Technology Toolkit

Fraud and scams are so rampant today, without even noticing it you have already been cheated. And you will end up annoyed and feeling sorry for yourself. Criminals are all over around you and you will never know their next target. No matter how vigilant you are criminals are already trained from their experience so they can unexpectedly lure you to deception.

There are many kinds of crimes that we need to be cautious about including identity theft. No, do not just ignore it because there are millions of people that had been a victim to this trick. You can do something about it do not let other people take away your hard earned savings and identity. Acquire some protection from identity theft today and you can definitely have peace of mind from those unwanted misfortunes.

Do not be too carefree about identity theft because you will not know when it is going to happen to you. That is why it is better to secure yourself with some protection from identity theft. Yes, there is way to protect and avoid identity theft. You can search it online for you to be clarified what it is all about. They are available in various identity theft review, they offer Lifelock review, a Debix review and a trusted ID review. This is very helpful in guarding against identity theft through a fraud alert.

Fraud alert is very helpful because it obliges the creditors to confirm your identity before allowing any credit requests. There is also the identity guard review for your credit monitoring service that is dedicated to give you an excellent service. All these are dedicated to render their service with commitment and excellence to protect your identity from theft. They can definitely help you with regards to identity theft. In fact there are already many testimonies to attest of their reliability.

Check the internet for more information about services catering to protection from identity theft. You will be given choices that will best fit your preference all for the safety of your identity and your family. You will also be given tips and suggestions on how to avoid identity thefts but the surest way is still to acquire some protection from identity theft.

Because in our world today you can never be too sure, you can trust no one. There are many deceptions and lies that you cannot decipher which to believe. Almost anything can be cheated, so be vigilant and do not let them trick you because you work hard with your identity and no one has the right to take it rudely. Do something about it. Let us not allow criminals to do such thing for a living. Needless to say, this is what you need against identity theft.

Fear of identity theft and personal security breaches are two of the reasons why shredders have become more prominent in the home. Up until recently, shredding of sensitive documents was exclusive to the business world and governmental departments; until it was stated that there was no law in place to prosecute anyone rummaging through residential waste and taking what they found. With credit card statements and bank transactions forming part of the day to day rubbish that is the result of modern living, the general public got jittery and started investing in document destruction technology.

Although identity theft is a very real prospect, and there has been plenty of media coverage of the average Joe losing a few hundred pounds after someone has accessed their account details; the damage caused by this sort of security breach cannot match the damage that can be caused to companies and government. There are a couple of cases where the simple act of shredding, or more precisely, shredding correctly could have saved the embarrassed faces of CEO’s and Government Officials alike. There is also another potential controversial event that will prove suitable media fodder should the documents be fully recovered involving the German secret police.

There are many ways of shredding documents, and it is possible to have them shred to different degrees of destruction. Pummeling, ripping, slicing, puncturing, grinding and disintegrating are all methods employed by document destruction companies to ensure that confidential information remains just that, confidential. There are in fact standards set in place to ensure that the shredding process is sufficient to meet the sensitive nature of the documents.

Shredders that are designed for domestic use have a shredding range of 6 to 12mm and confidential documents have to be broken down into 2mm strips. For more sensitive information, ribbon shredding is not an option, and instead, a cross-shredder is used to create paper particles, also known as chads. Using this technique, commercially sensitive documents are reduced to particles measuring 2mm by 15mm; classified information should be reduced to 0.8 by 12mm and top secret information is confettied to within an inch of its life by being shredded into particles that measure 0.8 by 4mm.

The reasons these standards have been put in place is because it has been known that if the information is worth the effort, then it is possible for documents to be reconstructed. Although it is a painstaking task Iranians pieced together documents that had been destroyed by the US Government during the Iranian takeover of the US Embassy. The recovered information was compiled into a book called Documents from the US Espionage Den, which ultimately prompted the US government to shred more finely. The infamous case of the accountancy scandal involving Enron involved its own shredding scandal, when documents that had been destroyed were recovered and easily reassembled due to the fact that the documents had been fed into the machine the wrong way, neatly cutting out lines of text from classified documents.

