How You Can Secure a Wi-Fi Network

Wi-Fi is the latest technology and the ease of Wi-Fi networks make it very popular among people in no time. In last decade Wi-Fi become most popular term for who uses computers. Wireless Networks rapidly marketed, adopted and deployed by organizations and individuals

Wireless Network allows freedom from cables and you can roam round in house and your office and especially in big work spaces you can easily use wireless network. As far as wireless security concerns, wireless does not offer protection of wired network by default. In wire network you can easily trace out any kind of interference but in wireless network you did not know who is in your network paradigm and is very easy for hacker to access networks because wireless radio wave signals are all over your premises and can easily tap, a person tap your signal of your wireless device nearby your building or car parking lot or in any hidden building part.

This technology popular very rapidly so no one thinks about security issue because people think functionality first and security second. Awareness and installation expertise are not very high and this is the main cause of un-secured networks. People buy a wireless router and establish a network, did not use encryption and make their network an un-secured network.

Wireless network device signal are easily identified by any mobile or computer device and if your network have no encryption, your network is on stake. Without encryption every one can see and get the data you are sending and receiving.

Biggest reasons of hacking wireless networks are the default setting and physical installation of wireless routers. Default settings can easily accessible by any person, people left same user name and passwords as like company default. If your network router is physically accessible by any person, it is possible any one could reset its setting to default and can access your network. Never left your Identifiers (SSID’s) left as default device settings and allow it to broadcast signals. Lack of implemented security means easy network access by unauthorized persons.

Let’s see how we can fix un-secured network access.

1. If you are new to wireless networking then go for WEP security settings and these setting your can found in your wireless router setup. You can easily access router setup by typing default IP address of router. Mostly router uses IP address “192.168.0.1”, after router shall ask you a user name and password. Write default username and password and now you are in security settings. First of all change your user name and password and keep write them on a safe place. Now you can setup your WEP setting and write a phrase in WEP setting. Make it 128bit and save your settings and logout. Restart your router and now your router is ready and secured. When you access your network it will ask you the WEP key or phrase, enter key or phrase you have given in router setup and your PC/Laptop/Mobile shall connect your wireless router. Keep save your phrase and key don’t share it with other people.

2. WEP is a primary level security and be break easily by any expert wireless hacker but it is better than nothing. If you are implementing wireless network in your professional environment you must choose WPA/WPA2 network encryption. These are much better encryption algorithms and not easy to break and sniff.

3. SSID rename and hiding is good for network security. If you hide your SSID it will not discoverable by ordinary discovering devices. If you rename and hide your SSID it will need to configure manually and that will be difficult for hack by unknown person.

4. Mac Address filtering is good if you have not guests in your networks. You can add Mac Addresses of your all network devices which are part of network and then you can block any other Mac address.

5. Advance Measures include 802.1X and device authentication also can make possible network security.

All of the above security measure did not guarantee you a 100% hack proof wireless network but it is always better than nothing.

P2P Networks and Security Issues

If you are a computer guy or not you probably heard about P2P software or P2P networks. P2P is general term for a Peer to Peer network or software and I guaranty you if you have teenager at your house then your home PC must have Peer 2 Peer software on it.

With this software you can share your files on Peers to other people around the world. Not only share your files you can download files which are available on other people computers. Files can be music files, movies, documents files or any kinds of software.

The biggest reason of popularity of peer to peer software and network is the possibility to get music, movies and other software free. For example a song cost you around 99 cents on iTune online store and a movie DVD cost you around 22 $ but here on peer to peer network you can easily download free. More dangerous is for software industry, for example a person download Adobe Photoshop which worth about 600$ but on peer to peer it is free.

But problem of peer to peer not end here, a user can face many problems from p2p network.

1. Spyware and Malware

Most of software people uses for p2p network are themselves loaded with spyware and malwares. They can throw your data and password out of your system and that can be very harmful for your personal and internet social life. Worms love to travel on peer to peer networks. If you are online your computer could be defenseless.

