Department of Justice VS. Google

The Department of Justice wanted access to search queries on Google. The DOJ asked Google to release search records for a particular week. Then they asked for a list of all URL's indexed in Google. This is insane thats like over a billion URL's.

Google said no.

Yahoo did release search results. No personal information was released.

AOL did comply. No personal information released as well.

Sunday

Its Sunday morning, I got up early lifted some weights and got my car washed. Then me and my girlfriends made a trip to Costco to return a DVD/VCR combo. We already have one. There was no problem with the return which was nice.

We are now watching Lord of War with Nicholas Cage. It 's about a gun runner, I like it. I will probably be going back to Blockbuster today to return the rest of the movies. I also rented Pirates of the Silicon Valley, its about the making of Apple and Microsoft. Its also good. It shows how crazy Steve Jobs actually was. I dont know if he still is :)

Back to School

I have enrolled back into school I'm taking HTML and Ecommerce, lets see how I can profit from this.

Thursday Morning

I decided to take the rest of the week off for vacation. I will be bloging and gaming. I'm going to go see Narnia later today, which should be cool. I will be posting a review about it today.

Yet another blog I started

I have started a new blog to test out WordPress. Here is the link: http://phuture.wordpress.com. Why did I decide to try Wordpress? Why not. Its free currently for a lite version and the interface is clean and simple to use. This is very important to me. Dont get me wrond I feel comfortable in any *nix shell enviroment and can move around but I think about other people who are lacking the skills in the computer department.

Keep It Simple Stupid

KISS- I have been applying this to my life lately, throwing out alot of junk. Organizing and enjoying the things that I have not what I want. I can honestly say Im happy. How does this relate to computer security? It doesnt I just felt like ranting.

More papers on security.

Its back to work for me. I will be posting some more articles here shortly. I'm currently working on a physical security paper expalining about CCTV, Alarms and Biometrics. This should be a good paper. This weekend I studied ARP poisining and spoofing and ways to try to prevent it. It really is amazing how hackers change their MAC address to get free Internet access at your local starbucks on your dime.

Cisco PIX 506E

Cisco Pix 506E Security Appliance

This firewall is a enterprise class security appliance. It could be used for small to medium sized businesses, sattelite offices and regional offices.It supports two 10/100 fast ethernet cards and also two 802.1q virtual interfaces.This alows your business to create a DMZ or demilitarized zone. This is a spot on your network that you put your webservers but not your backend servers like SQL or Exchange. Cisco took the approach of multilayered defense again with this product and it has alot of nice feautres to help protect your network and data.There are no moving parts making it more reliable.

The Cisco Pix 506E uses what Cisco calls Cisco Adaptive Security Algorithim.This provides statefull packet inspection it logs all authorized attempts to use the network as well as trying to block unauthorized access.The firewall is designed to look for common vulnerabilities, it looks for about 55 well known attacks.It inspects layers 4 through 7 os the OSI layers. The Cisco Pix 506E also looks at application data traversing the network and even protocol status.The designers of this firewall did a good job. The Cisco Adaptive Security Algorithim does protocol field checking and also URL length checking. It does not mention anything about if it can filter Unicode.It has over 100 applications already documented so you can allow or disallow them easily.

Cisco PIX Device manager allows administrators to manage their network remotely.Network or Firewall administratos can still create their own ACL's or access control lists and user and group based policies. Network administrators can decide which applications that are and are not allowed thru their network as well as protocols.Protocols that this device checks are HTTP, FTP,SMTP, DNS, SQl*Net,NFS,ILS, SCCP and many more.For instance I would not allow my employess to use Telnet, if they needed remote connectivity at all I would suggest SSH using a cool program called Putty for Windows based machines.

Since Im on the topic of remote management I will talk about some of the Cisco Pix 506E solutions.The are many different ways to mange this device. It can be troubleshooted and configured remotely.If you have a web browser which I hope all admins have, you can access this firewall through the Internet. It uses SNMP simple network management protocol for monitoring devices on the network.You can use Auto Update server, security monitor and management center for firewalls.

