Tag: firewall
January 09, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft Network Monitor
Microsoft Network Monitor is a network protocol analyzer that lets you capture, view, and analyze network traffic. Version 3.3 of Network Monitor is available in 32- and 64-bit versions. Download it now.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is an easy-to-use tool designed to help administrators of small and medium-sized businesses ensure that their Windows-based computers are secure. You can use MBSA to determine the security state of your computers in accordance with Microsoft security recommendations. MBSA also offers specific remedia¬tion guidance for security problems it detects, such as misconfigurations and missing security updates.
At the time of writing this, the current version was MBSA 2.1. This version is available in 32- and 64-bit versions, but it does not install on Windows 7. A new version that supports Windows 7 is due to be released sometime in the future. You can download the current version and get information regarding the a version for Windows 7 at microsoft.com/mbsa/.
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November 14, 2009 by
Jason Microsoft has reacted rapidly to public reports of a zero-day denial-of-service vulnerability in its latest iterations of the Windows client and server operating systems, and is providing customers with guidance on how to block potential attempts to take advantage of the security flaw. In this regard, the Redmond company has underlined that no exploits or attacks have been detected for the denial-of-service (DoS) hole in the Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol impacting both SMBv1 and SMBv2 in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. However, Proof of Concept (PoC) code was irresponsibly published in the wild, making it extremely easy for attackers to build exploits putting at risk users of Windows 7.
“Microsoft is aware of public, detailed exploit code that would cause a system to stop functioning or become unreliable. If exploited, this DoS vulnerability would not allow an attacker to take control of, or install malware on, the customer’s system but could cause the affected system to stop responding until manually restarted. It is important to note that the default firewall settings on Windows 7 will help block attempts to exploit this issue,” Dave Forstrom, group manager, public relations, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, revealed. “The company is not aware of attacks to exploit the reported vulnerability at this time.” Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
October 28, 2009 by
Jason The first part of this article are here.
6. Prepare for distributed security.
During your initial strategy meeting, set aside time to discuss how you want to handle the many distributed security features in Windows 7. You’ll want to determine a course of action early in the project because those decisions will have a substantial impact on your test matrix.
First, consider whether you want turn on the desktop firewall. When OS-based desktop firewalls were first introduced in XP SP1, many organizations turned them off with a Group Policy and that was that. The firewall in Windows 7 is much more flexible and warrants reconsideration. You can turn off the firewall while the machine is connected to the domain and turn it on when the machine is connected to a home/work network or to the Internet. You can define granular exclusions, too. Try a mix of options with the first wave of pilot users; take their feedback, along with input from your security team, to make a final decision on firewall settings. They’re completely configurable by Group Policy.
Second, do you want to use AppLocker to restrict applications permitted to run on your desktops? AppLocker allows you to put together a whitelist of approved executables that you can select individually by file hash, in groups by location or in groups by publisher (that is, signed by the publisher’s certificate). Once configured, these rules are downloaded by Windows 7 clients running the Application Identity service. From that point forward, only the whitelisted apps can execute. All other executables are forced to sit on the sidelines, kind of like me during my high-school athletic career.
Because AppLocker permissions are applied via Group Policy, you can tightly target the rules to computers based on OU, group membership or WMI filters.
Sifting through a mountain of applications trying to determine which should be on an AppLocker whitelist doesn’t sound like much fun, but the situation shouldn’t come to that. Most line-of-business machines have a fixed and limited suite of apps. Start there. After all, if you can keep the night crews from plugging flash drives into your factory kiosk machines to run games rather than build widgets, you’ve solved quite a few operational problems. Deal with the back-office machines later. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
October 08, 2009 by
Jason For most PC users, the migration to Microsoft’s new version of Windows will go smoothly with a little preparation.
Spending a few minutes getting your system ready before you insert that Windows 7 installation disc may save you hours of troubleshooting and repair afterward.
- “If any of your products have a limit on the number of times they can be installed with the same serial number, you might be denied permission to install them as part of a fresh install of Windows 7. Most of the time, there’s nothing you can do about this. You just have to try the installation and hope that you’re under the limit.
“However, some software companies allow you to deactivate the serial number from your old computer and reactivate it when you reinstall. This keeps you under the limit. Adobe in particular does this. For example, in Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional, you can go to Help, Activation and click Deactivate. By doing this, you’ll stay under the limit and you’ll be able to reinstall the product.”