2. Inappropriate Material

Peer to peer networks are a sea of pornography and misname pornography. Like you might be thinking you are downloading a movie name toy story but when you finish download and run it on your computer you found inappropriate material and if you have young children in your house you never want to be in this area. Because the inappropriate material is misnamed so before download you have no idea what is going to be downloading. Truly is this the movie you are looking for on peer to peer network can be really offensive material for you and your kids. Socially and ethically I recommend that never use a peer 2 peer network.

3. Security Issue

Another main issue is the security issue because when you install a peer to peer it makes a hole in your security system and provides a direct access to peer 2 peer software. Software can easily bypass all security fire walls and barriers.

4. Privacy Issue

As we know peer to peer network bypass all security barriers and if you install application it can share your personal information on net to other users and that can harmful for your social internet life.

5. Legal Consequences

A very critical issue in developed countries. There are two organizations Recording Association of America and Motion Picture of America going after people who are using peer to peer software. State Department prosecuting them and they could be punished 5 years in jail and USD 2,50,000 for share copyrighted data on peer to peer network. State Department also fining people about USD 1,500 for one MP3 song so if a person sharing 1000 MP3 so you can imagine the fining amount.

Remove Peer to Peer Software from home PCTo remove peer to peer software from your home computer, sit with your family and talk with them who is sharing illegal data and educate your family how dangerous is the peer 2 peer software and networks. Do not only uninstall software because next day your kid will install again. Try your maximum to educate your family and give them awareness about legal consequences this kind of sharing.

Linux Basic User Security

An Open Source Operating System, which is most popular these days is Linux, Linux have more than 50 different distributions from different organization targeting different kind of users and communities and some time for specific usage like Red Hat Linux for Oracle users. This Linux distribution is specifically developed for Oracle users.

If we consider the market share of Open Source Operating system we have to realize the ground reality and ground reality is different. Open Source Operating systems have less than 10% share in common user category. Microsoft has a big share in common user category due to user-friendly and graphics. This thing make it is most popular operating system among people.

Today Linux users are very few than windows users but in future it will get a big market share. Currently Linux is using for high profile like servers and the setup’s where failure can’t be afforded. Biggest reason of using Linux is the security features of Linux. Linux also have no or less virus threat and it is a biggest edge for Linux setups.

So let’s start with some Linux, I am not making you expert of Linux but I want to tell you something interesting. You can found a wide variety of Linux tutorials on Internet. Here we are just going to discuss only the security features of Linux. Linux has Graphical User Interface and also has command line for user commands.

In security section of Linux we can found Novel App Armor which is application security program and basically dictates what an application can and cannot do.  In user security we can found user management, where you can make users and groups same like windows. Best thing we can see in security of user is the password policy. I always advice people about passwords, never use ordinary words and numbers use as your passwords because they can be crack easily. In Linux you can restrict your user for password selection with password policy.

You can off and on your fire wall same as windows and even if you have Ethernet cards more than one you can easily manage your Ethernet cards with your file wall. In Linux user restriction and directory access is very out class, that’s why you can see 80% of internet based on Linux. In Linux we have directory permission (Read, write and Execute or rwx) and we can restrict our user with these permissions, for example an administrator has all permissions = rwx mean admin can read, write and execute. Other user like a power user has permissions = rw- means power user can Read, write but cannot execute some application. For public permission can be like this = r- – means user can only read, no write and no execute. Directory permission also showed with numbers too like following

Permissions                      owner – group – user

777  is the same as              rwx         rwx       rwx

755   is the same as             rwx         r-x         r-x

666    is the same as            rw-         rw-        rw-

744    is the same as            rwx         r–          r–

Pro HTML5 Programming, 2nd Edition

Book Description

HTML5 is here, and with it, web applications have acquired power, ease, scalability, and responsiveness like never before. With this book, developers will learn how to use the latest cutting-edge HTML5 web technology—available in the most recent versions of modern browsers—to build web applications with unparalleled functionality, speed, and responsiveness.

This new edition includes major revisions for WebSockets functionality, reflecting the new W3C specification. It also features new chapters covering the drag-and-drop API as well as SVG.

