Personal Firewall Research Articles

Automation of organizations using cloud technologies: security issues

The article reveals the principles of automation of organizations using cloud technologies through the prism without the peak aspect. The main stages of development of cloud technologies are characterized, the advantages of using these systems in everyday work are revealed (low consumption of financial resources, possibility of universal access to information, constant improvement of software and technologies). At the same time, attention is drawn to the main challenges facing users of cloud services: the need for a constant and uninterrupted Internet, the inability to recover information in case of loss. Security remains a major issue, therefore. The purpose of the article is to analyze the risks and possible ways to overcome them in the work of organizations with cloud technologies. It is established that the system that affects the reliable storage of information from customers can be exposed to such threats as cross-site-scripting, fishing, Trojans, viruses. This is due to the fact that, as a rule, consumers working with the cloud computing service, use an Internet browser. In order to optimize information security at this level, you need to use licensed anti-virus software packages, personal firewall tools, tools to encrypt data or information on disk, a properly configured Internet browser. It is proved that the security of virtualization mechanisms also affects the reliability of the virtual environment. For example, if the attack is organized on the monitor of virtual machines, the attacker may unnoticed by the security system, which are in the virtual machines can edit, copy or block the flow of information. Thus, if a hacker gains access to control capabilities, he will not only be able to edit data, but also steal it throughout the virtual network. Therefore, to avoid this situation, you need to protect the administration or servers of virtual machines. In addition, you need to create specialized information security tools that can monitor traffic inside the required server. At the same time, compliance with basic fire safety rules is also important for the safe operation of servers.

Classification and Analysis of Security Techniques for the User Terminal Area in the Internet Banking Service

As the Internet banking service has become popular, many users have been able to exchange goods online. Even though this offers advantage, there are cases of incidents in the Internet banking service arising from security threats. In order to counteract this problem, various security techniques have been applied over the whole area of the Internet banking service. In this paper, we analyze the results of security techniques applied in the user terminal area. In detail, we classify the existing security technologies into network domain, financial institution domain, and user terminal domain, to ensure the security of the Internet banking service. This paper focuses on security techniques in the user terminal domain. Specifically, we classify the security technologies in the user terminal domain into secure keyboard program, PKI applications, E2E encryption, antihacking program, personal firewall, removable media security, and antireverse engineering technique and describe detailed and key techniques of each security technology. For easy understanding and security analysis of security technologies, we describe each security technology in detail and explain each technology by way of example. We consider that this paper will provide criteria for evaluating the security of Internet banking services.

Systematic Literature Review on Usability of Firewall Configuration

Firewalls are network security components that handle incoming and outgoing network traffic based on a set of rules. The process of correctly configuring a firewall is complicated and prone to error, and it worsens as the network complexity grows. A poorly configured firewall may result in major security threats; in the case of a network firewall, an organization’s security could be endangered, and in the case of a personal firewall, an individual computer’s security is threatened. A major reason for poorly configured firewalls, as pointed out in the literature, is usability issues. Our aim is to identify existing solutions that help professional and non-professional users to create and manage firewall configuration files, and to analyze the proposals in respect of usability. A systematic literature review with a focus on the usability of firewall configuration is presented in the article. Its main goal is to explore what has already been done in this field. In the primary selection procedure, 1,202 articles were retrieved and then screened. The secondary selection led us to 35 articles carefully chosen for further investigation, of which 14 articles were selected and summarized. As main contributions, we propose a taxonomy of existing solutions as well as a synthesis and in-depth discussion about the state of the art in firewall usability. Among the main findings, we perceived that there is a lack (or even an absence) of usability evaluation or user studies to validate the proposed models. Although all articles are related to the topic of usability, none of them clearly defines it, and only a few actually employ usability design principles and/or guidelines.

The experiences of working carers of older people regarding access to a web‐based family care support network offered by a municipality

Policy makers in Sweden and other European Member States pay increasing attention as to how best support working carers; carers juggling providing unpaid family care for older family members while performing paid work. Exploring perceived benefits and challenges with web-based information and communication technologies as a means of supporting working carers' in their caregiving role, this paper draws on findings from a qualitative study. The study aimed to describe working carers' experiences of having access to the web-based family care support network 'A good place' (AGP) provided by the municipality to support those caring for an older family member. Content analysis of interviews with nine working carers revealed three themes: A support hub, connections to peers, personnel and knowledge; Experiencing ICT support as relevant in changing life circumstances; and Upholding one's personal firewall. Findings indicate that the web-based family care support network AGP is an accessible, complementary means of support. Utilising support while balancing caregiving, work obligations and responsibilities was made easier with access to AGP; enabling working carers to access information, psychosocial support and learning opportunities. In particular, it provided channels for carers to share experiences with others, to be informed, and to gain insights into medical and care issues. This reinforced working carers' sense of competence, helping them meet caregiving demands and see positive aspects in their situation. Carers' low levels of digital skills and anxieties about using computer-based support were barriers to utilising web-based support and could lead to deprioritising of this support. However, to help carers overcome these barriers and to better match web-based support to working carers' preferences and situations, web-based support must be introduced in a timely manner and must more accurately meet each working carer's unique caregiving needs.

