SysAdmin

Seven overlooked network security threats for 2011 : " No one working in network security can complain that the issue has been ignored by the press. Between Stuxnet, WikiLeaks server attacks and counterattacks, and the steady march of security updates from Microsoft and Adobe, the topic is being discussed everywhere. IT workers who have discovered that consolidation, off-shoring, and cloud computing have reduced job opportunities may be tempted to take heart in comments such as Tom Silver’s (Sr. VP for Dice.com) claim that “there is not a single job position within security that is not in demand today.”This and similar pronouncements by others paint a rosy picture of bottomless security staff funding, pleasant games of network attack chess, and a bevy of state-of-the-art security gadgets to address threats. Maybe. In these challenging times, separating hype from visionary insight may be a tall order. Yet it’s important to strike a sensible balance, because there are problems both...

Windows Build Audit, Create Windows System Reports : " I sometimes need to get a quick overview of a computer system that I work on for the first time. Windows Build Audit is a free portable application that can generate Windows system reports in HTML format easily making it ideal for that task. The Open Source software has a size of less than 300 Kilobytes on the hard drive after unpacking and can be started from any location of the system. Reports can be saved into different locations which means it can not only be run from writable storage devices but also CD or DVDs. The program can be executed with a double-click, or by running it from the command line with optional command line switches. Switches include the option to run a silent audit without user interaction. Windows Build Audit generates the report and saves it as a HTML file in a selected location on a connected storage device. The report creates item groups which reveal detailed information about the computer system. I...

5 ways to recycle or revitalize your old computer : " Christmas is coming, and you're about to have a ton of time off. Some of that time will be spent energetically tearing apart beautifully-wrapped gifts, and eating food is certainly next on the list of priorities. Obviously you have to play with your new gifts (or put on your new socks), but after that ... after the postprandial sofa-surfing grunts and burps and farts... well, there isn't a whole lot you can do. The other big thing about Christmas is the amount of waste it produces. Wrapping paper, cards, ribbons, the plastic packaging of the presents themselves... there's an awful lot of trash on Christmas Day. Then, of course, you need to throw out all of the things that have been replaced by new gifts: old kitchen appliances, clothes, televisions, printers and, most importantly, computers . A new laptop or desktop is incredibly cheap nowadays, which makes them very popular gifts. But shouldn't we do something...

How to Search Just the Site You’re Viewing Using Google Search : " Have you ever wanted to search the site you’re viewing, but the built-in search box is either hard to find, or doesn’t work very well? Here’s how to add a special keyword bookmark that searches the site you’re viewing using Google’s site: search operator. This technique should work in either Google Chrome or Firefox—in Firefox you’ll want to create a regular bookmark and add the script into the keyword field, and for Google Chrome just follow the steps we’ve provided below "

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=3803 Using rescue CDs to ferret out malware is a great idea, in theory at least. Getting them to actually work is another story. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. —————————————————————————————– Malware is sophisticated enough to manipulate the host computer’s operating system to help it hide. That’s why rescue CDs are becoming the go-to malware detection and removal technology. What is a rescue CD Anti-malware rescue CDs are bootable operating systems that take control of a computer’s hardware. Since the computer’s operating system is inactive, so is any installed malware. That’s where we get the upper hand; malware can’t activate any defense to avoid being detected by the anti-malware program installed on the rescue CD. A stumbling block Before I present the rescue CDs I reviewed, I want to point out some mistakes I made when using rescue CDs. One embarrassing mistake happened during a visit to a client. It wa...

Virtual machine nomenclature strategies : " When an IT department is trying to determine a server’s nomenclature, the situation can actually become quite contentious; when you roll virtualization into the fold, things can get even more complicated. I’ve settled on several design elements for naming systems, whether they are physical or virtual, servers or storage, printers or I/O devices. The single guiding theme to a system nomenclature is to be self-documenting either at a basic level or in painful detail. The absolute basic information that I’d like from a system’s name is to be able to determine the following attributes: Whether the system is virtual. Whether the system is in development or production. What application or operating system is running on the system. Whether it is the first, second, or third (etc.) of a sequence. These basic identifiers can create a nomenclature that works for physical and virtual systems. Figure A shows an example that does this for a few t...

Consulting services on free server software: Money to be made. : " I don’t know about you, but I truly think that there is an incredible amount of really good software available for totally free today. Sure, there has always been a strong open source software community; but never before have so many of them been available as refined programs that are rock-solid. While talking with someone recently who was looking for ideas for opportunities for IT side work, the idea of utilizing these free titles dawned on me. The opportunity would be to make a basic service catalog for your ideal client, whether that would be a home user or a small business. Here are a few software titles that can be used to make a great catalog for your prospective clients: Untangle Appliance: This Internet appliance is, by far, my favorite, and is a candidate for both the small business and home user. If for no other reason, the web filter and Spyware Blocker applications can be a boon to the small network t...

Monitoring Performance and Availability of Active Directory : " You have an important document on your home directory you need to print to make the final review, after that you must email it to a customer. These things seems pretty easy and people do it every day. All these things rely on one critical component, Microsoft Active Directory (AD). AD is a Directory Service which contains different resources such as users, groups, computers, printers, group policys (settings / restrictions), DNS and more. Failure in AD might prevent users from logging in to their computers, accessing files and use critical applications. If AD is so important, what can you do to protect your environment from critical unplanned outages? Make it redundant Add multiple Domain Controllers (DC) with Global Catalog and DNS enabled. This will allow computers/servers to be able to login and access resources if a DC is down. There are many other areas that needs to be addressed in order to have a redundant AD e...

