Why Hide Your IP Address? An Online Security TipWhy Hide Your IP Address? An Online Security Tip

Have you ever questioned the idea of why hide your IP address when online? Here is an easy online security tip for using the internet in an anonymous mode. Hide your IP address! This is the unique identifier address of your computer on the Internet. This address consists of a grouping of four numbers divided by periods. Each number grouping is an identifier of your domain, sub-network and the host computer.

Hiding your IP address online basically ensures that your personal information is not leaked out to the outsiders. Hiding your tracks for the sake of online security? You can hide your address for free and there is nothing illegal about it. If you have legal doubts get some legal advice and they will advise you about the matter.

One way of protecting against spyware is to hide your IP address. The spyware softwares were made to monitor the activities of the user of a computer. When using free downloads, you will find there are those out there offering free downloads that very possibly are embedded with a spyware. Once these downloads are installed, the embedded spyware infect your computer, ultimately compromising your security as your activities can be monitored.

The conclusive benefit resulting from hiding your address is protecting you website from those that want to monitor your personal habits and activities. Are you anonymous?

Hiding the IP address also substantially reduces junk or bulk emails in your in-box. Don't like being bombarding by pop up ads on your computer? Hiding your IP address will protect you from such situations and increase the efficiency of the computer.

In this day and age, the internet tells our life stories. What ever we write, post, print or share can spread like wildfire into the depths of cyberspace. It happens that there are things we're proud of, and not so proud of, and well you know the rest of the story... Posting something that could potentially embarrass or harm you in the future is not a wise move.

Using this online security tip is your starting guide to online security. It's all about keeping yourself, your family and your personal internet information safe. Once you learn how to do this, you will feel much more secure in using the internet for a variety of different purposes. How anonymous you are starts with hiding your IP address.

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The Pirate Bay appeal wraps up, various websites go down

The Pirate Bay appeal reached its conclusion in Sweden on Friday with a lawyer for one of the rogue file-sharing site's founders claiming this case was not about content owners protecting their intellectual property rights, but old school monoliths prosecuting the internet. Or words to that effect.

According to the Agence France-Presse, attorney Peter Althin, defending former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, told the court while summing up: "Whenever new technology emerges, large corporations always say the new technology is life-threatening. And it is the technology the prosecutor is after in this case".

Meanwhile Jonas Nilsson, speaking for another Bay co-founder, Fredrik Neij, said a guilty verdict for his client would open up any other web services with a search component to copyright infringement claims, telling the court: "A guilty verdict for Fredrik would imply a threat to other search services on the internet, like Facebook and Twitter".

Of course, neither Facebook or Twitter chose to put 'Pirate' in their name, nor did they deliberately go around pissing off content owners for fun times, but who knows, it might work as a legal argument, even if it does sound a little bit like a lawyer clutching at straws.

Sunde, Neij and their financer Carl Lundstroem are all trying to overturn their convictions from last year when they were handed one year jail sentences for enabling widespread copyright infringement via the Bay. With both sides presenting pretty much the same arguments at appeal as during the original case, it now remains to be seen what way this set of judges rule. They aren't expected to announce their decision until 26 Nov.

As previously reported, the third co-founder, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, did not attend the appeal hearing due to ill health. It's been decided he will now have his appeal heard separately later in the year.

Even if the appeals court rules against the Bay Four, they are unlikely to go straight to jail, as the sentences are likely to be held off pending any further appeals, and all four have vowed to take this case to Sweden's Supreme Court if necessary.

In related news, online groups who support file-sharing continue to attack the websites of those pursuing an anti-piracy agenda. As expected, two websites associated with Kiss man Gene Simmons went down last week after they were targeted with a so called Distributed Denial Of Service attack after his rambling to the effect that the US record industry should have sued every single "fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid" who file-shared.

A similar attack was made on the UK Intellectual Property Office's website this weekend, while an alterative method was used to embarrass the Motion Picture Association Of America and a Portuguese rights organisation which has recently taken action against The Pirate Bay. Websites run by both (the copyprotected.com website in the case of the MPAA) were replaced by a page promoting the Operation Payback campaign, which advocates a radical reform of copyright rules, and then an auto-link to The Pirate Bay.

