...Appendix A Mapping Course Content to the CompTIA A+ Essentials 220-701 Exam Objectives Exam Objective | A+ Certification Lesson and Topic Reference | A+ Certification Activity Reference | Domain 1.0 Hardware | 1.1 Categorize storage devices and backup media | * FDD | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices | | * HDD | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices | | * Solid state vs. magnetic | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices | | * Optical drives | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices | | * CD / DVD / RW / Blu-Ray | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices | | * Removable storage | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices | | * Tape drive | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices | | * Solid state (e.g. thumb drive, flash, SD cards, USB) | Personal Computer Components, Storage Devices Installing and Configuring System Components, Install and Configure Storage Devices...
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...NMCI 0 Best Practices for Internal DDoS Attacks Best Practices for Internal DDoS Attacks 2013 Best Practices for DDoS Attack 1 What is a DDoS? A Distributed Denial of Service, DDoS, is an attack which is implemented to take down a server and make it unavailable to legitimate users. This attack can be very costly as it suspends services and causes a break in connection to the internet. The reason this attack is called ‘Distributed’ is because there is a large number of computers that are used to overwhelm the web servers. These computers are called bots or slaves. They are controlled by one computer, which is called the master or handler. The master sends a command to the bots to that will cause an attack. In this case, the master sent a command to flood the web server with fake traffic, which will cause the server to become unreachable. Most of the time, the attack comes from an external source. The attack on the university’s web server originated within the schools network. There was a password sniffer used to capture an Administrator password. The password allowed the attacker to have elevated privileges. This allowed for the bots to be controlled and the attacker to do whatever he or she wanted to do. In this case, the attacker chose to bring down the registration system. Best Practices to Practices to Prevent Internal DDoS There are several measures that can be taken to prevent DDoS. This Guide will focus on steps to prevent these attacks from originating...
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...Network Security Planning By: Marticia Goodwin CIS 532 / Professor Danielle Babb August 19, 2012 Strayer University SAFE is a reference architecture that network designers can use to simplify the complexity of a large internetwork in which the architecture lets you apply a modular approach to network design. Traditional point security tools are limited in their ability to support and securing a business transformation, either leaving critical new resources unprotected or preventing the deployment of new services as they do not secure new processes and protocols. At the same time, organizations are facing a host of new threats that target many of these new services and impact network and service availability (Lippis, 2012). With SAFE, you can analyze the functional, logical, and physical components of a network and thus simplify the process of designing an overall enterprise network, but CISCO SAFE architecture is especially concerned with security. SAFE takes a defense in-depth-approach in which multiple layers of protection are strategically located throughout the network and the layers are under unified strategy for protecting the entire network and the various components of the network, including individual network segments, infrastructure devices, network services, endpoints, and applications (Oppenheimer, 2011). SAFE architecture is comprised of the following major modules: core, data center, campus, management, WAN Edge, Internet Edge, branches, extranet, partner...
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...controls introduce a false sense of security?...............3 What are the consequences of not having verification practices?..............................................................3 What can a firm do to bolster confidence in their defense-in-depth strategy?..........................................4 How do these activities relate to best practices? ……………………………………………………………………………………4 How can these activities be used to demonstrate regulatory compliance? …………………………….………………5 References …................................................................................................................................................6 How could administrative, technical, and physical controls introduce a false sense of security? Administrative, Technical, and Physical controls introduce a false sense of security by the indication of what we use to safeguard delicate data and protect individuals’ privacy. Any complex system is prone to inherit a false sense of security. Having a false sense of security is widespread among individuals who own and operate a personal computer within their homes. Nothing is ever really secured. It would be safe to say that something is secured within the terms of information security. [ (Nahn, 2008) ] The idea of purchasing a virus protection suggests that all personal information will be safeguarded and protected, which gives individuals a false sense of security. Additionally, having a false sense of security means that there is a presumed...