10 PowerShell commands every Windows admin should know : " Over the last few years, Microsoft has been trying to make PowerShell the management tool of choice. Almost all the newer Microsoft server products require PowerShell, and there are lots of management tasks that can’t be accomplished without delving into the command line. As a Windows administrator, you need to be familiar with the basics of using PowerShell. Here are 10 commands to get you started. Note: This article is also available as a PDF download . 1: Get-Help The first PowerShell cmdlet every administrator should learn is Get-Help. You can use this command to get help with any other command. For example, if you want to know how the Get-Process command works, you can type: Get-Help -Name Get-Process and Windows will display the full command syntax. You can also use Get-Help with individual nouns and verbs. For example, to find out all the commands you can use with the Get verb, type: Get-Help -Name Get-* 2: Set-Exec...

XBOOT, Create MultiBoot ISOs On Disk And USB : " Many developers provide ISO images of their release for free download, especially in the antivirus and security niche but also in utility and Linux. An antivirus ISO image can for instance be used to scan a PC by booting from that burned disk which may be the only possible way depending on the state of infection of the PC. A problem that some users face is that there does not seem to be a way to combine multiple ISO images on an optical disk (like a CD or DVD) or USB device. That’s why Xboot has been created by its developer. The free application can combine multiple ISO images into one multiboot disk or USB device. ISO images can be dragged and dropped into the main program interface. Each ISO is listed with its name, size, a category, file path and other information. The program will automatically calculate the combined file size and display it as the total size in the same program window. That’s handy to keep below the maximum st...

10 free anti-malware tools worth checking out : " Over the last few years, anti-malware software has become increasingly costly. But believe it or not, there are still ways to protect your computer for free. In this article, I will list 10 free utilities you can use to either prevent malware infections or to help clean up the mess once a PC becomes infected. Note: This article is also available as a PDF download . 1: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011 I have been using AVG’s free antivirus product for a few years now, and although it isn’t perfect, it seems to be at least as good as most of the commercial anti-malware products. AVG’s free edition provides basic protection against viruses and spyware, but the company also offers a more comprehensive security suite called AVG Internet Security 2011. This suite offers the same anti-malware protection as the free edition, but it also provides real-time protection against Internet search and social networking sites. 2: Comodo Antivirus ...

Add SSL to CentOS web server : " CentOS might well be one of the finest Linux distributions for a server environment. It is basically a mimic of Red Hat Enterprise Linux without the proprietary software and the price attached to it. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense to set CentOS up as your go-to Web server. It’s reliable, it’s stable, it’s extensible, and it’s secure. But setting up a secure web server isn’t complete without the inclusion of SSL and certificates. If you are wanting to serve up sercure web pages you will certainly want your audience to be able to send them to https instead of http. So…with CentOS how do you do that? I will show you how. Installing all of the packages I will assume you already have CentOS installed as well as the Apache Web Server. Make sure you are able to go to the default Apache web page (or any web page on your CentOS web server), before you set up SSL. When you have all of that working you will need to install a couple of packages. Thi...

Stop providing free IT consulting work : " People don’t call electricians and expect free step-by-step instruction regarding how to repair a failed ground or intermittent circuit. So why do they call IT consultants expecting such assistance? I wish I knew the answer to that question, because I can feel my blood pressure rising just recalling some of the requests clients, customers, and other callers have made. Clients have asked my office to provide free telephone support for a wide variety of topics, which include: Can’t you just walk me through this 17-step, 45-minute installation for free over the phone? Just tell me the exact steps I need to follow to remove this Trojan infection. Provide me with the 23 steps I need to follow to complete a complex, complicated task that requires expertise, experience, and proven knowledge to properly complete, but don’t bill me for it. What do I need to click on or select when I get to that 14 th screen, again? I’m going to migrate all m...

Use Sysinternals Active Directory Explorer to make a domain snapshot : " Active Directory is one of Microsoft’s best products ever in my opinion. It allows for an incredible amount of control of computer and user accounts, and there is so much more under the hood. The free Sysinternals Active Directory Explorer tool allows administrators to quickly look at information for the entire domain, as well as take a snapshot for comparison at a later date. The tool should not replace any of the Active Directory tools for everyday use, but rather supplement them for snapshots or a view into specific configuration. Once Active Directory Explorer is installed, the basic authentication screen appears to connect to a database ( Figure A ). Figure A Click the image to enlarge. It’s not ideal, but you can create objects, such as a user account, within the Active Directory Explorer tool ( Figure B ). Figure B Click the image to enlarge. Creating a snapshot of the Active Directory domain ( Figure...

SUPERAntiSpyware Professional Review And Giveaway [Ghacks Christmas Giveaway] : " SUPERAntiSpyware is available as a free and professional edition. Both editions are downloadable directly from the developer website. Lets take a quick look at the differences between SUPERAntiSpyware Professional and SUPERAntiSpyware Free. Both editions support the detection and removal of all sorts of malicious programs including malware, trojans, worms or keyloggers. Users can add files and folders to a whitelist so that they will not be processed during scans. SUPERAntiSpyware Professional on top of this offers the following features that are not available, or limited, in the free edition: Ability to repair HiJacked web browsers and system settings, e.g. resetting the home page, enabling the task manager, broken network connections or desktop policies. A feature called First Chance Prevention which analyzes 50 critical points on system start and shut down to eliminate threats before they have a...