Explains how to create real-time HTML5 applications that tap the full potential of modern browsers
Provides practical, real-world examples of HTML5 features in action
Covers all the new HTML5 APIs to get you up-to-speed quickly with HTML5
Fully updated to include the latest revisions of the WebSocket API, and much more.

What you’ll learn

How the HTML5 specification has evolved
How to develop cutting-edge web applications using new HTML5 features like WebSockets, geolocation, web storage, Canvas, and audio/video
Which features are available in modern browsers
Who this book is for
Web designers and developers who want to use the latest cutting-edge technology available in current browsers
Developers who want to create dynamic, HTML5 web applications
Developers who want to know which HTML5 features are supported by modern browsers

Table of Contents

1.Overview of HTML5
2.Using the Canvas API
3.Working With Scalable Vector Graphics
4.Working with Audio and Video
5.Using the Geolocation API
6.Using the Communication APIs
7.Using the WebSocket API

8.Using the Forms API

9.Working with Drag-and-Drop

10.Using the Web Workers API

11.Using the Storage APIs

12.Creating Offline Web Applications

13.The Future of HTML5

Book DetailsPaperback: 352 pages

Publisher: Apress; 2nd Edition (November 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 143023864X

ISBN-13: 978-1430238645

File Size: 10.9 MiB

Email Security and Threats

We are going to talk about internet email security in this article. So be attentive and read more carefully because it is very important if you are a businessman, housewife or even a student. Internet email probably most widely used application on computers and networks. We use them in home. We use them in our businesses so very important for us.

We send and receive dozens of emails every day not like the older snail mail the actual paper letters because response time of email is very quick and now you can even receive your emails on your mobile like Blackberry or other professional mobile internet services.

Unfortunately email is a product which is using widely in world and almost all kind of people using this facility and with a wide usage it also has wide threats. Hackers attack on our computers and networks. Here we shall discus some of the email threats we can face.

1. Phishing

Phishing is essentially a scam where a fake email sends to an unsuspecting recipient. Email look like a genuine email from a reputable company or organization. Usually the victims of these emails are clients of banks and e-commerce website’s clients. Because they look like an email from a trusted organization so the client of that organization open and see it these emails normally have a link inside which refer you to another website which is same like your trusted website’s counterfeit and for example they require a logon from you and when you logon enter your user name and password and after that they give you some kind message like server is down try after some time but on the back end they secretly record your password and use it immediately to steal your money.

How I can save from Phishing?

Yes you can save yourself from phishing not with technology just with a little common sense. When you receive this kind of email and you open that email never click any link if they insist you to update your information.

Check sender email, because the sender email name showing you the name of your trusted organization but when you inspect it, it is not the email of your trusted organization.
If you still confuse on sender’s email. Simple call your trusted bank or other shopping site for confirmation of this email. Tell them date and everything about email and you will find your answer. If you found it bogus don’t safe it, just delete it and mark the email as spam.

2. Chain Emails/Hoaxes

Next threat is the chain email or hoaxes. Like someone email you that X person sad story and ask you to send this email to X number of people. Like campaign of anything on email that can take up valuable bandwidth, waste your time and can also forward malware or any virus. Sometimes these are feel good emails but you don’t know what is behind that and you can be a part of malware victim and also motivator for spread malware.

How can I protect from Chain emails and Hoaxes?

Off course you can save from chain emails, never be a part of chain email because once you all your email in chain email then you always receive chain emails. Some of chain email sender maintains emails record and you will in that record. Make your proper email spam setting. Keep you contacts up-to-date and that make your inbox happy. After that you only receive your contacts email and useful emails.

3. Virus/Malware threats

Virus/Malware attachment emails, yes 80% people open an email attachment to check what is inside because it is human nature and nature insist him to open the email and check what is inside may be some interesting inside and that give you collateral damage in 90% cases. It also can come from your trusted computer if it is infected.

How I can protect my computer from email virus/malware threats?

For this you have to make inflexible yourself for email check. Only open email with attachments from your trusted email and always scan your email even it is from your trusted computer or email. Update your email scanner in your antivirus. Always use antivirus which have an email scanner built-in. One thing in last “use email smartly”

Information Technology Ethics

Information Technology Ethics are very important for computer users and computer professionals. As a computer security Investigator this thing governs our conduct when we deal with computers systems data. When you are finding evidences on crime scenes or finding facts from any public or private computers. The thing required in this process is the knowledge and pass through laws and regulation and something we must follow that is ethics because it can disclose and sabotage some one’s privacy.

