B13 Network Security Solutions

What Are the Threats?

Like any technology, Internet security threats are changing and evolving at all times.

Hackers adjust their methods and develop them to take advantage of both technological vulnerabilities and psychological weaknesses of employees.
Some current internet threats to SMBs are:

Security Holes or Vulnerabilities

These are "bugs" in operating systems and software that can be exploited by hackers.

Direct Attack (Social Engineering)

Though less common in the small business world, direct attacks do exist. A disgruntled worker, a very unhappy customer, or a competitor with network knowledge can try to hack into the network with different intentions. From simple curiosity to data theft, many reasons can cause a hacker to come knocking on your office door.

Viruses

Viruses are pieces of executable code that can do damage to a computer system. Viruses often spread over email and recently over instant messaging networks, by disguising themselves as legitimate attachments. The user activates the code unknowingly, thus infecting their system with the virus. Viruses often use the victim's address book to email themselves to other mailboxes. Viruses can range from merely annoying to dangerously destructive.

Worms

Similar to viruses and much more common are computer worms. Worms do not attach themselves to any other software and are self- sustained. Worms often propagate themselves using an infected system's file transmission capabilities, and may increase network traffic dramatically in the process. Other possible effects of a worm include deletion of files, emailing of files from the infected computer, and so on.

Trojan Horses

These are software programs that capture passwords and other personal information, and which can also allow an unauthorized remote user to gain access to the system where the Trojan is installed.

DoS (Denial of Service) Attacks

This particular threat aims to disable network communications. The attack attempts to disable the network by flooding it with fake requests that overload the capacity of the network; using only one pc to attack with.

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)

When an attacker creates an army of "zombie" machines, by infecting various networks with worms that allow the hacker to use the machines and their bandwidth for this attack.


Spam

Spam can seriously damage productivity and represents a potential risk, due to the current rise of malicious software delivered by spam messages, as well as "phishing".

Phishing

This a method used to acquire personal information such as passwords, bank account and credit card numbers, and more, through sophisticated email messages that claim to have come from a specific provider (eBay for example) and appear quite authentic to the unsuspecting recipient.

Spyware

Spyware is malicious code sometimes found in freeware or shareware software, as well as in file sharing clients. It takes slows system performance and sends user data to the spyware creators.

Inappropriate or Illegal Content

Inappropriate content can seriously damage employee productivity. Web sites with illegal content often contain files with viruses, worms, and Trojans horses embedded in the available downloads.