Protecting Yourself From Online Computer Virus Attack and Personal Identity Credit Card Data Hacking: VPN

Internet Security and VPN Network Design
By Shaun Hummel

Two things to bear in Mind while we talk about Protecting yourself Online in order to Prevent Online Identity Theft and being Victim of Cyber-Criminals:

A. Keep in mind that antivirus software protects only your device, not your internet connection. It’s only Secured and Protected Virtual Private Network, VPN can securely protect your internet connection communications between your computer device, servers and websites.

B. A VPN is a must-have utility to protect your privacy and prevent hackers and snoopers from stealing your personal information.

Overview

This article discusses some essential technical concepts associated with a VPN. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) integrates remote employees, company offices, and business partners using the Internet and secures encrypted tunnels between locations. An Access VPN is used to connect remote users to the enterprise network. The remote workstation or laptop will use an access circuit such as Cable, DSL or Wireless to connect to a local Internet Service Provider (ISP). With a client-initiated model, software on the remote workstation builds an encrypted tunnel from the laptop to the ISP using IPSec, Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), or Point to Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP). The user must authenticate as a permitted VPN user with the ISP. Once that is finished, the ISP builds an encrypted tunnel to the company VPN router or concentrator. TACACS, RADIUS or Windows servers will authenticate the remote user as an employee that is allowed access to the company network. With that finished, the remote user must then authenticate to the local Windows domain server, Unix server or Mainframe host depending upon where there network account is located. The ISP initiated model is less secure than the client-initiated model since the encrypted tunnel is built from the ISP to the company VPN router or VPN concentrator only. As well the secure VPN tunnel is built with L2TP or L2F.

The Extranet VPN will connect business partners to a company network by building a secure VPN connection from the business partner router to the company VPN router or concentrator. The specific tunneling protocol utilized depends upon whether it is a router connection or a remote dialup connection. The options for a router connected Extranet VPN are IPSec or Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE). Dialup extranet connections will utilize L2TP or L2F. The Intranet VPN will connect company offices across a secure connection using the same process with IPSec or GRE as the tunneling protocols. It is important to note that what makes VPN's very cost effective and efficient is that they leverage the existing Internet for transporting company traffic. That is why many companies are selecting IPSec as the security protocol of choice for guaranteeing that information is secure as it travels between routers or laptop and router. IPSec is comprised of 3DES encryption, IKE key exchange authentication and MD5 route authentication, which provide authentication, authorization and confidentiality.

Internet Protocol Security (IPSec)

IPSec operation is worth noting since it such a prevalent security protocol utilized today with Virtual Private Networking. IPSec is specified with RFC 2401 and developed as an open standard for secure transport of IP across the public Internet. The packet structure is comprised of an IP header/IPSec header/Encapsulating Security Payload. IPSec provides encryption services with 3DES and authentication with MD5. In addition there is Internet Key Exchange (IKE) and ISAKMP, which automate the distribution of secret keys between IPSec peer devices (concentrators and routers). Those protocols are required for negotiating one-way or two-way security associations. IPSec security associations are comprised of an encryption algorithm (3DES), hash algorithm (MD5) and an authentication method (MD5). Access VPN implementations utilize 3 security associations (SA) per connection (transmit, receive and IKE). An enterprise network with many IPSec peer devices will utilize a Certificate Authority for scalability with the authentication process instead of IKE/pre-shared keys.

Laptop - VPN Concentrator IPSec Peer Connection

1. IKE Security Association Negotiation

2. IPSec Tunnel Setup

3. XAUTH Request / Response - (RADIUS Server Authentication)

4. Mode Config Response / Acknowledge (DHCP and DNS)

5. IPSec Security Association

Access VPN Design

The Access VPN will leverage the availability and low cost Internet for connectivity to the company core office with WiFi, DSL and Cable access circuits from local Internet Service Providers. The main issue is that company data must be protected as it travels across the Internet from the telecommuter laptop to the company core office. The client-initiated model will be utilized which builds an IPSec tunnel from each client laptop, which is terminated at a VPN concentrator. Each laptop will be configured with VPN client software, which will run with Windows. The telecommuter must first dial a local access number and authenticate with the ISP. The RADIUS server will authenticate each dial connection as an authorized telecommuter. Once that is finished, the remote user will authenticate and authorize with Windows, Solaris or a Mainframe server before starting any applications. There are dual VPN concentrators that will be configured for fail over with virtual routing redundancy protocol (VRRP) should one of them be unavailable.

Each concentrator is connected between the external router and the firewall. A new feature with the VPN concentrators prevent denial of service (DOS) attacks from outside hackers that could affect network availability. The firewalls are configured to permit source and destination IP addresses, which are assigned to each telecommuter from a pre-defined range. As well, any application and protocol ports will be permitted through the firewall that is required.

Extranet VPN Design

The Extranet VPN is designed to allow secure connectivity from each business partner office to the company core office. Security is the primary focus since the Internet will be utilized for transporting all data traffic from each business partner. There will be a circuit connection from each business partner that will terminate at a VPN router at the company core office. Each business partner and its peer VPN router at the core office will utilize a router with a VPN module. That module provides IPSec and high-speed hardware encryption of packets before they are transported across the Internet. Peer VPN routers at the company core office are dual homed to different multilayer switches for link diversity should one of the links be unavailable. It is important that traffic from one business partner doesn't end up at another business partner office. The switches are located between external and internal firewalls and utilized for connecting public servers and the external DNS server. That isn't a security issue since the external firewall is filtering public Internet traffic.