Confirming that its site had been attacked, the UK IP Office said yesterday: "The Intellectual Property Office chose to disconnect its website from the internet following a coordinated Distributed Denial of Service attack. The attack was orchestrated by 'Operation: Payback' which is an ongoing campaign against major anti-piracy groups. The organisers say that they have targeted us as we are 'perpetuating the system which is allowing the exploitative usage of copyrights and intellectual property'. Our website is currently unreachable as we worked with our internet service provider in order to move our web services out of harm's way. DDoS attacks on websites of this kind obstruct access by ordinary citizens to government services".

Are You Providing a Secure Environment For Your Online Banking Customers?

Online banking is one of the most innovative trends that facilitate convenience to its users. Due to its advantages, more are getting hooked onto it. The convenience of transferring funds across borders, checking balances at any given point of time, requesting for check books and statements with just a few clicks on the internet has prompted customers to reduce wasting their invaluable time in long queues. Banks have also realized the potential of providing this facility to its customers which makes their revenues grow.

Security leakages

However this same advantage has been misused by some with malicious intentions. The banks are exposed to numerous attacks through the easy access of the internet such as phishing where the frauds create replicas of the original websites to collect personal information of customers. Unsecured computer systems without a stringent security framework can be easily accessed by hackers through the use of malware and other harmful software. Minor errors like weak logins and passwords without any authentication verification have been found to cause unforgivable incidents.

There have been instances of large scale security breaches which have made customers reluctant to use online banking, and this could cost the banks their prospective business and reputation. This has created the need for a vigilant online monitoring system that can maneuver the activities of customers and be prepared for any abnormal activities that threaten the security system.

Tightening the security harness

To promote online fraud detection, banks have introduced several screening features such as unique passwords and personal identification numbers, multi question authentication, stringent privacy policies and encryption software that help in better functioning. The authentication and fraud detection software provides all the necessary tools to ensure secure online banking facilities to its customers.

Software meant for providing online banking security provides banks the advantage of preventing any online frauds before the accidents actually occur through a system of collecting data on online frauds, monitoring their activities for any contemplative threats, studying the trends and distributing information amongst the members present in the network.

A unique system of identifying computers, mobile phones, and PDAs and other technological device individually helps to create fingerprints and provide ID tags to monitor any suspicious activity on any particular device with accurate precision.

The fraud detection software is an extremely alert tool that helps the banks in assessing the potential of any online risks in real-time by detecting abnormal online transactions or accessing of accounts. The authentication software has been built to help banks choose the authentication method that is most suited to fulfill its security requirements. It further helps to calculate the risks and also reduce costs.

The availability of strong authentication measures provides immense benefits to the banks. The tools are extremely flexible, user-friendly and easy to manage. Costs are reduced due to their scalability which can accommodate any size group without affecting the applications or its performance.

Customer validation

Customers may be forgiving but not forgetful. They will think twice before deciding to use the online system of a bank that has already been victimized. Instating competent authentication software for detecting online frauds assures the customer that his security is in capable hands. Preventive measures create a reassuring atmosphere for online customers resulting in booming business for the banks.

To know more about - strong authentication

Find Out Who Owns the Email Address That Your Child Or Spouse Consistently Receive

If you are doubtful on the email activities of your spouse or children then one of the best options for you is to perform the email reverse search; this kind of lookup allows you find out who owns the email address the your spouse or child always receive. The results shall give you important personal details like the full name of the person, address, and contact numbers just name a few.

This kind of search is now very important; especially that there are too many unsolicited emails that usually floods your inbox. This is also imperative when monitoring the online activities of your children; as well as your partner.

Hence, if you want to find out who owns the email address of someone then the best email reverse lookup method is to use one of the numerous online offers that allow you to simply lookup the personal information of people who owns a particular email address. Aside from the basic information that you need, you can also gain access to other more personal data such as criminal records, sex offender check, civil records, and so much more.

Access to such useful database requires payment of certain fees; but the amount is generally minimal compared to what you shall be getting as benefits for your subscription; such as total privacy on your search, very convenient, good quality data, and instant results among many others.

