry’s best speakers.
Registration for the event is available on the
COSAC
registration page.
BH Consulting
Published in Latest Edition of Knowledge Ireland.
Knowledge Ireland magazine recently published
an article written by our senior consultant Brian Honan titled "A Standard to
Maintain". The article discusses how the ISO 27001 Information Security
Standard can be used as a foundation to help companies ensure they meet their
compliance requirements, be that SOX, Basel II, PCI or the Data Protection Act.
The premise that Brian put forward is that having a certified Information
Security Management System in place provides you with a strong basis which you
can use to meet your compliance requirements.
If you wish to find out more about the ISO
27001 Information Security standard you can read our free whitepaper titled, "BS
7799 to become ISO 27001". Alternatively if you wish to
discuss your requirements regarding the ISO 27001
security standard please
contact us and we will be happy to assist you.
Focus Ireland Golf Tournament.
BH Consulting were delighted to enter a team into this year's
Focus
Ireland Golf Tournament held at Carton House. As we decided to enter a
team that extolled in the true Olympic spirit we did not manage to win any
prizes, however a great day was held by all. On behalf of BH Consulting I
would like to sincerely thank the members of the team who took the time from
their busy schedules to take part and made the day a very enjoyable event.
My thanks also to our kind sponsors for the day who provided the team with
various golf paraphernalia and the much appreciated supply of spare golf balls!!
Finally a very sincere thank you to our hosts for the day, Focus Ireland, who
provided an excellent day and venue for the event.
Brian Honan Published in the
August issue of the CSI
Communications Magazine
The Computer Society of India has
published an article written by Brian Honan on best
practises on how to respond to information security breaches and incidents. The magazine is
circulated to over 30,000 Information Technology professionals throughout India
and highlights BH Consulting's reputation as experts in the field of incident
response.
If you are interested in learning more about
how best to respond to a information security incident please feel free to read
our free whitepaper
"Incident
Handling and Management". You can also
contact us
with your enquiry and we will be happy to help you.
Global Security Week 2007
Seminar.
As discussed in our June newsletter the topic for this year's
Global
Security Week event is "Privacy
in the 21st Century". A free seminar based on this year's theme of "Privacy in the 21st Century"
will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 5th of September. More details
of this event will be posted nearer the date.
If you want to get involved then please do not hesitate to
contact us.
Enterprise Ireland
Podcast on Information Security
Enterprise Ireland have launched a series of podcasts aimed at
businesses in the SME sector to help them address the challenges they face
regarding ICT. Our senior consultant has been asked to participate in
Enterprise Ireland's upcoming podcast on "Security Issues Facing
Irish SMEs".
"Managing
Information Security with ISO 27001" Training Course Scheduled for
September 2007
Due to the demand and interest generated in the above training course another
date to host the event is being scheduled for September of this year.
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
Anyone interested in the above course can
contact us or find more information available
on 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 free whitepapers available for download
free from our
white papers page.
The following whitepaper has been updated on
our website "The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit
Cyber-Security Check List”
LATEST THREAT LEVELS
Get more information on the latest updates on current threats at
our online resources page;
FEATURES
Exchange 2007 Fault Tolerance
With clustering, only the mailbox server
can exist in a failover cluster (Single Copy Clusters—SCC or Cluster Continuous
Replication—CCR), with no other roles. Redundancy for the other roles is
achieved through multiple servers and Network Load Balancing (NLB)/DNS
round-robin... Click
Here
for more
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Clustering Modes
Whereas Exchange 2003 really offers only one type of clustering support (local,
with multiple servers sharing a SAN), Exchange 2007 supports log shipping both
remotely and locally, which opens up new modes of clustering: * Local Continuous
Replication (LCR), a single-server solution in which the system uses the logs to
create a second copy of a storage group (SG) on a different set of disks. This
method gives you a second copy of... Click
Here for more.
Logging Remote Desktop Connections
Q: We believe someone at our company is using another employee’s account to
access a workstation remotely through Remote Desktop Connection. We know the
authorized employee couldn’t have accessed the workstation because at that time
he was on a 12-hour flight with no Internet access. Can we get a list of all the
Remote Desktop logons to our workstations from Small Business Server’s (SBS’s)
Security log? ... Click
Here
for more.
Exchange 2007 Infrastructure Requirements
To ensure reliable performance, make sure you’re ready for Exchange 2007.
Because of the move to 64-bit architecture, no in-place upgrades to Exchange
Server 2007 are possible. Here’s a quick look at some of the minimum
requirements your organization must meet before you can migrate to this version
. Step 1: Choose a Processor Exchange 2007 requires 64-bit processors: either
AMD64 or Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology...
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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