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...Hacking Countermeasures & Techniques Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Best Practices Guide to Counter DDoS attacks: This Guide will cover Best Practices to counter DDoS attacks like the attack on the Universities Registration System Server (RSS) by infected computers (Bots). The attack by rogue software installed on computers located in University Computer Labs resulted in the shutting down web access to the RSS system. Coordinated by a central controller these Bots established web connections (HTTP protocol) to the RSS using up all available bandwidth. This prevented students from accessing the Web site/server for legitimate traffic during the attack. (Schifreen, R. (2006)) This is considered a Consumption of Resources attack using up all the resources of RSS bandwidth. (Specht, S. M., & Lee, R. B. (2004)) These best practices would help prevent and/or reduce the effects of such attacks. Industry best practices to counter DDoS attacks start with documentation that addresses procedures to be followed before, during, and after an attack. (Schifreen, R. (2006)) The establishment of a Security Incident Response Team (SIPT) trained to react to incidents reduces damage and duration of outages. Best practices include; training, network configuration, patch management, access control lists, encryption, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, and traffic shaping. (Cunningham, B, Dykstra, T, Fuller, E, Gatford, C, Gold, A, Hoagberg, M, Hubbard, A, Little, C, Manzuik, S,...
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...threats and malware are being reported on the internet. They would also like the security group to give the company’s executive leadership a detailed report regarding the threats, vulnerabilities and the overall risks that may be present in our current corporate infrastructure. The security department for the organization is relatively small and short on resources so this task has been given to me to do the research and create an executive report detailing the current vulnerabilities, risks and threats and potential impact to our network should we have any security incidents. “Unfortunately, there are inherent risks to computer usage — hackers, viruses, worms, spyware, malware, unethical use of stolen passwords and credentials, unauthorized data removal by employees with USB flash drives, or servers crashing and bringing productivity to a halt” ("Cybersecurity," 2013) . The CGF network is a typical office network composed of an external firewall with an external DMZ with public use servers, and internal firewall protecting the corporate network. The internal CGF network includes Microsoft Windows OS workstations and enterprise servers supporting: web, exchange, file, AD and FTP servers, additionally there are 100 workstations consisting of desktops and laptops, VOIP telephones and a wireless access point for corporate users. The overall corporate network architecture follows best industry practices by using a...
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...incorporates the business reason for applying certain permissions to those users who require access. 2. Security Operations and Administration This domain covers the security of an organization as a whole, dealing with the best practices and end results, of to how security is accomplished. It incorporates the documentation required to present the steps that will ensure the C-I-A of an organizations network. 3. Monitoring and Analysis This domain deals with activities that are accountable for collecting information. This covers sifting through the log files, and auditing the system looking for events, or possible attack paths. It also covers auditing internal use to ensure that the users are following best practices and adhering to the AUP. 4. Risk, Response, and Recovery This area covers the entire real of risk management. This includes identifying risk and ways to mitigate it, protocol to responding to various incidents, and business continuity planning. 5. Cryptography This domain covers the protection of information, primarily done by altering the data to ensure its integrity. . It also deals with the key management of digital signatures. 6. Networks and Communications This domain applied to the network infrastructure and the measures of security taken to ensure the integrity of its data. It protects the data transmitted in both the private and public communication networks. 7. Malicious Code and Activity This domain covers the art of hacking itself. Someone who works...
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...Administrators are the ones responsible for ensuring computers work in the business world. Along with that responsibility, comes the accountability when the operating systems (OS) fail to meet business needs. Maintaining the security of e-commerce and business processes is a major concern for system administrators. Protecting the operating systems is the main component when it comes to shielding all the information systems. The software scripts of the OS are what enable network devices, servers and desktops to communicate as a whole. OS is the glue that keeps all the files, hardware, and software together. The OS role includes managing files, processing controls of computer programs, and serving as GUI between the computer and user. With all the responsibility an OS is bound to have weaknesses. Typically, security vulnerabilities are usually rooted from glitches/bugs in the scripts that run beneath the OS. The most commonly used OS are Unix, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows. With Windows being the leading OS, security patches have to be downloaded constantly. With out identifying a specific OS, there are advantages and disadvantages that can be implemented to protect the OS. Advantages of Securing OS Mitigating internal security threats is a common practice that should have a plan of action to protect business systems as a whole. Securing the physical hardware; servers, consoles routers etc. is essential. The actual system it self should be physically protected and authorized personal...