Therefore, if you want find out who owns the email address that your child or spouse is constantly sending or receiving emails then take note and observe the aforesaid tips.

Start running your own email search now at Email Lookup Online and instantly get the email addresses of people; after just few minutes of search within the very comforts in your own home.

Or please visit: http://reverseemailaddresslookup.blogspot.com/

Email Phishing Still is a Major Concern - Some Different Types of Email Phishing

Email phishing is a very dangerous and potentially financially fatal trap that is sent via email from what appears to be a financial institution to an individual. Most of the email phishing that one will receive is very easy to notice as a fraud email. This is real easy to determine when you don't even bank at the financial institution in question which is one advantage of dealing with lesser known banks. But there are some phishing emails that are very sophisticated and can take time to identify.

Most email phishing is seen as the attempt of an individual to gain someone's account numbers or other personal information. This is collected in order to complete a transaction which includes them removing money from your banking accounts or stealing your identity.

Such emails include the ones in which a foreign individual wishes to transfer money into a state side account usually as his method of getting the money safely out of his country. He does this so that he may remove such money at a later date. It was so prevalent at one time for such to be coming from a "Nigerian prince" that it became known as a Nigerian scam.

This type of email phishing includes the giving of account information, having a small amount of money placed into the account, and then a suddenly finding a large amount of your money is withdrawn. It is unfortunate that many people do fall for this simple email phishing technique. It is even more unfortunate and sad that such people were trying to help a fellow human out as well as trying to get something for the very little effort of allowing the use of their banking account.

Other phishing techniques include sending an official looking email from what one is led to believe is the bank of that individual. This email is requesting that one update the personal information of the individual on the website that they have provided a link to. When one hits the link, the website that they have listed is not the website that one goes to, although it often has the same appearance of a bank website. This type of email phishing is of a much higher level of sophistication than other types and can be harder to identify. One should be aware that many, if not all, financial institutions will never request that one updates their personal information via a website.

In addition other email phishing attempts will seem to come from some service provider such as AOL with a link to update your account or notifying you of some problem with your account that needs you to add your credit card information again. Once more this is something where you must be careful. Know that most such companies will not send you a link in an email to do this. There are other ways as well to know if this is a fraudulent email.

One of the most important things that one can do to help prevent email phishing is to report each and every email that one gets that appears suspicious. It is far better to be too safe with one's identity and finances than not safe enough.

To learn more ways to spot email phishing please visit http://www.antiphishingscams.com.

On Securing Your Wireless Network

I was alarmed when I recently read that most people do not secure their wireless network at home. The entire process of securing your wireless network can actually take you twenty minutes max and yet, people are not doing it. I wonder why that is so. It's not a very complicated process, you know.

One of the many reasons why you should secure your wireless network is because you want to prevent unauthorized access to your network, and ultimately, into your computer. Anyone who decides to tap on your wireless network can spread malicious programs over your network and worse, they can get access inside your computer, thus making your personal information prone to identity theft. Not securing your wireless network is a very bad practice.

Enough about the sermon, now let's get on to securing your wireless network. Remember that it is imperative to secure your wireless network even if you are only using your wireless connection at home, or even if you rarely use it.

The first thing that you can do is to change the default administrator user name and password on your router. By default, the user name would be "admin" and the password would be either "password" or "admin." If a computer hacker will get inside your network, they will have the ability to access this configuration page and change the user name and password. By then, you will not be able to make any changes in your router unless you have it reset.

After changing the user name and password for your configuration page, you also need to change your default SSID. Your router's SSID is like its name. When you open your wireless enabled laptop, it will detect any wireless network in range. The SSID of the networks that it detected will be reflected on that list. If you use the default name and your router is the same brand as your neighbor's, then there will always be a possibility that your neighbor will connect to your network instead of theirs. You also have to disable your wireless broadcasting so that if any sniffer (hacker who "sniffs" wireless networks) is around, they will not be able to detect and tap to your network.

Enable WEP/WPA Encryption so that only authorized computers will be able to connect to your wireless network. WEP passwords typically contain 10 characters. You can only use the letters a-f and the numbers 0-9. Whenever possible, stay away from using your birth date and telephone number as your passwords because they are very easy to guess. Remember, identity theft criminals are now closely working together with computer hackers so they should not be able to crack your password so you can protect yourself against these criminals.

