CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [455]
But what does computer security mean? Is it an antivirus program? Is it big, complex passwords? Sure, it’s both of these things, but what about the fact that your laptop can be stolen easily?
To secure computers, you need both a sound strategy and proper tactics. From a strategic sense, you need to understand the threat from unauthorized access to local machines as well as the big threats posed when computers go onto networks. Part of the big picture means to know what policies, software, and hardware to put in place to stop those threats. From a tactical in-the-trenches sense, you need to master the details, to know how to implement and maintain the proper tools. Not only do you need to install antivirus programs in your users’ computers, for example, but you also need to update those programs regularly to keep up with the constant barrage of new viruses.
Analyzing Threats
Threats to your data and PC come from two directions: accidents and malicious people. All sorts of things can go wrong with your computer, from users getting access to folders they shouldn’t see to a virus striking and deleting folders. Files can be deleted, renamed, or simply lost. Hard drives can die, and optical discs get scratched and rendered unreadable. Accidents happen and even well-meaning people can make mistakes.
Unfortunately, a lot of people out there intend to do you harm. Add that intent together with a talent for computers, and you have a deadly combination. Let’s look at the following issues:
Unauthorized access
Data destruction, accidental or deliberate
Administrative access
Catastrophic hardware failures
Viruses/spyware
Historical/Conceptual
Unauthorized Access
Unauthorized access occurs when a person accesses resources without permission. Resources in this case mean data, applications, and hardware. A user can alter or delete data; access sensitive information, such as financial data, personnel files, or e-mail messages; or use a computer for purposes the owner did not intend.
Not all unauthorized access is malicious—often this problem arises when users who are randomly poking around in a computer discover that they can access resources in a fashion the primary user did not intend. Unauthorized access becomes malicious when outsiders knowingly and intentionally take advantage of weaknesses in your security to gain information, use resources, or destroy data!
One of the ways to gain unauthorized access is through intrusion. You might imagine someone kicking in a door and hacking into a computer, but more often than not it’s someone sitting at a home computer, trying various passwords over the Internet. Not quite as glamorous, but still.…
Dumpster diving is the generic term for anytime a hacker goes through your refuse, looking for information. This is also a form of intrusion. The amount of sensitive information that makes it into any organization’s trash bin boggles the mind! Years ago, I worked with an IT security guru who gave me and a few other IT people a tour of our office’s trash. In one 20-minute tour of the personal wastebaskets of one office area, we had enough information to access the network easily, as well as to embarrass seriously more than a few people. When it comes to getting information, the trash is the place to look!
Social Engineering
Although you’re more likely to lose data through accident, the acts of malicious users get the vast majority of headlines. Most of these attacks come under the heading of social engineering—the process of using or manipulating people inside the networking environment to gain access to that network from the outside—which covers the many ways humans can use other humans to gain unauthorized information. This unauthorized information may be a network login, a credit card number, company customer data—almost anything you might imagine that one person or organization may not want a person outside