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Securing Data Access

Close the Door on Malware and Limit Your IT Costs

PFW Password - Spring 2006If today’s media coverage of the current malware epidemic hasn’t already underlined the problem, PFW would like to stress once more that a company’s information network must now be viewed as a critical asset, and this asset must consequently be protected. In the last decade, business has learned—in many cases the hard way—that via the prompt detection of an attack there is an increased chance of lowering the costs associated with a lack of data access and damage. Stopping viruses at the server level, as opposed to the workstation or client level, could save thousands of dollars per incident.

While hard numbers are difficult to ascertain regarding money lost to data compromise, Nucleus Research, AmikaNow!, IDC, and the New York Times have reported that half of all e-mail content is a form of commercial spam, and this is expected to continue growing at about 7% every year. Mass-mailing worms have emerged as the most popular malware, and today’s virus authors prefer to use the Internet’s pervasiveness to spread their malware, capitalizing on users’ own bandwidth.

According to IDC, the global market for secure content management, which includes antivirus software, message security and Web filtering, is expected to hit $6.4 billion in 2007, representing a compound annual growth rate of 19 percent.

Note: International Data Corporation (IDC) is a leading global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology and telecommunications industries.

Additionally, PFW notes that information security company Trend Micro has warned that spam is no longer just an annoyance, but has become a way for virus writers to hide their malicious code. In early 2004, Lionel Phang of Trend Micro said that, “The spam threat will increase exponentially, and will become the hideouts for viruses and hacking programs trying to gain entry into the network. Blended threats also will remain the standard way to attack networks, where one virus file will create four to five different activities within the system.”

Natasha David, an analyst with IDC, has said that spam has emerged as the key transmission vehicle for viruses: “Spammers…put viruses and worms in e-mail attachments, so (junk e-mail) has become more than just a nuisance.”

A Typical Virus Outbreak

Attached to an e-mail with a plausible subject line, a seemingly innocuous spreadsheet is sent via the Internet to 100 recipients at each of Company A and Company B. This scenario assumes that all of the users opened the spreadsheet.

  • Cost for an IT manager to be informed of and take action on one virus incident = $50
  • Cost for one workstation to be stopped, scanned, and cleaned of virus = $100
  • Cost for one workstation to detect and clean a virus infection locally = $10
  • Average number of times hackers will attempt to crack a network per month = 2

Summary
Investing in e-mail virus protection saved Company B $2,200 per incident. At a typical average of two attacks per month, the extrapolation comes to $52,800 per year saved with the use of effective anti-virus software that is able to both recognize the threat, and alert the appropriate staff of a possible security breach. An impressive software ROI indeed!

It’s interesting to note that more than 87% of all viruses make their network entry via e-mail. As e-mail has become essentially a business-critical process, the loss of e-mail means that crucial operational communications with customers and vendors may also be lost, and business is adversely affected.

Note: Numbers scaled down from original source.

Do I Need To Worry? Yes!
The International Computer Security Association (ICSA) estimated that 500 new viruses are created every month. The rise of the Internet has created a myriad of virus-multiplying dynamics. With e-mail now used for important business communication, the chances of a virus attack are significant. E-mail messages carrying a virus payload can infect an entire enterprise in a matter of minutes, costing companies millions of dollars annually in productivity loss and cleanup expenses. In the modern context, antivirus software has become a requisite.

Like it or not, your business and marketplace is becoming a part of a technological battlefield. To compete well, your company has to utilize the Internet in order to provide at least some products and services to customers, but by doing this you expose yourself to unscrupulous web users. As well, your employees, especially sales staff, need unparalleled access to systems in order to remain competitive. So, with this challenge in mind, how do you balance access with security?

The ability to provide appropriate internal access to company resources while keeping company computers safe is becoming a constant fight. If you’re not being hit with viruses through e-mail and even through web browsing, with every click of your mouse or keyboard, your computer may be becoming slowly infected with adware or malware. PFW sees the implementation of firewalls and security software as an essential way to fend off these attacks. Companies that aren’t running any of these devices or software solutions are leaving themselves open for attack.

If you’re wondering, “What can I do to protect myself?, we encourage you to install a firewall and use an e-mail server. This allows you to bring your e-mail in-house, and gives you the option to scan incoming mail for spam and viruses. As well, a firewall and a mail solution can provide you with a secure way to remotely access e-mail. We also recommend that you actively scan network workstations for spyware and malware.

