Helping you Piece IT Together

Issue February 2006

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.

NEWS
BH Consulting Launches Security Review Service
At BH Consulting we now offer our Security Assessment Service which is based on the BS 7799 Information Security Standard and includes a vulnerability assessment for up to 10 (ten) IP addresses. This Security Assessment Service offers the following;

• An independent review of your security infrastructure based on the BS 7799 Information Security Standard.

• An assessment of your security infrastructure against industry recognised standards such as those developed by CERT, NIST and the SANS Institute.
• A vulnerability assessment of 10 (ten) IP addresses on your network.
• At the end of this review, a report will be presented outlining the findings together with recommendations on how to address the risks posed by any issues identified.

Over 52 million individual accounts exposed in Security Breaches in US in 2005
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse published a list of data breaches which occurred in the USA during 2005 resulting in personal information being compromised. Currently the total number is at 52,557,249.  Remember that this is information individuals gave to companies in the expectation that their personal information such as credit card numbers, bank details, social security numbers, addresses, etc. would be kept safe and secure. Analysing the information I noticed that 40 million accounts were breached in ONE incident. Of the remaining 12 million accounts, 7.5 million accounts were compromised as a result of lost media such as laptops and backup tapes. In most of those incidents the data was not protected by any measures such as file encryption. So if you think you systems are too small for anyone to consider hacking into, have a look at the list and maybe you will change your mind.

Microsoft UK's Chief of Security Urges Government to Take Cyber Crime Seriously
Ed Gibson formerly of the FBI and now the current chief of security for Microsoft and who spoke at the ISSA e-crimes seminar last year urges the UK government to take cyber crime seriously. I am sure the issues he raises are equally applicable here in Ireland.
http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,39156125,00.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39250147,00.htm

Nyxem Virus Not as bad as feared.
Intense media coverage has highlighted the Nyxem virus which was due to hit today, the 3rd of February, and on the 3rd day of every subsequent month. On these days, the virus is programmed to delete a series of Microsoft files such as Word documents etc. from the infected PCs. Despite some media coverage saying this virus has infected 5 million PCs worldwide the figure appears to be nearer 300,000. Research on the Lurhq website shows those figures and provides a country by country breakdown of the number of hosts infected. As you can see the statistics show there are 236 hosts infected within Ireland. While 300,000 is not as high a number of infected PCs as 5 million, it is still a significant figure and poses a risk to PCs that do not have the latest anti-virus signatures installed. It also is a high risk due to the destructive nature this virus contains poses with its payload. This is a break away from the usual payloads we have seen with recent viruses which focus on techniques to enable the propagation of SPAM and Botnets. One interesting side effect may be the reaction from companies over the hype generated in certain channels over this virus. The fact that nothing major happened may make people less willing to listen the next time there is a serious threat.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39250239,00.htm
Http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,39156189,00.htm

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 have updated our range of whitepapers and the following is now 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
Microsoft and Computer Security in 2005
In the ongoing challenge to deliver a safer, more secure computing experience for PC users, Microsoft and its industry partners in 2005 made considerable progress on the security front with achievements such as greater customer awareness of the... Click here for more details.

The Road Warrior's Guide to Laptop Protection
If you've been travelling for a while, you've probably experienced the nightmare of boarding your plane without a key piece of luggage. If that piece is your laptop, you might consider taking that dream flight to Hawaii instead of returning to... Click here for more details.

Firefox or IE7?
Customers became so fed up with the security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 that many pundits rallied to leave the browser for an alternative such as Mozilla Firefox. Yet even beyond the feature-centric decision points—such as which... Click here for more details.

Improve Your Device Security
It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your mobile device is? One of a network administrator’s biggest fears is a lost or stolen device. And for good reason. Hacking has gone hard-core. The motivations for digital "break and enter" have... Click here for more details.

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.
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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