Security Evaluation Metric of Windows-Based Information Security Products

Recently, when updating the products for Windows-based agents, an integrity breaches by the malicious files or unusual behavior of the product by the user\'s intentional product modulation / deletion is causing a frequent accident cases. The PC based products such as anti-virus, personal firewall (integrated PC security), data loss prevention, security USB and network access control that perform the functions of the Agent based on Windows operating systems, the product itself gets attacked and becomes neutralized or has the existence of vulnerabilities that bypass security. To prevent this, we would like to give help in the development to organize the self-protection function which are required for Windows-based information security products in metrics.Keywords: Self-Protection Function, Windows-Based Agents

Data-Provenance Verification For Secure Hosts

Malicious software typically resides stealthily on a user's computer and interacts with the user's computing resources. Our goal in this work is to improve the trustworthiness of a host and its system data. Specifically, we provide a new mechanism that ensures the correct origin or provenance of critical system information and prevents adversaries from utilizing host resources. We define data-provenance integrity as the security property stating that the source where a piece of data is generated cannot be spoofed or tampered with. We describe a cryptographic provenance verification approach for ensuring system properties and system-data integrity at kernel-level. Its two concrete applications are demonstrated in the keystroke integrity verification and malicious traffic detection. Specifically, we first design and implement an efficient cryptographic protocol that enforces keystroke integrity by utilizing on-chip Trusted Computing Platform (TPM). The protocol prevents the forgery of fake key events by malware under reasonable assumptions. Then, we demonstrate our provenance verification approach by realizing a lightweight framework for restricting outbound malware traffic. This traffic-monitoring framework helps identify network activities of stealthy malware, and lends itself to a powerful personal firewall for examining all outbound traffic of a host that cannot be bypassed.

A Combinatorics Proliferation Model with Threshold for Malware Countermeasure

Security software such as anti-virus software and personal firewall are usually installed in every host within an enterprise network. There are mainly two kinds of security software: signature-based software and anomaly-based software. Anomaly-based software generally has a “threshold” that discriminates between normal traffic and malware communications in network traffic observation. Such a threshold involves the number of packets used for behavior checking by the anomaly-based software. Also, it indicates the number of packets sent from an infected host before the infected host is contained. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model that uses discrete mathematics known as combinatorics, which is suitable for situations in which there are a small number of infected hosts. Our model can estimate the threshold at which the number of infected hosts can be suppressed to a small number. The result from our model fits very well with the result of computer simulation using typical existing scanning malware and a typical network.

전자금융거래의 안전성 강화를 위한 종단간 암호화

'05. 6월 인터넷 뱅킹으로 인한 최초 사고는 전자금융거래 보호를 위한 보안프로그램 기능을 중지하고, 이용자가 입력한 주요 금융거래정보 즉 공인인증서 비밀번호, 계좌비밀번호, 보안카드 비밀번호 등을 수집하여 이를 전자금융거래에 사용하였다. 이처럼 백신 프로그램이나 개인 방화벽과 같은 보안프로그램의 기능을 우회하는 해킹 툴에 의해 금융정보를 갈취하는 행위는 계속해서 시도되고 있다. 따라서 전자금융거래에 있어 이용자 단말기에서부터 금융기관의 금융거래서버까지 이용자가 입력한 금융거래정보를 안전하게 보호하는 것을 목적으로 전자금융시스템을 구성해야 한다. 본 논문에서는 전자금융거래에서 발생된 위협에 대해 원인을 분석하고, 이를 기반으로 현 전자금융거래인 인터넷뱅킹, 금융자동화기기, 모바일뱅킹에서 보안성 향상을 위해 고려해야 할 보안사항에 대해 기술한다. '05. June, the first Internet banking accident occurred by the malignant cord. It discontinued security programs for protecting important financial informations. A computer hacker had made a collation of password, OTP(One Time Password) values etc and illegally withdraw one´s savings from the bank using the financial information. The attackers are continuously attempted with the hacking tool under bypass security programs as the vaccine program or the personal fire-wall. Therefore, an electronic financial system should be composed with the goal which is to protect financial informations from user's terminal to a banking server. In this paper, we make an analysis of menaces in electronic financial transactions and explain considerable security issues to enhance safety in Internet banking, CD/ATM and mobile banking.