If you’re concerned about employee Internet use, PFW urges you to consider site filtering. Allowing access to company-approved web sites helps you halt improper usage of Internet resources. This becomes dire if you’re using your Internet connection to host the company web site; it’s recommended that you keep every bit of your bandwidth available for your all-important web presence.

PFW has invested a great amount of time in the development of solutions that keep you protected and “up and running”; solutions that are designed to run in unison with your business system. We suggest that no matter who you have taking care of your network, make sure to assess the effectiveness of security on a regular basis, in order to keep your information as safe as possible.

While making every effort to protect computers from viruses and e-mail threats, PFW can help you employ hardware and software solutions that monitor traffic travelling in and out of your network, as well as traffic at the PC level. For example, eSoft’s new spyware-scanning products block malware and adware as they attempt to enter your network. PFW has chosen the quality of eSoft’s products to perform these tasks and is currently Canada’s largest reseller for eSoft Technologies.

To assist our customers with lower cost communications, and in addition to the eSoft ThreatWall product described in the next article, PFW offers the eSoft InstaGate EX2 unit to perform IPsec VPN tunnels to remote stores. The InstaGate EX2 is a proven product that stands at the front line of your Internet connection, performing VPN, mail, proxy, antivirus, file, web, and anti-spyware server functions.

These tunnels have proven to be a reliable source of communications for locations needing access to the business system. While frame-relay connections may be the more popular answer, their cost has companies looking for the value point in this area. The speeds that are provided are more than acceptable for remote locations.

Building The Better Password

A Password Plan for Today...
When users guess at a user name/password combination until a “hit” is accomplished, they are carrying out the most basic, and the most potentially damaging, type of “hacking”. Algorithms can automate this process, and once the user account is entered, a security breach exists. Of course, if the captured account has application, computer, domain, server, or network administrative powers, a “red alert” situation exists, where, depending on the account’s administrative level, the question becomes not, “Is there damage done?”, but, “How much damage was done?”

In order to avoid this scenario, the user ID/password security layer must be used to full advantage. PFW would like to offer this list of password-related recommendations that users, power users, and especially administrators should consider:

  • Name a password “guru” — the owner of an IBM system administrator account—to oversee system passwords, as well as a backup “guru” in case the primary is unavailable
  • Create a strong, hard-to-hack password, which is at least eight characters long, combines numbers, letters that are a mix of upper and lower case, non-alphanumeric keyboard characters — for example, punctuation marks — and bears no user name resemblance, significant dates, or other “personal” content
  • Create a system where users are forced to change their passwords at a regular, but reasonable, interval, e.g., 30 to 45 days
  • Ensure that users do not write down their passwords on easily-accessible paper or digital records, for example “sticky” notes attached to monitors, or a desktop-stored “password” file
  • Enforce a password history setting that determines the number of unique new passwords a user must use before an old password can be reused

...And a Glimpse of Tomorrow
An interesting password technology that could be in your office soon is the concept of graphical passwords. Computer scientists from Rutgers University in New Jersey have developed password security that capitalizes on the use of complex images, for example, a landscape or cityscape, on which multiple “click points”—easier to remember than sophisticated textual passwords—are selected. Users then click the correct sequence of plot points on the image in order to input the password.

A variation of this, designed to eliminate “over-the-shoulder” hacking, requires that several selected objects, existing within a larger group of like objects and recognized by the user as forming a shape, are then slowly scrambled—so the user can track the rearrangement—to form a new screen. This contextual change renders the objects or click points as random to the now hapless hacker. As an example, the user can click on four memorable objects that form a parallelogram, let the program execute the scramble, and then have the “inside track” on finding the four corners on the new screen.

The Rutgers research team describes this innovation as having the “user prove knowledge of a secret, without revealing the secret itself to either the authenticating party or a potential observer. The question, or challenge, changes every time and so does the answer. But the secret knowledge stays the same.”

Please contact PFW Client Services at (519) 474-3700 for assistance with the security measures described in this article. For information on the additional PFW and IBM products that power your business continuity plan, contact PFW Sales at (519) 474-3300. ext. 230 or .
PFW would like to stress once more that a company’s information network must now be viewed as a critical asset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PFW sees the implementation of firewalls and security software as an essential way to fend off [malware] attacks.