Cisco PIX 501 security appliance

The is a firewall thats easy to set up for home or small office. It has a four port fast Ethernet switch built in.

This firewall can provide up to 60Mbps data transfer or 3Mbps of encrypted traffic using (3DES) . This can be used for VPN's Virtual Private Networks.

It supports AES which is the Advanced Encrytion Standard at up to 4mbps.

Here is Cisco's overview of their product

SANS going to start IT college

SANS will create a IT college! This is great news. Its going to be in Maryland, hmm I wonder why. Maryland is famous for computer security why do you ask? The National Security Agency is there. I would love to attend this school, it would be fun. They will offer two programs for Masters Degrees:

Information Security Engineering
Information Security Management

This will not be easy there looking for high GPA's and recommendations from employeers.

Security Warrior

This is a great book that gets more technical than most books I read. What does it contain? What does it not :)

It has assembly programming tutorials, reverse engineering concepts and tools. Overflow attacks and ways to stop them or at least make it more difficult.

TCP/IP analysis and tools to help in your network engineering chores. It breaks down protocols and their strengths and weaknesses.

It also covers forensics, and anti-forensics. SQL, Wireless, VPN's and SSL.

There is so much in this book and its a great read and handy reference this is my third time reading it so I recommend it to any security analyst's bookshelf.

Bidding for Excel Vulnerability

A cracker discovered a hole in Microsoft Excel and try to auction it off! This is a first, kinda funny in my opinion. Ebay quickly pulled it from their website. This is a goodthing. There are tons of free software out on the Internet to recover Microsoft Office passwords.

I use many Linux Distributions on bootable CD's to recover these from clients who have forgot or lost their passwords. I can recover most files even ones that have been deleted.

Virus Definitions

I'm amazed on how so many people think that antivirus software is a cureall its only as good as your last updates. Malicious users write malware daily to exploit and corrupt your systems. Turn on your auotmatic updates! YOu should also use a firewall, if your using wireless use WPA with strong paawords.

Spyware is also rampant on the Internet is your homepage changing automatically? There is also the threat of keyloggers which could be logging your bank account info, or even your Amazon account information! Use tools such as SpyBot Search and Destroy or Adaware.