Tip! Quickly and easily Secure your wireless network
Tip! Watch out for malicious email
Tip! A simple precaution that can extend your workstations life
Tip! Poor workstation performance? Simple steps that can help improve performance
Tip! How to create a secure password
Tip! How to be more secure when using public hot spots

Technology explained - What is Network address translation (NAT)?

News - Microsoft release a post Windows 2000 SP4 rollup just as Mainstream support for W2K ends.

Tips
Tip! Quickly and easily Secure your wireless network

During our travels we have come across many instances of unsecured wireless networks that could allow unauthorized users access to a companies broadband service, or worse still, sensitive company data.

This need not be the case as it is relatively easy to enhance wireless security by setting the MAC addresses of wireless equipment on the network into your Router or Access Point. This means that only devices with authorized MAC addresses can connect to the wireless network, any other device that attempts to connect will not even be allocated with an IP address. Using the MAC addresses along with 64 or 128 bit WEP encryption will help make your wireless network much more secure. For
further security you can stop the access point or router from broadcasting the SSID.

Lan-Serve recommends the use of Netgear wireless accessories to provide a secure, reliable wireless network.

It seems that the threat presented to our IT systems from viruses, spam, phishing, etc is ever increasing and not only that, but the perpetrators are finding increasingly cunning ways of distributing malicious code to the end user.

Many end users believe because they have up to date virus software that they are immune from viruses. This is not the case since viruses are being written all the time & the Antivirus software vendors have to play a continuous game of catch-up. Recently we have seen a number of clients infected with viruses carried in attachments to emails. The problem is caused because the emails often look extremely convincing, often purporting to contain a Microsoft patch, or documents that the user must read relating to such issues as their mail account being closed imminently unless action is taken.

As a rule of thumb, never open any attachments that are from unknown sources, no matter how convincing they seem. Further, do not even open unknown, or unexpected attachments to emails even from a recognized source – remember that some viruses distribute themselves via a users address book!

Emails with unknown attachments should be deleted & then deleted from your deleted items to permanently remove them.

Over the years we have had to replace many motherboards, CPU’s, etc due to shorting out caused primarily by dust. In addition, dust can clog up your computers cooling fans and cause over heating.

Generally, computers of all kinds suck in air at the base of the front panel to cool the internal components, the worst thing about this process is that the air inlet aperture is usually just millimetres away from the dusty & dirty floor surface. This means that depending on your office type and location your computer can suck in large quantities of harmful dust - we have seen computer systems, including servers with an inch or more of dust lying inside the chassis!

You can help to reduce dust intake by constructing a small wooden plinth to lift the computer system off of the ground by around 2” so that the cooling air is not dragged directly across the floor surface.

Computer performance can substantially decrease if the hard disk becomes to full as the Windows operating system relies on having a certain amount of disk space free to maintain its performance. If you go into My computer, right click on local disk C: & select properties a pie chart illustrates the free space on your disk, Blue indicates used space & purple free space. For a typical computer system with 256MB of system memory, the free hard disk space must be at least 400MB, for a computer system with 512MB system memory the free hard disk space should be at least 800MB.

If you are struggling for free space you may need to remove some data, or run disk defragment (My computer, right click Local disk C:, select properties, goto tools).

Over a long period of time the data on your hard disk maybe come fragmented resulting in space wastage & reduction in hard disk performance. The defragmenting process will optimize the way files are stored on the hard disk resulting in better performance & potentially freeing up disk space.

Remember. if you use capital letters, you will have to remember which ones were capitalized.

When using wireless connectivity at a public access point (hotspot) with your laptop, keep in mind that your connection is unencrypted and unsecure. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are inherently insecure, and public hotspots are very insecure. Public wireless hotspots shouldn't be used by computers that contain unencrypted highly sensitive information.

To maximize your security when using a public wireless hotspot:

* Continue to practice general security procedures, including: keeping the anti-virus, operating system and applications up-to-date with security and critical fixes; running software firewalls, having on-site and off-site backups, and periodically checking firewall logs for evidence of intrusion attempts.

This is achieved by modification of the headers of each packet traversing the device. At a minimum, the IP address (and IP header checksum) is replaced (translated). For packets outbound to the Internet, source addresses are translated from private -> public. For packets inbound from the Internet, destination addresses are translated from public -> private.

The reserved addresses are reusable, not globally unique and therefore not routable on the Internet. Although by far the most common configuration, the use of private addresses is not mandatory and it is perfectly possible to use any address type with NAT. For the purposes of this FAQ, it is assumed that NAT separates a private network and the Internet.

NAT is a type of routing in which the packet headers of each packet are modified by the interchange of (at least) a private address and a public address. The process is probably explained most clearly by following a conversation through NAT:

1. A host in a privately addressed subnet attached to the internet via a NAT router sends a connection initiation (SYN flagged) TCP packet to www.joebloggs.com (which it has previously resolved to an IP address). The ethernet frame containing the packet is addressed to the private interface of the NAT router (the host's default gateway).
Headers contain:

News Story by Scarlet Pruitt, source computerworld.com

JUNE 29, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - As the clock ticks on support for mainstream Windows 2000 users, Microsoft Corp. has released a "high-priority" update rollup that includes more than 50 security fixes.

Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 was released yesterday, just two days before mainstream support expires (29/06/05). The rollup contains fixes that were issued between the release of Windows 2000 SP4 and April 30. It contains a variety of fixes for files that have not been part of previous updates, so it should be applied even on systems that have been kept up to date, Microsoft said.

The rollup is listed as a high-priority update on the Windows Update Web site and will be placed under the "Critical and Service Packs" categories. But Microsoft is transitioning Windows 2000 users to a new Windows Update site over the next few months, and the rollup will be listed there under the "critical and service packs" category, it said.

While tomorrow marks the end of support for so-called mainstream Windows 2000 customers, the software maker also offers extended support until June 30, 2010, for a fee. All customers will receive free security hot-fix support through March 31, 2010, however.