The firewall does auditing, has support for Dynamic devices on the network and can do software images.

The Cisco Pix 506E also has support for VPN's or virtual private networks.You can use either IKE Internet Key Exchange or IPsec.Cisco also offers VPN concentrators to speed up connections. I will be writing articles on those shorlty. The encryption standards it supports are DES data encryption standard, this is crackable. 3DES which is more secure and AES advanced encryption standard. I recommend the later. The VPN can work with NAT or network address translation which hides your internal IP address from the Internet. Support for up to 10 VPN uers.The firewall also supports TACAS+ and RADIUS.

VoIP- Voice over Internet protocol can also be ran thru this firewall. So that you can sleep well at night knowing that your multimedia and voice connections are secure.
This is probably my favorite about this device. Intrusion Prevention. This firewall has tools that protect it from many well-known attacks.

Dos or denial of service attacks are prevented from bringing down your network and firewall. I do question how much data this device can take before shutting down or how many packets it can drop quickly. There tools are called DNSGuard, FloodGuard, MailGuard, IPVerify and TCP intercept.

This firewall can also contact adminstrators real time thru a cell phone SMS or email thru a devich such as a RIM Blackberry.I have read of software that will allow you to SSH to your router, computer thru the Blackberry. Cisco's auditing software is called CiscoWorks Information management Solutions or SIMS.No not the game. It collects and anayzes data from across your network allowing you to prioritize threat levels.

Benjamin Hargis
Phuture Networks
http://www.phuturenetworks.com/
http://www.computersecurityadvice.com/

Voice over IP

I hear allot about VOIP what is it?

VOIP stands for voice over internet protocol. Basically it means making phones calls over your local area network (LAN) or even across the Internet.

VOIP is normally cheaper than your PSTN that’s public switched telephone network i.e. your local carrier.

VOIP is a good choice for businesses as well to save money on long distance calls if they have many satellite offices. VOIP service providers usually have lower fees because they are not a government regulated currently as the phone systems which at one time were a monopoly. VOIP can even be free if you connect directly to another VOIP client.

VOIP routers can send your incoming phone calls to you anywhere thus cutting down on the number of lines and you can be reached anywhere you have a Internet connection.

This and the combination of technologies like WiFi are going to make for one huge network. That voice, data and video will be sent everywhere and from anywhere. With this VOIP technology you have allot more features as well such as Caller ID, Call Forwarding and answering services all from your computer or PDA.

There are some issues to still be worked on.

Here are some:

The amount of band with required.

Security issues- what type of encryption should be used and how much is going to slow down the call and network?

This is a exciting and new technology which I will be writing more about.

Benjamin Hargis

More info on Cisco PIX 501

Cisco Firewall PIX 501

This firewall is designed for homes and small businesses.This firewall can support up to ten users on a basic license from Cisco. It has a 133 MHz processor and comes with 16MB's of RAM. In addition it has 8MB of Flash RAM.

The Firewall also comes with 1 uplink port and a four port switch. It does not support Layer 2 transparent fire walling. It also does not support the routing protocol OSFP which stands for Open Shortest Path First. There is no VLAN-Virtual Local Area Network.

The PIX 501 allows you to setup a VPN-Virtual Private Network easily with the Cisco Easy VPN Server.

The firewall supports speeds up to 60Mbps bidirectional.

When you implement cryptography such as 3DES or DES it slows down the traffic.The PIX 501 can support anywhere from 50-unlimited users depending on your license

Cisco PIX Technology

Cisco PIX Security Appliance.

Cisco PIX Security applications can enforce policies on users and applications.

Cisco PIX can protect you from many different network and Internet based attacks.

Cisco PIX offers secure connectivity, using methods such as SSHv2 Secure Shell Two and VPN virtual private networks.

This is fairly easy to setup.

Cisco PIX can provide you with secure VOIP voice over internet protocol.

IPSec or Internet Protocol Security IPSec can be setup for VPN's.

Cisco PIX Security appliances provide multiple layers of security.