If you haven't updated the firmware for your router, this is probably the best time to do so. Do not disable your router's firewall because this adds an additional security feature to protect yourself against intruder attacks. Lastly, turn off your router when you are not using them. They need to rest as well, just like you do.

Tina L. Douglas is a skilled writer from California. With numerous experiences in the field of writing for several financial institutions, she is greatly qualified across a variety of economic issues. Her notable pieces of writing involve identity theft.

Internal Threats to Your Network

Internal Threat Landscape

In today's world, more and more customer data is being found on servers, desktops and laptops which contain critical information that can promote a company's growth or destroy the company in an instant. Furthermore, the risk extends beyond the private sector to the public sector and anyone in their homes receiving services from one of these infrastructure entities.

A study performed by Promisec, Inc., a company that regularly conducts comprehensive security audits across a number of industries - including finance, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, etc., found that:

Use of unauthorized removable storage continues to rise in organizations.

The number of endpoints that do not apply threat management agents or are not updated with the latest build or signatures continues to rise.
Instances of unauthorized instant messaging continue to increase in all organizations.

The study also discovered that -

12% of infected computers had a missing or disabled anti-virus program.
10.7% had unauthorized personal storage like USB sticks or external hard drives.
9.1% had unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) applications installed.
8.5% had a missing 3rd party desktop agent.
2.6% had unprotected shared folders.
2.2% had unauthorized remote control software.
2% had missing Microsoft service packs.

Without application awareness, both perimeter and defensive island systems were easily defeated. For example, SQL Slammer was able to enter organizations quickly because:

Firewalls and anti-virus solutions that rely on signatures didn't view the traffic as a threat.

Often, SQL Slammer bypassed perimeter defenses and entered at the network edge through laptops and mobile devices whose traffic never traversed the firewall.

Like firewalls, without a signature to identify it, anti-virus software and most HIDS did not recognize it as a threat.

SQL Slammer was memory resident. Most anti-virus software completely missed it because their scanning engines are often focused on detecting exploits written to disk drives.

Within minutes of an initial SQL Slammer infection, nearly all vulnerable computers on the inside of the network were compromised. Depending on the number of infected devices, this often resulted in massive denial of service on the internal LAN. Furthermore, newer types of attacks are designed not to make "noise" in order to stay undetected.

Product Substitute Availability

Firewalls are a necessary security control for policy enforcement at any network trust boundary, but changing business and threat conditions are putting pressure on growth in the firewall market. Enterprises are redesigning their demilitarized zones (DMZs) to react to the business realities of how staff and customers connect, which drives firewall demand up. However, the increasing requirement for network defense against more-complex threats has increased the deployment of network intrusion prevention, and driven vendors to provide products that support complex deployments and rule sets that mix traditional port/protocol firewall defense with deep-packet inspection intrusion prevention.

At one point in time, Cisco had the best firewall on the market. As the years passed, competitors of all sizes were vying for Cisco's market share. Vendors, such as Juniper, Checkpoint, McAfee and others, have challenged and even taken market share from Cisco. In the Gartner's 2008 magic quadrant, only two vendors are residing in the upper right hand "leaders" quadrant - Juniper and Checkpoint.

In the latest Gartner report, dated 12 October 2009, large enterprises will be replacing stateful firewalls with the Next Generation firewalls during the natural lifecycle replacement. And there are very few vendors that have upgraded their respective product lines to reflect the new attack vectors. Gartner believes that the changing threat conditions and changing business and IT processes will drive network security managers to look for NGFW capabilities at their next firewall/IPS refresh cycle. The key to successful market penetration by NGFW vendors will be to demonstrate first-generation firewall and IPS features that match current first-generation capabilities while including NGFW capabilities at the same or only slightly higher price points.

More coming later - but until then, look at our website for open source software @ http://www.oss4win.com

Mike Millslagel
Security System Consultant
B.S. Information Systems, MBA, MCSE, CNE, CCNP Security Specialist
http://www.oss4win.com