FreeNA: A Multi-Platform Framework for Inserting Upper-Layer Network Services

Networking technologies have recently been evolving and network applications are now expected to support flexible composition of upper-layer network services, such as security, QoS, or personal firewall. We propose a multi-platform framework called FreeNA that extends existing applications by incorporating the services based on user definitions. This extension does not require users to modify their systems at all. Therefore, FreeNA is valuable for experimental system usage. We implemented FreeNA on both Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems, and evaluated their functionality and performance. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of FreeNA including details on how to insert network services into existing applications and how to create services in a multi-platform environment. We also give an example implementation of a service with SSL, a functionality comparison with relevant systems, and our performance evaluation results. The results show that FreeNA offers finer configurability, composability, and usability than other similar systems. We also show that the throughput degradation of transparent service insertion is 2% at most compared with a method of directly inserting such services into applications.

Protecting browsers from DNS rebinding attacks

DNS rebinding attacks subvert the same-origin policy of browsers, converting them into open network proxies. Using DNS rebinding, an attacker can circumvent organizational and personal firewalls, send spam email, and defraud pay-per-click advertisers. We evaluate the cost effectiveness of mounting DNS rebinding attacks, finding that an attacker requires less than $100 to hijack 100,000 IP addresses. We analyze defenses to DNS rebinding attacks, including improvements to the classic “DNS pinning,” and recommend changes to browser plug-ins, firewalls, and Web servers. Our defenses have been adopted by plug-in vendors and by a number of open-source firewall implementations.

Revealing Packed Malware

To evade malicious content detection, malware authors use packers, binary tools that instigate code obfuscation. By using executable packers, modern malware can completely bypass personal firewalls and antivirus (AV) scanners.Reverse engineering (RE) has become an important approach to analyzing a program's logic flow and internal data structures, such as system call functions. Security researchers and AV products must be able to unpack and inspect the payloads hidden within the packed programs using RE tools.

Student Motivation in Computer Networking Courses

As it turns out, all of these hands-on projects are very useful and applicable to the learners’ daily tasks and activities, and lead to a higher form of student motivation, namely, selfmotivation. Teaching theory with hands-on components is shown to be an effective way of conveying information to learners [1]. This is particularly true for teaching computer networking courses, since the use of communication applications such as email and Web browsers has become common for most in recent years. For teaching various computer networking courses, the author has several hands-on projects utilizing advanced computer technologies and freely available software. For example, Java applets can be used for live animation, Ethereal for monitoring packets in transmission, ZoneAlarm for creating personal firewalls, and Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer for analyzing the security settings of a computer. These technologies and software are evidence that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. As it turns out, all of these hands-on projects are very useful and applicable to the learners’ daily tasks and activities, and lead to a higher form of student motivation, namely, self-motivation. In each of the following sections, the technology and student motivation associated with each assigned project are described in detail. Thus, section 1 deals with Java applets, section 2 with Ethereal, and section 3 with computer network security software.

Rootkit detection from outside the Matrix

The main purpose of this article is to present a secure engine which is specifically designed for a security analyst when studying rootkits and all kinds of programs which interact at a deep level with the operating system, including Anti-Virus, Personal Firewall and HIPS programs. State-of-the-Art algorithms for rootkit detection are pre- sented in this paper. Forensic techniques to monitor the system’s critical components and advanced heuristics are also used. This survey is based on a proof-of-concept human analysis framework which puts forward a reliable system for automatically gaining information about a rootkit and its interaction with the OS executive, but focuses on human decision as a detection process without the same limitations or constraints as product-oriented anti-rootkit programs. We use the new point of view provided by this framework to take a fresh look at heuristics and forensics which are currently used by rootkit detectors.

New threat of Apple Mac OS X

Attention has swung back to Apple with the news that it is now worth more than Dell – in terms of market capitalisation. Yet in the security world Apple equipment is not getting the attention it requires – with remarkable complacency in particular over Mac OS X. In the past five years, OS X and Apple have gained in popularity. In the first quarter of its 2006 financial year, Apple shipped over 1.2 million OS X powered computers, an increase of 20% for the same quarter in 2005. But focus on OS X security has not necessarily been growing at the same rate. OS X users have been generally pretty relaxed about security, mainly as the Macintosh operating system historically has not been a target for attackers. There are very few security tools for OS X when compared to Windows; programs such as personal firewalls, anti-spyware, and anti-virus are few and far between. With Apple's switch to Intel-based systems after years of using IBM's Power PC chips, the sense of security is about to change. Since its release in 1999, the Apple Mac OS X has been an operating system for geeks and professionals alike. For years, Macintosh computers were known for their graphic arts and productivity applications. But with OS X, the mainline Apple operating system added an extra twist: a UNIX-based core that appealed to those what wanted to use UNIX but also have a real user interface and access to software from major vendors.