These days when we talk about human rights, computer privacy is also included in this campaign and this topic is getting lot of attention in computer security world. When we talk about ethics in information technology there is couple of guideline available for this.

Privacy is probably very complex issue especially when we talk about the different definition of privacy in different countries, what consider private and what consider not private. Privacy policy can be differ on social and culture bases and also base of religion but when we talk about international internet privacy policy almost all conscience are same.

When we talk about Ethics in Information Technology, Ethics mean to take the “RIGHT” course of action, whether it’s the law or not. For example law did not tell you to feed hungry people but ethically you perform this task because we all think this is right. Law did not tell you to kind with animals but ethically you have to kind with animals. Ethics don’t come from laws but laws support ethics. Ethics are depend upon our values and these values come from variety of sources like parents how they raise us, peers and friends, religion and practice of religion etc.

Information Technology has its own ethics. In Information Technology the ethics means to act responsibly. Let’s see some points of ethics in Information Technology. Ethics in Information Technology mean to act responsibly with regards to storage, transmission, access and protection of data. Several professional organizations on international standards have code of ethics that computer professional agree to abide.

You can found a document name RFC 1087 on internet and it covers internet ethics. Some of main points of RFC 1087 are following here.

Unethical and unacceptable any activity which purposely:

      1. Seeks to gain unauthorized access to the resource of the internet.
2. Disrupts the indented use of the internet.
3. Waste resources like people, capacity, computer, data though any action
4. Destroy the integrity of computer based information
5. Compromises the privacy of users

Both individual and companies must practice ethical behavior in order to

·  Maintain reputation

·  Lower risk of liability

·  Avoid breaking the law

IPv6 Address Syntax, Address Types and Headers

The most attractive and distinguishing feature of IPv6 is its use of much larger addresses.IPv6 is based on 128 bits, IPv6 is four times longer than the 32-bit IPv4 address. A 32-bit address space allows for 232, or 4,294,967,296, possible addresses. A 128-bit address space allows for 2128, or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 (or 3.4 x 1038), possible addresses. IPv4 was developed and implemented in 1970′s it was 32bit and due to recent change in technology and rapidly growth of devices which are interacting with internet and few years back internet technology stack holder decided to replace the IPv4 with IPv6. Looking at future, technology developer says With IPv6, it is even harder to conceive that the IPv6 address space will ever be consumed. To help put this number in perspective, a 128-bit address space provides 665,570,793,348,866,943,898,599 (6.65 x 1023) addresses for every square meter of the Earth’s surface. Remember that the decision to make the IPv6 address 128 bits in length was not so that every square meter of the Earth could have 6.65 x 1023 addresses. IPv6 Address Syntax IPv4 addresses are delineated in dotted-decimal format. The 32-bit IPv4 address is separated along 8-bit boundaries. 8 bits is converted to its decimal equivalent and separated by periods. For IPv6, the 128-bit address is divided along 16-bit boundaries, and each 16-bit block is converted to a 4-digit hexadecimal number and separated by colons. The resulting representation is called colon hexadecimal.

The following is an IPv6 address in binary form:

0000001010101010000000001111000000111110001010001001110001010101

The 128-bit address is divided along 16-bit boundaries:

0010000111011010 0000000011010011 0000000000000000 0010111100111011

Each 16-bit block is converted to hexadecimal and delimited with colons. The result is:

21DA:00D3:0000:2F3B:02AA:00FF:FE28:9C5A

IPv6 address representation is further simplified by suppressing the leading zeros within each 16-bit block.

However, each block must have at least a single digit. With leading zero suppression, the result is:

21DA:D3:0:2F3B:2AA:FF:FE28:9C5A

There are three types of IPv6 addresses:

1.Unicast

A unicast address associates a single interface within the scope of the type of address. The scope of an address is the region of the IPv6 network over which the address is unique. With the appropriate unicast routing topology, packets addressed to a unicast address are delivered to a single interface. To accommodate load-balancing systems, RFC 2373 allows for multiple interfaces to use the same address as long as they appear as a single interface to the IPv6 implementation on the host.