In light of this, the average resident has nothing much to fear from inadequate shredding, but companies and businesses should be aware. Sometimes the information contained within documents is more sensitive in nature than originally thought, and has the potential of being interesting to someone out there, ready to either liberate information in the name of freedom, or to create a political maelstrom.

Computer Forensics, or Digital Forensics to give it another name, is something that in todays fast moving environment that has become as much part of policing as walking the beat or patrolling as part of a mobile unit.

As technology progresses and it does so extremely quickly these days, so to do the ways in which technology is applied to crime and its uses by the criminal. Whereas in the past when crime was much more straightforward and involved a physical presence, Computer Crime requires, in some instances, nothing more than a computer, access to the internet, and the personal information of an unwitting individual.

As this type of computer criminal becomes more and more common so too does the need for experts in the field of Computer Forensics Analysis. However in the United Kingdom at the present time there is a shortage of trained professionals in this field which leaves the computer criminal at a distinct advantage.

Computer Forensics is used in a variety of different ways and not simply as a means of producing an auditable trail of data. A Computer Forensics Analysis of a laptop or desktop machine can provide valuable information as to not only how the machine was used to perpetrate a crime, but also who used the machine to commit the crime.

As individuals we all have certain ways of typing and committing words to a page and this is all very much part and parcel of the Computer Forensics Experts job, identifying these common traits and using them to help produce a profile.

The role of Computer Forensics Analysis in a court case is vitally important especially if that case pertains to the use of computers as a means to defraud money or in the distribution of materials deemed illegal such as pornography and child pornography. An expert Computer Witness will be able to provide such analysis to members of the jury, the judge, and the defence and prosecution teams in a way that is both informative and yet easily enough understood so as not to muddy the waters.

Such a witness is invaluable in both the prosecution and defence of a case and can be utilised to provide expert Computer Forensic Analysis and also provide the jury, who are not necessarily familiar with such terms, with easily digestible and retainable information.

Indeed an expert witness may also be able to physically demonstrate to the court just how a criminal has managed to perpetrate a crime especially if this crime is committed over a distance.

As touched upon earlier there is a shortage of such personnel in the United Kingdom at the present time and this is in no small part due to the face that computer crime is on the increase and becoming more sophisticated. Such trained personnel are invaluable to a case and are fully conversant with ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) guidelines.

With such a shortage of trained personnel it is fair to say that the floodgates have been opened for the Computer Criminal. He, she or they (it is often common to find such individuals working in cells using complex networks and IT infrastructures) are more likely to evade a thorough investigation and subsequent prosecution without the assistance of trained Computer Expert Witnesses and their informed analysis.

These trained personnel are often in short supply because of the need for more than one discipline when it comes to Computer Forensics Analysis.

Network Forensics is often such that an Computer Forensics Expert will be required to examine the data on a large number of computers either networked together physically (hard-wired) or operating as satellites as part of a Wi-Fi network. This particular type of auditing is particularly useful and often provides vital information in the prosecution of computer crime especially when it is necessary to link together a number of individuals spread over a large geographical area.

It is important to remember also that the analysis provided by a Computer Expert Witness is not only used to help in the prosecution or defence of a case at a judicial level but also can be used in helping to identify and prevent further instances of Computer Crime. Moreover this is something that has, and will have, an impact when it comes to fighting ecrime in the future as the ecriminals and their methods become more sophisticated and harder to track.

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is used to synchronise network time clients to an accurate time reference. It is widely used by computer networks to ensure correct network time. However, many network administrators overlook security issues when implementing NTP. This article attempts to briefly describe the features that can be used to maintain a secure network when implementing the Network Time Protocol.

