An Overview of Network Security
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- There are a number of threats that could affect you, or your organization
- Network Security is something that everyone will need to understand
- It’s your job, as an Endpoint Administrator to educate your users. I suggest that you show the users in your organization this video.
Adware – What is Adware? Adware is designed to display advertisements on your computer
- People have asked, how did adware get installed on my computer?
Most of the time you get Adware from downloading software bundles – These programs install adware alongside programs you can get for free.
- Adware knows what types of ads to display, based on the users computing habits. Sites visited and computer usage.
- For prevention download your software from an official site, not a third-party site.
Spyware – What is Spyware? Spyware is designed to steal a user’s personal information.
- Spyware is a form of malware which is short for malicious software
- Spyware is installed without the users knowledge, it runs in the background.
- Spyware can record audio, video, and record calls from your smartphone and capture credit card numbers.
For prevention – Be selective about what you download to your computer. Beware of clickable advertisements
Mitigation of spyware and adware
- Be aware that free software can include spyware or malware.
- Be sure that your antimalware software is up to date.
Viruses, Trojans and Rootkits
- These are all installed without user’s knowledge
What is a computer virus?
- A computer virus is a piece of code that is capable of copying itself, and has the potential of destroying data and corrupting your operating system.
- A virus can be application specific. For example, a macro virus for a Microsoft Word application can replace the regular commands with the same name, and run, when the command is selected. These malicious macros may start automatically when a document is opened or closed, without the user’s knowledge.
- A virus can be triggered by date and time or event, the virus could be triggered next time you visit a certain website as well.
Rootkit – What is a rootkit? A rootkit allows a person to get admin level access to your computer system.
Rootkits:
- Often replaces operating system files
- Allows criminals access to the device
- Applies to Windows, Linux/Unix
- For prevention avoid clicking a questionable email link. The rootkit is spread because the user clicks on a malicious link in an email, and now the root kit is spread to all recipients and sent to all the people in the users contact list.
Trojan
- Masquerades as legitimate software
- The user is fooled thinking that they are downloading and installing helpful software when in fact it is malware.
- The criminal takes control of the computer in the background and starts sending personal information over the internet to thieves.
- Trojans are executables, they have extensions like “exe” “vbs” “com “bat”. Generally, you have to open the file before you are affected.
- For prevention do not click on an attachment unless you are sure of the source.
Mitigation of Viruses, Trojans and Rootkits
- Educate your users, define each threat. Make your users aware of what to do and what not to do.
- Be sure your antimalware is up to date
- Beware of free software
Phishing
- Tricks victims into revealing personal or sensitive information such as passwords, SSN, addresses)
- Fraudulent email messages, telephone calls, website links
- Phishing is all about stealing personal information such as username and passwords Ransomware
- Blocks access to your computer until a ransom is paid
- It could encrypt data files until the ransom is paid
- Ransomware requests Bitcoin payments, (which are hard to trace to the recipient of the payment)
- Does not guarantee that you will get your data back if your system has been encrypted with the ransomware.
- Can be infected by viewing a website not just clicking.
- Ransomware features unbreakable encryption
- It can scramble your file names and add a different extension to your files.
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