Neilson research suggests the presence of internet in more then 92% American households. Also the e-commerce industry is all set to touch the magical 11 billion dollar mark by year 2010.
Therefore it becomes all the more urgent to equip ourselves better to deal with all the critical internet security threats which can be a major hindrance to business growth. It is also observed that most of the hackers make use of the same route to attack the network or the users’ computer. So here is a guide that will help you deal efficiently in eliminating the most critical internet security vulnerabilities:
Bid Adieu To Default Scripts
One of the major reasons behind the increased internet security threat is the installation of the operating systems and all the corresponding application software using default installation script. Though these automate scripts speeds up the installation procedure requiring minimum user interaction by default installs all the functions and features that are not even needed or used by the system users. These unused functions are never updated or patched by the system users making them an excellent route for the hackers to gain control over your system.
To eliminate this threat one should remember that all third party web servers that are installed by default script are most susceptible to hacker attacks. Therefore remove unwanted services and periodically check and apply all security patches. Also close all the extraneous ports.
Password Security Biggest Necessity
The second major security threat arises because of the accounts have default, weak or no passwords which makes them a hackers delight. This problem can be eliminated by having a two pronged approach, first assign new passwords to account with default or no password and second while changing the password always ensure user validation. Also you can deploy a strong password policy where user should have an alpha numeric password with at least one capital alphabet and one special symbol. Alternatively your company can also take help of password generation tokens or biometrics for securing user systems.
Excellent Backup & Storage
You would be surprised to know that more than 2 billions dollars are spent annually to recover lost data. Therefore a stricter mechanism of daily backup using proper encryption technology both while sending and storing data should be used. Also take care that the backup servers are remotely located and also redundancy of the backups is maintained. Also check the restoration procedure and ensure that daily backup takes place.
Open Ports Should be Closed
Greater the numbers of open ports, higher the probability of the hacker to connect to your computer, therefore it is essential to close all the unnecessary ports that are not required for the functioning of the system. Run netstat command to determine open ports and then close the ports that are not used for the functioning of the system.
Filtering incoming and outgoing addresses and have proper logging mechanism
Hackers commonly spoof IP addresses to attack the victims which help them in hiding their tracks. Also once the system is attacked, your system administrator will take long hours to rectify the problem in the absence of proper logs. Therefore to eliminate these two major internet security threats you should setup and external firewall or a router and also ensure that all the logs are properly collected an stored locally on your system and are also sent to the remote backup server.
Taking these simple steps will go a long way in protecting your system from any kind of internet security threats.