An Antitrust Tying Analysis of Microsoft’s Security Software Products

This article discusses the possible legal ramifications of Microsoft’s recent entry into the market for security software, such as personal firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software. Microsoft has encountered antitrust problems in the past by bundling software with the Windows operating system, and some commentators have suggested that Microsoft’s next antitrust battle will be over security software. The purpose of this article is to determine whether Microsoft’s new security offerings could constitute illegal tying arrangements. The article provides a technical background, including a description of operating systems and security software in general, an overview of Microsoft’s current and proposed security offerings, and reasons why security software is needed. It then discusses the hypothetical outcome of a tying claim against Microsoft under Section 1 of the Sherman Act by analyzing Microsoft’s product offerings under the traditional per se tying rule and under the rule of reason. It concludes by presenting several possible remedies if a tying violation were to be found.

Perceptions of End-Users on the Requirements in Personal Firewall Software

Information security is usually considered a technical discipline with much attention being focused on topics such as encryption, hacking, break-ins, and credit card theft. Security products such as anti-virus programs and personal firewall software, are now available for end-users to install on their computers to protect against threats endemic to networked computers. The behavioral aspects related to maintaining enterprise security have received little attention from researchers and practitioners. Using Q-sort analysis, this study used students as end-users in a graduate business management security course to investigate issues affecting selection of personal firewall software in organizations. Based on the Q-sort analysis of end-users in relation to seven variables identified from review of the information security literature, three distinct group characteristics emerged. Similarities and differences between groups are investigated and implications of these results to IT managers, vendors of security software and researchers in information security area are discussed.

The personal Internet security guidebook: keeping hackers and crackers out of your home

Introduction Virus Worms Trojan Port Scanning File Share Attacks DOS Operating Systems (OS) Attacks Scams Chapter 1 - The Internet Beginning of TCP/IP TCP/IP and the Internet OK, Back to Reality Why Ethernet? Chapter 2 - Got DSL, Got Cable, May Have Trouble (Connecting to the Internet today) The Internet and the Home User The Personal Computer at Home: The Business Computer at Home: Connection Types Dial-Up ISDN DSL Cable Modem Chapter 3 - Connecting Your Home Network to the Internet Connection Types Network Interface Cards Setting Up the NIC HUB Routers What about Networking my MAC? Personal Firewalls Chapter 4 - Securing Your DSL, Cable Modem and Dial Up Connection Virus Review Law Software Attacks Against You and Your Pets Good Security Practices List of Death The Approach A Quick Overview on a Wireless Home Network Network Card or the PC The Access Point Dial-up Configuration Settings WinIPCfg IPConfig Junk and The Junk The Spam Chapter 5 - Physical Security and Insurance Where are the risks? Theft Prevention Devices Alarms Anti-theft Security Enclosures Automatic Alert System Other Considerations Insurance PC Security Checklist Chapter 6 - Data Protection Windows 2000 EFS A Vendor Solution (Gatekeeper) Smart Cards Chapter 7 - Keep Your Data Private Who is Keeping US Safe How Are You Being Tracked? The FBI and Carnivore Privacy Tools Privacy References Chapter 8 - Encryption For Your PC A History of Cryptography Key Types How a Public-Private encryption system works RSA - Public and Private Key PGP Digital Signatures S/MIME Digital Certificates How It All Works Now the Packet Sniffer Securing the Link with SSL Using and Managing Certificates Reference books about Encryption Security Hardware and Software Reference Section Encryption Filters General Protection Personal Firewall User Authentication Virus Protection TCP/IP Reference ARP and Routing Ports DHCP Glossary of Terms

Personal firewalls…One more step towards comprehensive security

In the past, most business processes were performed in written form on paper and delivered personally, or by means of the post. Such processes are nowadays carried out a lot more effectively by means of a commonly used IT infrastructure; the Internet.

Symantec offers safer Internet

Symantec has launched what it claims is the first integrated personal Internet Security Solution, combining firewall, parental control and anti-virus technology to ensure a safer Internet. The product Norton Internet Security 2000 aims to balance convenience and security to safeguard PC users against the vulnerabilities and dangers of Internet-based computing. Using a combination of personal firewall, parental control technology and Norton AntiVirus, Norton Internet Security 2000 keeps personal online information safe by defending against dangerous Internet-borne viruses and malicious hackers.