Wireless Networks are becoming more and more common these days and lots of people are ignoring the fact that they have to secure their wireless lan. Seth Fogie from informit estimates that about 40-50% of all wireless lan users use no protection at all for their network.

Categories: Security

A friend of mine moved to a new house and had to change his internet provider as well. The room with the computer and the one with the phone line were not close to each other and he decided to buy a wireless lan router and use it to connect to the internet.

We had to do a scan of the surroundings of course and found lots of unsecured wireless lan networks. I don´t know why people keep these unsecured, maybe its laziness, maybe they simply don´t know the risks involved. Its like leaving your doors open when you leave your house. Lots of things can happen..

Categories: Security

Only a few days ago I wrote a first small article about true crypt and recommended it. Back then I bought a usb 2.0 hard drive with 300 GB capacity and encrypted its entire partition with true crypt. This was done to test the programs functionality but also to see if it would slow down my main computer (athlon 64 3000+, 1 gb ram).

To my great suprise it did not slow down the pc and I decided to expand the encryption to cover all my hard drives. Let me tell you why and how i did this and why you should also be considering this.

Categories: Security

Astalavista Security Group have a beta page up that lists top freeware software products in various categories including Data Recovery, Anti Virus-Tools, Firewall and IDS and Anti-Spyware. The list contains some of the freeware tools that I already wrote about but also some new ones that might interest you.

Categories: Tools

Netstat is a free little tool that comes with a windows operating system and that is also available for linux and unix. Netstat shows all open ports on your machine.

Categories: Linux, Operating Systems, Tools

I thought about encrypting my hard disks, or at least part of them that contain personal data, for at least one year. I never did it because I thought it would be a lot of work involved. I had to find a good program, one that would offer good encryption algorithms, would be free and easy to use.

Categories: Tools

Pc Magazine wrote a article with such a long title that I had to cut it to make it fit, the article “Maximum Security: 94 Essential Tips for Staying Safe” has some useful tips for everyone that wants to have a secure as possible computer. They divided the article into several categories, system, networking and wireless, e-mail, Web surfing, malware, and mobile.

Categories: Security

After searching for some time for a relevant website that carries the information you need you are prompted with a “please login to view this site” text. The information lies behind this login procedure, but you don´t want to join the site and leave your email address behind. In days of spam a wise choice.

Categories: Security

This is a very informative site that explains many cryptography concepts. He begins by defining cryptography as “the science of writing in secret code and is an ancient art” and mentions that the first documented use of dates back to 1900 BC Egypt.

After that he explains why cryptography is essential for todays internet communication: “cryptography is necessary when communicating over any untrusted medium, which includes just about any network, particularly the Internet.”

Categories: Knowledge, Security