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...16, 2014 Table of Contents Emerging Cybersecurity Policies in the Federal Government 3 Emerging Policies and Practices 4 Defense in Depth (DID) 5 Security Risk Frameworks 6 Test Driven Development 8 Business Service Frameworks 9 Acceptance and Preparation for Failure 11 The Federal Government and these Emerging Policies and Practices 13 The Feds and Defense in Depth 14 The Feds and Security Risk Frameworks 14 The Feds and Test Driven Development 16 The Feds and Business Service Frameworks 17 The Feds and Acceptance and Preparation for Failure 19 How could the Feds continue to improve 20 References 22 Emerging Cybersecurity Policies in the Federal Government One of the largest and most important enterprises there is to protect in the cyber security realm are the various networks that make up the federal government. This massive undertaking to secure the systems, networks, and data of the various governmental agencies is a never ending uphill battle. The requirements of the federal government enterprise to be globally far reaching, as well as user friendly, scalable, and multi-functional lie in direct contrast with the additional requirements for the data the federal government enterprise harbors to be secure with extremely high availability, integrity and confidentiality. This balancing act of usability versus security is common among all enterprises, but it is radically highlighted within the federal government sector due to...
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...Security Monitoring In today’s business world an organization may consist of many different applications which require a certain level of risk assessment and security measures. Each application within the organization needs to be thoroughly reviewed in order to determine the associated risks and ways in which to protect against them. Another factor to be considered is that risk may vary between internal and external applications. There are many activities which can be incorporated into an organizations security plan which will help to mitigate possible risks and the loss that result from security breaches. It will be difficult for a company to achieve information security objectives without security event monitoring. Security event monitoring is derived from the general practice of monitoring activities that occur on a computer system. Security event monitoring involves recording information that represents activity and analyzing recorded information to identify and respond to questionable activities i.e.; possible security events Making Security Monitoring a Part of Your Best Security Practices. This first step would be to identify what exactly is considered questionable activity. While there is defiantly some level of activity which is considered acceptable the rules and boundaries must be clearly defined. An organization must take into consideration the applications to be used and the minimum level of security that can be used which will still...
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...physical structure and over a network. Technical controls are far-reaching in scope and encompass such technologies as: * Encryption * Smart cards * Network authentication * Access control lists (ACLs) * File integrity auditing software Logical controls (also called technical controls) use software and data to monitor and control access to information and computing systems. For example: passwords, network and host based firewalls, network intrusion detection systems, access control lists, and data encryption are logical controls. An important logical control that is frequently overlooked is the principle of least privilege. The principle of least privilege requires that an individual, program or system process is not granted any more access privileges than are necessary to perform the task. A blatant example of the failure to adhere to the principle of least privilege is logging into Windows as user Administrator to read Email and surf the Web. Violations of this principle can also occur when an individual collects additional access privileges over time. This happens when employees' job duties change, or they are promoted to a new position, or they transfer to another department. The access privileges required by their new duties are frequently added onto their already existing access privileges which may no longer be necessary or appropriate. How could Administrative, Technical, and Physical Controls introduce a false sense of security? Administrative, Technical...