NTP provides a well-defined protocol for synchronising time critical process to an accurate reference. It utilises UDP (User Datagram Protocol) over IP to transfer time stamp information between servers and clients. However, the fields in each message are unencrypted and easy to read by network listening devices. Therefore, unscrupulous or malicious users can potentially replicate timestamps in order to disrupt network time synchronisation. If not implemented correctly, it can pose a significant security risk.

The protocol does however, provide a means of securing timestamps using authentication to verify the identity of the source. By configuring the protocol correctly and by using the implemented security features, NTP can be made secure from attack by malicious users.

Authentication is a means by which a client can ensure that a timestamp has come from the intended source. By using a set of agreed encrypted passwords, the client can authenticate the source of any received timestamp. Sets of pre-defined security keys are agreed between server and client. These keys are encrypted using MD5 encryption algorithms. When a client receives a timestamp, checking the security key against the previously agreed list of keys can verify the source.

The MD5 encryption (Message Digest Encryption 5) used to encrypt security keys is a 128-bit cryptographic hash function, which outputs a fingerprint of the key. MD5 is a highly secure encryption, widely used on forums and by online communities for authentication purposes. MD5 encryption is used by NTP to ensure the security of the keys passed between the server and client.

Security keys are stored in a keys file, generally named ‘ntp.keys’. The keys are stored line-by-line, with a number of pre-defined fields. The first field ‘Key Number’ is used as a key reference. The second field specifies an encryption type – usually ‘M’ for MD5 encryption. The third and final field is the key itself.

The key file also needs to be specified in the configuration file ‘ntp.conf’ using the ‘keys filename’ option. Also specified is a list of trusted keys that can be used for authentication purposes.

Restricting access to a NTP server can further enhance security. The protocol has a number of access control options that can restrict access to individual clients or a range of clients. Access control options are specified in the configuration file using the ‘restrict’ keyword. Restricting access to known clients can protect a NTP server from unknown or rogue users and also prevent it from getting swamped by unscrupulous users.

It is very easy to implement authentication but it is often overlooked by network administrators, leaving servers vulnerable to attack. Ensure your network is secure and implement NTP authentication before its too late.

There are a few simple steps to keep your computer spyware free. Now more than ever there are malicious websites all over the internet.

Just surfing from search engines results can lead you right into some nasty spyware problems. Spyware can have bad effects all around for your computer.

It can slow it way down to the point where you cannot use it. Many people wonder why their computer becomes slow or the screen jitters.

Spyware is a common culprit for this type of problem which can lead spyware to steal your information. Many people do not know how bad spyware can be.

But it is true that it is getting worse all the time and stealing your information is one of the things on the list that spyware can do.

So what are simple steps you can take to prevent getting spyware? The first thing you need to do is download and use a couple of spyware prevention programs.

One of the best ones is malwarebytes. There are also others like spybot and adaware. All of these programs are effective and best when used in combination.

Do not use them all at the same time but rather have them loaded on your computer ready to scan when needed.

You don’t want all of these programs protecting your computer with them running in the background. This can also slow your computer down.

Next purchase virus protection with a web checker. AVG antivirus has this ability. It produces a check mark next to the website if it is listed in a database of good websites.

Use the Phishing filter included with internet explorer. In internet explorer you can usually click on the tools menu and then select the phishing filter to turn it on. It may slow down your browsing experience a little but it may be worth it to be that much more protected.

Last but not least is you want to scan your computer at least once a month and more often if you use it more.

By running scans regularly you will find and destroy any bad spyware and malware dead in its tracks. You can set up most software to run scheduled scans for you while you sleep.

It is suggested that you do so. For most software the scanner scheduler is usually located right on the front of the software.

Spyware and malware can do many malicious things to your computer. It can slow it way down and steal your information and just plain cause you a headache.

By following these simple steps you can keep your computer spyware free and not have to worry about losing any of your valuable data.

All you have to do is follow the simple steps here in this article and you shouldn’t have to worry too much about spyware. Many people do not have a plan and stick to it when it comes to their computer.

If you learn how to then you will be that much more ahead of the game and not have to suffer with bad computer problems.