This hardware/software based solutions is designed to look for anomolies aka weird traffic thats not normal on your network, which could be an indication of a attack.

There is over thirty different engines looking for different attack signatures.

The current version is Cisco PIX appliance version 7.0

Here are some of the feautures:

You can rollback previous configurations in IOS.

QOS- Quality of Service

You can update software on the fly with bringing down the hardware. No rebooting.

VPN client security

Layer 2 transparent firewall.

This is really interesting 3G mobile security services.

You can configure the firewall to block instant messaging, point to point networking P2P.

You have the ability to block applications trying to tunnel thru your network with encrypted
traffic.

Cisco PIX provide rich statefull packet inspection PIX can protect your voice, data, and video
traffic.

Version 7.0 also supports IKE or Internet Key Exchange.

Everything can be managed from Cisco Adaptive Device Manger which can be console and web based.

Benjamin Hargis CEO Phuture Networks
http://www.phuturenetworks.com
http://www.computersecurityadvice.com/
Here are some other sites for you viewing pleasure:http://www.checkmategame.blogspot.com
http://www.realestatelead.blogspot.com/

Sales Tips

-Here are some tips for people in sales, hope this helps.

Anticipate objections and be ready with rebuttals.

Get down to the real objection.

Follow up with all leads.

Do it the best its ever been done.

Its all numbers, dial more.

Provide value for customers.

Control the conversation, listen even more.

Follow ethical practices.

Planning, goal setting, decision making, delegation and communication work on improving these areas.

Toss out ideas at meetings.

Keep abreast of the market

Look for multiple sources of income.

Assume responsibility for your actions.

Build relationships.

Network like crazy.

Be resourcefull, ready, remebered and relentless.

Help customers discover the best solutions.

Persist and dont give up!

I've been in sales for 15 years this can be valuable to new sales people and veterans.

Building Internet Firewalls

Building Internet Firewalls by Oreilly

This book covers the basics of firewall technology to the nitty gritty details. I highly recommend it. It is well written and covers such interesting topics as protocols, databases, security strategies and examles of firewall setups.

Building Internet Firewalls covers packet Filtering, Proxy Services, NAT- network address translation and VPN's virtual private networks. Firewall architecture such as single box, screened host, bastion host, multiple screened hosts, modems and internal firewalls for your intranets.

The different ways to filter traffic are also discussed in depth. You can filter based upon address, protocol, source and destination addresses amongst many other variables. It discusses both Micorsoft Windows and *nix based solutions.

It goes over Internet Services such as RPC, DCOM, DOM, CIFS, SMB, SSL, RAS, PPTP and so many others.

This book is a awesome reference to add to your security analyst book collection.

Microsoft Security Update

Microsoft has released several security alerts for Microsoft Internet Explorer. Here are four of them:

HTTPS Proxy Vulnerability (CAN-2005-2830)

File Download Dialog Box Manipulation Vulnerability (CAN-2005-2829)

COM Object Instantiation Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CAN-2005-2831)

Mismatched Document Object Model Objects Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CAN-2005-1790)

This can cause problems ranging from attackers reading web addresses sent to a proxy server to running malicious code on your hosts to gain admin access.

MS05-055Vulnerability in Windows Kernel Allows Elevation of Privilege (908523)http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS05-055.mspx

This one allows attackers to escalate or gain higher privleges than allowed an example would be a user with no rights gaining administrative control of the machine. It is possible to change kernel memory with this vulnerability. This can lead to remote code execution as well.

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.

What is PERL?

Practical extraction and reporting language. Perl is a stable programming language. It is great for automating tasks, especially system administration chores. It is Open Source which means its free.

PERL was created by Larry Wall. PERL is sometimes called the duct-tape of the internet. PERL can be used with popular database programs and implemented into websites as well.

Where can you get PERL? http://www.perl.org/get.html

Website on PERL http://www.perl.org/news.html

The PERL Journal http://www.tpj.com/

Examle of PERL code:

A cheap alarm clock: perl -e ’sleep(120); while (1) { print "\a" }’