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...IS3340-WINDOWS SECURITY | BEST PRACTICES IN MANAGING CHANCES TO WINDOWS SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS | UNIT 10 DISCUSSION 1 | | | 5/29/2014 | | Just as Ken 7 Windows Limited is experiencing Denial of Service attacks, many corporate websites have suffered from illegal DoS attacks more than once. Companies that learn how to turn these experiences to their advantage go a long way to ensuring it doesn't happen again. The summary of what is being seen on the infrastructure is thus; * Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on the Web Servers supporting Ken 7 Windows clients. * Remote clients report connection failures/difficulty accessing Ken 7 Windows planning and order management software application The events of a network attack can uncover some very important mistakes and provide more than a few lessons. Turning these lessons into best practices is where the rewards of such adversity are realized. Ken 7 Windows can arrive at these best practices by asking: "How are we vulnerable?" The following best practices are a sample of some of the common conclusions following a DoS attack. 1. Create a virtual private network (VPN) for authenticated user. 2. Separate authentication an anonymous users on separate servers (some on different subnets). 3. Use firewall rule to close all ports except 80 (HTTP-Hypertext Transfer Protocol) & 443 (HHTPS-Hypertext Transfer Protocol over TLS/SSL). 4. Restrict all anonymous user accounts. 5. Use Kerberos...
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...Layered Security in Plant Control Environments Ken Miller Senior Consultant Ensuren Corporation KEYWORDS Plant Controls, Layered Security, Access Control, Computing Environment, Examination, Detection, Prevention, Encryption, Compartmentalization ABSTRACT Process control vendors are migrating their plant control technologies to more open network and operating environments such as Unix, Linux, Windows, Ethernet, and the Internet Protocol. Migrating plant controls to open network and operating environments exposes all layers of the computing environment to unauthorized access. Layered security can be used to enhance the level of security for any computing environment. Layered security incorporates multiple security technologies in each computing layer to provide resistance to unauthorized intrusion, while reducing the risk of failure from a single technology. Layered security requires acceptance of a model, development of an access control plan, compartmentalization of the network, and implementation of core security products that address examination, detection, prevention, and encryption. Layered security is considered a “best practice” in any computing environment, and should be widely used in critical control environments. INTRODUCTION Plant control environments have traditionally been built on proprietary technology. This proprietary technology provided a reasonable level of security from unauthorized access due to its “closed” nature, and lack of connection...
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...PCI DSS and the Seven Domains As a business that is entering into the web business and having the ability to receive payment from Credit Cards negates that the business now complies with some standards that secures all of the customers information from misuse and inappropriate access from unauthorized persons.. To do this some logical approaches and best practices have been proven to facilitate a business meeting the PCI DSS standards. These best practices start with a simple install of a firewall that isolates the business' network from unauthorized outside access to the customer's information. Also, make sure that all defaults setting on the network are changed as the default information is a generally known value and easy to bypass security if not changed. (Gibson, 2011) These are generally good practices for security on any network anyway, but definitely a good start to achieving the PCI DSS standard. Once these measures are taken, it is now important to protect the data that you are using from the customer to complete a purchases. The best way is to setup access control measure within the LAN and that the LAN to WAN interface is protected by a firewall. When using the information to authorize outside of the LAN environment it is important to protect the information by encrypting the data being sent to the authorizing entity. By doing this you can further protect the information stored at your business from unwanted access and viewing. Within the business itself...
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...Assessment Questions & Answers Network/Security Assessment Questionnaire Network Assessment – Required Information 1. Do you have detailed logical network drawings? If so, please attach. 2. What Directory service, if any, is in use? 3. How many network elements do you have? List each, including make and model or attach list. 5 4. Have you configured multiple networks on this infrastructure? no 5. What internal (RFC1918 or otherwise not-Internet-routable) IP address ranges do you use? 6. What external (Internet routable) address ranges do you use? 7. What protocols are in use on your network? 8. What is the role of each network? (Attach list if multiple networks.) 9. How many hosts do you have on the network? 10. What operating systems are used among your servers and workstations? 11. What applications rely on your network(s)? 12. How many Internet-exposed servers are on your network? 13. What applications do you use to manage your network(s)? 14. What geographic locations connect to your network(s)? 15. What are your future growth plans for your network(s)? Security Assessment – Required Information 1. Do you have firewalls, ACLs, or other types of traffic filters in place within your network? If yes, please describe. 2. What is the general firewall policy: Default permit, default deny inbound, default permit outbound? 3. Do you have any other filtering technologies implemented at the network or host level, such as data...
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