SecureCall Starting Page
There are many people using a wireless network connection at home, or the office, and connect to the wireless network via a wireless Access Point (AP), and this connection method is called “Infrastructure Mode”. When using this secure wireless network configured in “Infrastructure Mode”, you are using MAC address filtering which uses some level of secure data encryption. You will have made changes to your AP security configuration in order to prevent others from using your network link or from capturing your data.
Those not using “Infrastructure Mode”, and configured to transfer data directly machine to machine, or “Ad-Hoc“, should be aware of of the following security problems. Ad-Hoc networking allows you to communicate with other wireless Ethernet systems directly without the need of a wireless access point. This Ad-Hoc peer to peer configuration works well, however the problem is that people tend to just set it up and forget about it. Whilst at home this may not pose any problem, travelling could cause you many security problems.
Classic examples of this lack of security using an Ad-Hoc wifi environment may be found among the many commuters traveling to work by train or even aeroplane, using their laptops to catch up with their daily tasks whilst transiting to or from the office.Those laptops able to use an Ad-Hoc WiFi network can be identified by other local computers with WiFi ability.
It is quite possible to see another laptop’s wireless Ethernet availability and access it’s hard drive by using the comand structure
“net use * <”file://\\otherlaptopIPAddress\C$”>\\otherlaptopIPAddress\C$” ” /USER:administrator”.
You will get confirmation of successfull connection and a network link to it’s C drive. This will be entirely possible when there is a lack of security on any laptop computer starting with securing it’s computer’s local administrator account which often has no password configured.
Data that you may have forgotten about but which could be viewable to the public could be your customer business listings or even your personal finances and banking information.
The fact is, whether it be “Infrastructure Mode”, or “Ad-Hoc” wireless communications, if not properly configured and secured, can and will pose a major security risk.
So, If your are using wireless Ethernet, no matter what configuration, follow these few rules and keep yourself secure against most common types of security failures.
- Use strong passwords, especially those that have administrative control over your system.
- Use some sort of wireless encryption – anything is better than nothing.
- Where possible, use MAC addresses filtering to restrict unwanted systems from attaching to your wireless network.
These days we are sending more and more files to each other online as the internet has become an everyday part of our social and working lives. This means that we are relying on the internet to do more and more – online banking, emailing, shopping etc. Often we transmit confidential information to someone else and this always comes with a risk. After all if we are logging onto our online banking application we will want to ensure that no one else can access the data that we are entering (password etc!) or our bank details. Secure Shell (SSH) helps protect against this.
However there are other areas that SSH can offer protection from which can include the following:
- IP Spoofing. This basically prevents someone from pretending to be you. Your IP could be cloned and thousands of files sent out all over the internet, looking like they have come from your machines.
- DNS Spoofing. Where an attack fakes name server records
- Password protection. Where your passwords are intercepted and violated.
- Manipulation. Where data is compromised.
- Protection against attacks where they listen to the X authentication data and use this to gain connection to the X11 server.
SSH works on the proviso of not trusting anybody. Once it is set up it protects all the data that you send from every possible attack.
We all know that as the internet has progressed, scrupulous individuals have taken to hacking and other server compromises. Whilst some of these are just amateurs and hobbyists who do it because they can, there are others who do it to access your data and use it against you or for other non legitimate reasons
Versions of SSH are always being updated to improve on what they offer. If you do have a SSH connection installed then you should ensure that you keep up dated in order to keep your files, data and passwords as secure as possible. There is plenty of information online which gives information on the latest releases available and the extra security features that these process. The first version was released in 1995 so it stands to reason that in the following 15 years the service will have been expanded and improved upon.
There are of course server attacks that SSH cannot protect you against however that is not to say in the future that new SSH versions won’t be able to offer protection against these. For now SSH is the securest way to ensure that your data stays as safe as possible.
SSH allows for secure data transmission through networks. This requirement could be as simple as checking emails or up to covering the security for sending confidential data to someone online. Many companies now have SSH secure tunnels set up so that they can allow their employees to access email, internal company websites and files with a minimum risk of compromise even when the employee is out of the office.
Basically it can be set up that as long as an authorized user has internet access they can connect securely through the network and it doesn’t really matter what type of internet connection you have (even slow hotel internet connections will let you connect!)
Once the tunnel is set up and you try to access it, authentication procedures come into place to ensure that you are authorized to have access to the encrypted data.
Tunnel is basically a networking transportation term that means a (usually encrypted) one on one connection between two computer applications. It basically ensures the security of the data that you send between two applications like your web browser to a secure host site application. Although it can be used by staff connecting remotely to and office computer or website to catch up on emails or project work, it can be used for personal finance links to financial sites such as banks, sales outlets and private bulletin boards
Basically when we connect somewhere, say to check for email we obviously have to send our log in details to confirm we are who we say we are. By having an SSH secure log in, it means that between the time the password leaves your computer and the time it reaches the other end it is encrypted. This means if anyone does capture your password on the network during this logon procedure, the encryption should render it unusable.
Setting up a SSH secure tunnel is actually relatively easy but of course the first time you attempt to configure one you may struggle, however once you know how to set it up it can usually be accomplished very quickly. POP3 email is particularly easy to set up and also email clients such as Outlook Express are very easy to configure for connection to an SSH secure tunnel.
All data that you need to transmit via either “intranet” or “internet” needs be secure. These days we send any number of files backward and forward using email or FTP and they often contain secure data that we would not want shared with anyone else. An SSH secure tunnel ensures that whatever you send, however delicate, can be sent safely and securely.
SSH is a method of sending data between two devices securely. Known by the full name of Secure Shell it means that data exchanges between two networked devices is secure. It was originally designed to be a secure replacement for other less secure remote shells such as Telnet. These had previously sent information (passwords etc) using just normal text and so could easily be intercepted. Secure shell is mainly used on Linux or Unix based systems and allows data to be sent privately over the internet.
Secure Shell or SSH works in two main ways. Firstly it gives authentication and encryption on any files that you send and secondly it provides compression on these same files. Both of these help you securely send data to another network.
SSH has come on leaps and bounds since it was first discovered back in 1995. The first version of SSH was developed by Tatu Ylonen at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland. He decided to design something after his university network was compromised by individuals hacking into students passwords. The freeware version was first released in July 1995 and managed to gain over 20,000 in its first 6 months.
Now a days SSH protocol is even more widely used and can be found in software such as UNIX, Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux.
Reasons that you may need to use SSH include:
- Replacing RSH to execute single commands on a remote host
- Replacing Telnet and rlogin to log into a remote host
- Copying files to a remote host from a local server
- Alternative to FTP file transfer
- Tunneling or forwarding a port
- To securely have a remote server as a file-system on a local computer
These are just some of the reasons that you may have to use an SSH. Thankfully since its development in 1995 it has improved vastly with many more features for a variety of secure data sending reasons.
Sending data across the internet can be risky. Whether it is files, passwords or other data information you could be at risk from hacking attacks. Some of the ways that people hack are like checking for your password, reading your sensitive information, hijacking messages and emails, taking messages and modifying them and many other ways. Of course you must do everything you can to prevent and protect these attacks from happening to your data and by using SSH you can do just that!