2.Multicast

A multicast address identifies zero or more interfaces. With the appropriate multicast routing topology, packets addressed to a multicast address are delivered to all interfaces identified by the address.

3.Anycast

An anycast address identifies multiple interfaces. With the appropriate unicast routing topology, packets addressed to an anycast address are delivered to a single interface-the nearest interface that is identified by the address. The nearest interface is defined as being the closest in terms of routing distance. A multicast address is used for one-to-many communication, with delivery to multiple interfaces. An anycast address is used for one-to-one-of-many communication, with delivery to a single interface. In all cases, IPv6 addresses identify interfaces, not nodes. A node is identified by any unicast address assigned to any one of its interfaces. IPv6 header As you know that IPv6 Is a streamlined version of the IPv4 header. Developers wipe out fields that are either unneeded or rarely used, and adds a field that provides better support for real-time traffic. we can see here all headers details

IPv6 header

As you know that IPv6 Is a streamlined version of the IPv4 header. Developers wipe out fields that are either unneeded or rarely used, and adds a field that provides better support for real-time traffic. we can see here all headers details

Version Version field points the version of IP and is set to 6. The size of this field is 4 bits. While the purpose of the Version field is defined in the same way for both IPv4 and IPv6, its value is not used to pass the packet to an IPv4 or IPv6 protocol layer. Version identification is performed through a protocol identification field in the link-layer header.

Traffic Class Traffic Class field points the IPv6 packet’s class or priority. The size of this field is 8 bits. This field provides functionality similar to the IPv4 Type of Service field. In RFC 2460, the values of the Traffic Class field are not defined. However, an IPv6 implementation is required to provide a means for an application layer protocol to specify the value of the Traffic Class field for experimentation. Like the Type of Service field in the IPv4 header, RFC 2474 provides an alternate definition of the Traffic Class field in the form of the Differentiated Services (DS) field.

Flow Label The Flow Label field indicates that this packet belongs to a specific sequence of packets between a source and destination, requiring special handling by intermediate IPv6 routers. The size of this field is 20 bits. The flow label is used for non-default quality-of-service (QoS) connections, such as those needed by real-time data (voice and video). For default router handling, the Flow Label field is set to 0. There can be multiple flows between a source and destination, as distinguished by separate non-zero flow labels. Like the Traffic Class field, exact details of the Flow Label field’s use are not yet defined.

Payload Length The Payload Length field indicates the length of the IPv6 payload. The size of this field is 16 bits. The Payload Length field includes the extension headers and the upper-layer PDU. With 16 bits, an IPv6 payload of up to 65,535 bytes can be indicated. For payload lengths greater than 65,535 bytes, the Payload Length field is set to 0 and the Jumbo Payload option is used in the Hop-by-Hop Options extension header, which is covered later in this chapter.

Next Header The Next Header field indicates either the type of the first extension header (if present) or the protocol in the upper-layer PDU (such as TCP, UDP, or ICMPv6). The size of this field is 8 bits. When indicating an upper-layer protocol, the Next Header field uses the same values that are used in the IPv4 Protocol field.

Hop Limit The Hop Limit field indicates the maximum number of links over which the IPv6 packet can travel before being discarded. The size of this field is 8 bits. The Hop Limit field is similar to the IPv4 TTL field, except that there is no historical relation to the amount of time (in seconds) that the packet is queued at the router. When Hop Limit equals 0 at a router, the router sends an ICMPv6 Time Exceeded-Hop Limit Exceeded in Transit message to the source and discards the packet.

Source Address The Source Address field indicates the IPv6 address of the originating host. The size of this field is 128 bits.

Destination Address The Destination Address field indicates the IPv6 address of the current destination node. The size of this field is 128 bits. In most cases the Destination Address field is set to the final destination address. However, if a Routing extension header is present, the Destination Address field might be set to the address of the next intermediate destination.