A reader who goes by the name Alrock discovered a couple of quirks when he used Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor: Read More»
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The process of installing Windows 7 involves a stage in which end users need to Set a Network Location. The SNL dialog window can be revisited after deployment, and the settings altered. In this context, location is key. In order to simplify the network configuration, Windows 7, just as Windows Vista before it, allows users to set up a network connection in accordance to location. The SNL dialog offers three different network locations: Public, Work and Home. What it does is that when the computer detects a network connection, options are provided for the user to help define and apply appropriate network settings automatically.
User interaction is only necessary when choosing among Home, Work or Public locations, as Windows 7 does all the heavy lifting. But you can’t even tell there’s any heavy lifting involved as the configuration process is extremely fast, and I for example, have yet to see it fail even once, after countless installs of the platform in pre-Beta, Beta, RC and pre-RTM stages.
In all fairness, the Windows 7 client comes with an additional option for network location, namely Domain. However, Domain is reserved for enterprise environments and is out of the reach of end users. The option is controlled entirely by a network administrator, users cannot opt to take advantage of Domain by themselves or alter the configuration. Read More»
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Symantec Security Response encourages all users and administrators to adhere to the following basic security “best practices” to prevent the virus attack to your computer:
1. Use a firewall to block all incoming connections from the Internet to services that should not be publicly available. By default, you should deny all incoming connections and only allow services you explicitly want to offer to the outside world.
2. Enforce a password policy. Complex passwords make it difficult to crack password files on compromised computers. This helps to prevent or limit damage when a computer is compromised.
3. Ensure that programs and users of the computer use the lowest level of privileges necessary to complete a task. When prompted for a root or UAC password, ensure that the program asking for administration-level access is a legitimate application. Read More»
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February 25, 2009 by
Jason 1. Find bottlenecks
From what we’ve seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC seems sluggish then it’s now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON and press [Enter] to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.
The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it’s hanging – the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps – which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.
2. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.
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February 03, 2009 by
Jason 1. Upgrade Your RAM
Yeah, the most obvious tip but people hardly upgrade it. RAM these days is very cheap, especially if you buy it through Amazon or eBay. When I checked Amazon, the price of 1 GB RAM was around $20-$30.
2. Get Rid of Unneeded Software
Most PCs come shipped with unneeded software. Uninstall all of them. I’m sure there are better alternatives to those software. For example, my PC came shipped from hp with lots of bloatware such as HP Image Zone, Norton AntiVirus 2004, Record Now! CD & DVD Burning software etc. I uninstalled all of them and replaced them with better software like Picasa and Nero.
3. Keep Only One Browser
This is part of the getting rid of unneeded applications but I decided to separate it because so many people have 3, or even 4 browsers installed on their computer. I used to do this; I used to have Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Now I only have Mozilla Firefox. Yes, I even removed Internet Explorer! Read More»
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
February 02, 2009 by
Jason 1. Your computer isn’t turning on? “Oh, no!” You think, “I’d better get a new one!” STOP right there. Before you get too frustrated, be sure you have checked that the power cord is actually plugged into your wall socket properly. You may think it sounds silly, but believe me, it’s more common than you think even for the computer savvy. If your computer is connected through a power board, you should try plugging it directly into the wall (note for the safety conscious: by plugging the power cable directly into the wall, you lessen the chance of power failure and damage to your machine). Another reason that your PC may not start is if you have made any repairs or modification to your machine. You may have unwittingly pulled out a connect plug; check all connections.
2. If your computer is starting but is spitting error messages at you, then you might need to take out any memory modules such as RAM and then reset them by plugging them back into different RAM slots.If you get an error such as ‘Unexpected Interrupt in Protected Mode,’ then there is a problem with the settings you have entered in BIOS. To fix it go into BIOS and set it to default settings. If the problem still won’t go away, then you must remove the CMOS chip on your motherboard then put it back in to clean BIOS completely. Read More»
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January 05, 2009 by
Jason
Just ahead of the public Beta of Windows 7, Microsoft has started recommending security solutions that can be integrated with the next iteration of its Windows client even at this early stage in the platform’s development. The first products designed to protect users running Windows 7 Beta come from Kaspersky and AVG, according to the Redmond company, which have promised to work with ISVs in order to produce security software compatible with Windows Vista’s successor since 2008. In this context, when it comes down to bulletproofing Windows 7, AVG and Kaspersky are ahead of the rest of the security industry with AVG Internet Security 8.0, AVG Anti-Virus 8.0, and the Technical Preview of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7, respectively.
“Before you install antivirus software, check to make sure you don’t already have an antivirus product on your computer. If you do, be sure to remove the product you don’t want before you install the new one. It can cause problems on your computer to have two different antivirus products installed at the same time,” a message from Microsoft explains. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | No Comments »
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