The passing of each year increases the vulnerabilities of the computer networks all over the world. The attacks have become more organized, sophisticated and more difficult to detect. On the other hand, the systems are unable to prepare the right defense system to block such attacks from occurring. The following lines refer to the observations and the challenges that professionals have to endure while preparing security system for the computer networks.
Securing the Computer Network is a Necessity
Sabotaging Computer Networks:
The present security practices and the latest technologies have not been able to succeed in repelling the complex targeted attacks on the computer networks. This has been proved by a recent incident in which a malicious program by the name, “Flame”, was eventually discovered after it had evaded all types of anti-virus software detection for several years. One of the latest major studies has revealed that it has been able to identify 18 such security vulnerabilities that remained undisclosed for 30 months. This time period is sufficient for attacking and using a computer network for extracting information. If such attacks go undetected, the chances are that the computer network is made completely useless. The attack by Shamoon malware on the huge oil and energy companies’ network systems has left the machines unbootable with the data entry all erased from the system.
Dealing with DDoS Attacks:
The rate of Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS attacks has made a marked increase with the attempted attacks still on the rise. The mitigation firm for DDoS, Prolexic, has reportedly seen an increase of 88% on the Q3 2012 based DDoS attacks in comparison the previous year’s version. The increase is seen in the bandwidth as well as the time dedicated to the attacks. The year, 2013, has also witnessed DDoS attack, which supposedly crossed the 5-10 Gbps mark, to go over 60 Gbps for the attack.
You should not wait for your website to be completely demolished before you plan out a defense system. Those firms that have been successful in safeguarding their system networks from such attacks had to resort to certain measures including assessment of the various DDoS attack schemes, developing response processes in case of similar attacks and checking them through the drills for effective functionality as and when required. Therefore, all the major firms with huge Internet presence need to have such responses checked for making sure they work rightly.
Password Strife:
The last few years have been overflowing with the breaching of passwords as well as password hashes of big websites like LinkedIn, Zappos, eHarmoany, Yahoo Voice, Formspring and Last.fm. Additionally, the Internet is being scanned by attackers looking for the password- protected, exposed services like Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Secure Shell (SSH). The instances of attacks involve brute- force method of cracking which have the possibility of being displayed in the black market.
Conclusion:
The truth behind password being used as security technology has no more effectiveness as it used to previously. The world today is shifting to alternative authentication system of security which is extremely difficult to adjust with. Consequently, you become part of a phase in which security control is dysfunctional. You will need to implement measures like auditing networks that are proactive and longer passphrases as passwords to replace the weaker ones. At the same time, the attackers are also gearing up to decode the passwords and by using legitimate network and credential access. You have to stay prepared for such destructive attacks.
Simon Hopes is a renowned author who likes to pen down various topics related to technology and free ringtones. In this space, he has discussed network security challenges for computers.