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Issue
June 2006
In this month's issue of our Security Watch Newsletter, we discuss how to
bring change under control, we look at how much patching is enough, provide some
insight into how you can give staff power to do their jobs but still retain
control and provide a primer on security notifications. We also highlight some
interesting news stories from around the globe and update you on the latest
happenings in BH Consulting
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.
NEWS
Kick Off.
We waited four years for it to come around again and it has finally arrived, the
FIFA World Cup kicked off this month. Sadly without the boys in green
attending but nevertheless there will still be a huge interest in the
competition. This could lead to a number of issues for companies to deal
with, such as decreasing productivity as people check on the latest scores and
news, update their fantasy football teams or listen or view the games online
with the resulting impact on network bandwidth. Sadly, decreased productivity
and loss of bandwidth are not the only World Cup related threats companies need
worry about as already a number of viruses have already been identified trying
to dupe users into installing malware onto their computers. Coverage of
this issue is available at
The Age with more available at
Vnunet.
Microsoft Reports 5.7 million PCs Infected with Malware
Microsoft released a
report showing statistics gathered by their
Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) since January 2005. The report has
some very interesting information in it and shows that over 16 million instances
of malware were removed from over 5.7 million unique IP addresses. Of those 5.7
million computers over 60% had backdoor Trojan software installed on them, with
the majority of these machines being infected with Trojan software with Botnet
capabilities. The report makes for some interesting reading.
Hacker Allegedly Scams $1m from VOIP attacks
This
story from
www.vnunet.com
outlines how an alleged hacker in the United States compromised a number of
companies' VOIP networks to earn himself over $1 million dollars. While
not a new scam, it basically is the old trick of hacking into an insecure PBX
system and reselling the lines to others, this case demonstrates that while new
technologies can bring many new benefits they can also bring new risks. A lot of interesting details are available in the official US
Dept. of Justice complaints against the primary suspect,
Edwin Pena and the hacker Pena hired,
Robert Moore.
A Stitch in Time
Anyone following the latest security news may have noticed an increasing
amount of security breaches occurring whereby sensitive data has been lost from
laptops, portable devices or computers used by employees at home, the most
noteworthy being the exposure of data on over
26.5 million U.S Veterans. In a recent
research note published by Gartner, it is
claimed that protecting data using encryption technologies is 15 times cheaper
than cleaning up after a security breach.
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;
An Overview of Firewalls 
(81 KB)
Also on our website you will find a
new page outline our
Security Assessment Service which
provides an independent review of your information security.
LATEST THREAT LEVELS
Get more information on the latest updates on current threats at
our online resources page;
FEATURES
Bringing Change Under Control
Change control is more important than ever as an IT control to
mitigate many different types of risks, including compliance, continuity, and
security. Without effective change control, system upgrades and other changes
can wreak havoc on an... Click
Here
for more info
Patch Testing: How Much Is Enough?
What determines how soon you should load a patch designed to correct
a newly discovered security vulnerability? As soon as a security hole is
publicized, a properly skilled attacker might be able to exploit that hole, but
you're more likely to be... Click
Here
for more info
Empower Support Staff Without Sacrificing Control
As an organization grows, so does its IT staff. What once was a small
group of trusted individuals is now an organization itself and along with that
comes added risks from change control failures as well as unscrupulous or
disgruntled employees... Click
Here for more info
Security Notifications and You
Microsoft calls them Security Bulletins, Red Hat calls them Security
Advisories, and Novell calls them either Security Advisories or Security
Announcements. Whatever they're called, they all have the common purpose of
notifying customers that ... Click
Here for more info
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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