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Administrative Access

Every operating system enables you to create user accounts and grant those accounts a certain level of access to files and folders in that computer. As an administrator, supervisor, or root user, you have full control over just about every aspect of the computer. Windows XP, in particular, makes it entirely too easy to give users administrative access to the computer, especially Windows XP Home, which allows only two kinds of users: administrators and limited users. Because you can’t do much as a limited user, most home and small office systems simply use multiple administrator accounts. If you need to control access, you really need to use non-Home versions of Windows.

System Crash/Hardware Failure

As with any technology, computers can and will fail—usually when you can least afford for it to happen. Hard drives crash, the power fails—it’s all part of the joy of working in the computing business. You need to create redundancy in areas prone to failure (such as installing backup power in case of electrical failure) and perform those all-important data backups. Chapter 16, “Securing Windows Resources,” goes into detail about using backups and other issues involved in creating a stable and reliable system.

Essential/Practical Application

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EXAM TIP CompTIA considers security to be an extremely important topic, whether you’re at the Essentials level or at Practical Application. Unlike other chapters, almost every single topic covered in the rest of this chapter applies equally to the Practical Application exam as it does to the Essential exam. In other words, you need to know everything in this chapter to pass either CompTIA A+ certification exam.

Physical Theft

A fellow network geek once challenged me to try to bring down his newly installed network. He had just installed a powerful and expensive firewall router and was convinced that I couldn’t get to a test server he added to his network just for me to try to access. After a few attempts to hack in over the Internet, I saw that I wasn’t going to get anywhere that way. So I jumped in my car and drove to his office, having first outfitted myself in a techy-looking jumpsuit and an ancient ID badge I just happened to have in my sock drawer. I smiled sweetly at the receptionist and walked right by my friend’s office (I noticed he was smugly monitoring incoming IP traffic by using some neato packet-sniffing program) to his new server. I quickly pulled the wires out of the back of his precious server, picked it up, and walked out the door. The receptionist was too busy trying to figure out why her e-mail wasn’t working to notice me as I whisked by her carrying the 65-pound server box. I stopped in the hall and called him from my cell phone.

Me (cheerily): “Dude, I got all your data!”

Him (not cheerily): “You rebooted my server! How did you do it?”

Me (smiling): “I didn’t reboot it—go over and look at it!”

Him (really mad now): “YOU THIEF! YOU STOLE MY SERVER!”

Me (cordially): “Why, yes. Yes, I did. Give me two days to hack your password in the comfort of my home, and I’ll see everything! Bye!”

I immediately walked back in and handed him the test server. It was fun. The moral here is simple: Never forget that the best network software security measures can be rendered useless if you fail to protect your systems physically!

Virus/Spyware

Networks are without a doubt the fastest and most efficient vehicles for transferring computer viruses among systems. News reports focus attention on the many virus attacks from the Internet, but a huge number of viruses still come from users who bring in programs on floppy disks, writable optical discs, and USB drives. The “Network Security” section of this chapter describes the various methods of virus infection and what you need to do to prevent virus infection of your networked systems.

Security Concepts and Technologies

Once you’ve assessed the threats to your computers and networks, you need to take steps to protect those valuable