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Issue
January 2007
Welcome to the first edition in 2007 of BH Consulting's
Security Watch Newsletter. We hope that this New Year is proving to be a
secure and prosperous one and that it will continue over the coming months.
In this month's issue we bring you some interesting news stories including
details of the upcoming Safer Internet Day, an overview of Managed Services,
discuss the sale of OEM software, how to control user access using Windows
auditing and provide some interesting news stories from
around the world.
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
BH Consulting Supports Safer
Internet Day
 BH
Consulting is proud to support
Safer Internet Day which this year falls on the
6th of February 2007. The event is organised by European Schoolnet,
coordinator of Insafe, the European safer internet network and almost 40
countries will participate.
The highlight of the day will once again be a worldwide blogathon, which will
reach Australia on 6th February and progress westward through the day to finish
up in the USA and Canada. Following the huge success encountered in 2006, this
year’s blogathon goes one step further to include the voices of hundreds of
youngsters. In the framework of a competition launched in October 2006, more
than 200 schools in 29 countries across the globe have been working in pairs,
using technology to cross geographical borders, to create internet safety
awareness material on one of three themes: e-privacy, netiquette, and power of
image.
More details of the day are available on our
Security Watch Blog, at the
Safer Internet Day site and
SiliconRepublic.com have wrote an article on the
event.
Security Watch Blog Nominated for the Irish
Blog Awards
 Despite
our Security Watch Blog being active for only a short while, we were delighted
to find out that it has been nominated under the Best Specialist Blog
Category for the
Irish Blog Awards 2007. Many thanks to
our readers and subscribers who contribute to our Blog and made this nomination
possible.
Brian Honan quoted by SiliconRepublic Regarding the TJX Maxx Hack
TJX Maxx is the parent company of a number of stores including the TK Maxx range
of shops here in Ireland. Earlier this month TJX Maxx admitted that its
systems had been compromised and the credit card data belonging to all its
customers from 2003 onwards, including Irish ones, had been accessed.
BH Consulting's Senior Consultant Brian Honan provides more details on our
Security Watch Blog and also discussed this
issue with
SiliconRepublic.com. TJX CEO Ben
Cammarata has written a
letter to customers and gives details of how
Irish customers can contact TK Maxx regarding their cards.
BH Consulting Attends TF-CSIRT and FIRST
Conference
As part of our research into establishing a Computer
Emergency Response Team in Ireland, Senior Consultant Brian Honan attended the
TF-CSIRT and
FIRST (Forum of Incident
Response Teams) conference held in Budapest Hungary. TF-CSIRT and FIRST
are forums for CERTs to come together and share knowledge and experiences.
It has proven to be a very worthwhile trip with contacts established with many
European CERTs and key industry members which will prove beneficial to the Irish
CERT once it is established.
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.
The following whitepapers are available for free download;
Information Security
IT
Operations
Other
LATEST THREAT LEVELS
Get more information on the latest updates on current threats at
our online resources page;
FEATURES
Managed Services on the Rise
Managed services are growing in popularity, with the support of many network
administrators. The value of managed services is clear: They offload a lot of
burden from a company, saving it time and money and reducing learning curves to
a nearly flat line in some cases. Plus, managed services provide the advantage
of knowing someone is there watching a service 24 hours a day, even on holidays.
Because managed services are such a.... Click
Here for more
OEM Software: Good Deal or Theft?
While setting up a new server recently, I found that I had the necessary
hardware but lacked a Windows Server 2003 license. A discount company on the Web
was asking $600 for a copy of Windows 2003 Standard Edition—ouch. Ah, but wait,
here in my Inbox was an email message advertising discount software. Couldn’t
hurt to open it up and take a look, right? Wow, an “OEM” copy of Windows 2003
for only $69! Hey, wait a minute. That’s too...
Click
Here for more.
Using Audit Activities to Control Actions Performed by
Specific Users
Question: Our developers don’t have update access to production data, files, and
code, but they occasionally need to be able to make an off-hours emergency
change to production code. To allow such changes, we have a process whereby
Operations controls how and when a developer can obtain a username and password
that has Administrator organizational unit (OU) access. After a developer
obtains the credentials, logs on, corrects the problem, and... 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
To update your subscription to our newsletter
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