In addition filtering can be implemented at each network switch as well to prevent routes from being advertised or vulnerabilities exploited from having business partner connections at the company core office multilayer switches. Separate VLAN's will be assigned at each network switch for each business partner to improve security and segmenting of subnet traffic. The tier 2 external firewall will examine each packet and permit those with business partner source and destination IP address, application and protocol ports they require. Business partner sessions will have to authenticate with a RADIUS server. Once that is finished, they will authenticate at Windows, Solaris or Mainframe hosts before starting any applications.

Two things to bear in Mind while we talk about Protecting yourself Online in order to Prevent Online Identity Theft and being Victim of Cyber-Criminals:

B. A VPN is a must-have utility to protect your privacy and prevent hackers and snoopers from stealing your personal information.

Shaun Hummel is the author of [http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=Shaun%20Hummel&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AShaun%20Hummel]Network Design Fundamentals

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Internet-Security-and-VPN-Network-Design&id=2891752] Internet Security and VPN Network Design

What Are Businesses Doing To Prevent Identity Theft?
By Ashley K

Read How to Prevent Identity Theft by Discovering the hackers behind Phishing e-mails and phone calls.

As the market is growing digitally, every company is stockpiling as much information related to customer as they can get and keeping their records in order to make their services and products better for their customers. But this has also given rise to the threat of identity theft especially to the business which accumulates customers' personally identifiable information (PII) - it includes credit card numbers, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, etc. Since these data helps the business in crafting the sales strategies, especially of credit or loans, and in generating data related to employment. This collected information usually company stores in hard disks or maintain database over networks such as internet. All these information containers are vulnerable and malevolent hackers sometimes succeeds in stealing those private data and that leads to identity theft - a criminal activity that involves stealing of personal information to get the access of their financial accounts and using credit cards or take out loans etc.

Not only private companies suffer from such threats but several govt. offices also come under the same radar. Recently Numerous Chinese internet users turned to virtual private network or "VPN" services to shirk "Great Firewall of China" - designed by Chinese government to hinder citizens from accessing certain abhorrent websites that they reckoned objectionable. RSA Research has claimed Chinese hackers are using VPN services as a platform to launch cyber-attacks while covering the original identity of the attackers. RSA dubbed it as "Terracotta VPN." It is revealed that Terracotta VPN is mainly targeting compromised Microsoft Windows servers. The VPN service consists of over 1,500 virtual private network nodes - and the numbers are constantly adding - procured through vulnerable servers around the world.

However, US states have adopted several new laws to prevent these attacks, and private companies are investing additional efforts in order to make the data security system more strong, particularly smaller companies who previously don't have rigorous data security.

Before creating the security, it is necessary to know how thieves enter into business and steal the data. It is not a new idea for thieves to earn through identity theft scam, earlier they used to filch paper files and find the information after hours of working on them, but now internet has made all the work easy for them. Here are some ways by which data breach occurs:

Some even the best of the employees make mistake; after we're all bound to make mistakes. But mistakenly leaking data could have a huge negative impact for both the employee and the company. This usually happens when employees violate data security policies for some reason and fall victim to the fraudulent people. It can also be caused at the loss of a laptop that contains unprotected PII.

Another ways of data breach includes sending the data over email or saving it in flash drives and taking out of the premises. Most of the time hackers devise a false scheme such as phishing, spear phishing, and social engineering. Innocent employees fall prey to them and reveal company's PII key.

To Evade the Threat of Identity Theft Business have Adopted Several Methods That includes:

Encryption Technology: Most of the businesses have adopted encryption to prevent personal identity theft (PII). In this method technologies such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and its successor Transport Layer Security (TLS) are used to encrypt data. Not only the online transmitting data are saved by encryption but data saved on various hard drives such as disk, tape, CD-ROM, or any other storage device can be protected with this technology. The thing to be notice here is encryption technology don't fight or resist against the hackers, instead it will make the stolen data in the wrong hands of hackers useless. Following are the steps that several corporations have taken to secure the data with encryption.

Read How to Prevent Identity Theft by Discovering the hackers behind Phishing e-mails and phone calls.

First identify the significant data that require encryption. It can be PII or some other data that are helpful and confidential in the growth of business.

Once data has been identified, next step is to determine the expiration time of the data.

Find the best encryption technologies according to the requirement of the data.

Several companies have created new set of policies and procedures where the correct uses of encryption technologies are defined.

Installing and training users.

Reviewing Commercial Agreements: Companies are getting more involved in knowing the bank's policies; they are indulging deeply before making any agreement. This gives a significant support if there's any fraudulent activity.

Monitoring Thoroughly Business Accounts: Reviewing the business accounts frequently, and alarming on any suspicious transaction. Besides concentrating more on online banking only, and avoiding any paper details.

More Cautious of Phishing Scams: Companies are providing additional training to their employees in order to recognize the phishing scams.

In addition to these methods, several other strategies, simple yet effective, are also company has adopted to secure PII data includes:

Anti-virus and anti-spyware protection

Firewall protection

Updated browsers and other software with security patches

Acquiring all these technologies and providing training to their employees have raised the cost of the companies. And it is not one time investment, in fact it is process. With the passing time as technology is getting update, the companies, concerned about security of customer's PII, also need to update the technologies and knowledge of their employees by giving them training. Thus it is a constant process of investment. However, companies include the same cost into their products and services, the similar way as they include the marketing cost, and sell the products at higher prices. However, paying a little extra for the security is appropriate or not that depends on individual to individual.

Read How to Prevent Identity Theft by Discovering the hackers behind Phishing e-mails and phone calls.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?What-Are-Businesses-Doing-To-Prevent-Identity-Theft?&id=9286903] What Are Businesses Doing To Prevent Identity Theft?

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Protecting Yourself From Online Computer Virus Attack and Personal Identity Credit Card Data Hacking