Cyber Technology

 Unfortunately, if you have failed to avoid ransomware, your first sign might be an encrypted or locked drive and a ransom note. If you run your malware and virus checker frequently with updated virus and malware definitions, your security software may detect the ransomware and alert you to its presence. You can then opt to quarantine and delete the ransomware. Hopefully, you never have to deal with your data being held hostage. Minimize damage by immediately isolating the machine — this critical to prevent further access to your network. At this stage, rebuild your system and download your backups. You may be able to recover many resources with a system restore. That is if you can access the system and are not locked out of it. Otherwise, you’ll have to reinstall everything from backups. If you’ve backed up your crucial data on a cloud server, you should be able to find a safe restore point. know more :  protecting against ransomware

Ransomware can have a serious impact on your business, in which someone’s computer is held at a virtual gunpoint with a demand for payment in return for a decryption key. While there are several different types of ransomware, what generally happens is that it finds its way onto your system through malicious websites and untrusted attachments in phishing emails.

Port numbers are assigned to applications and their communications on a local area network (LAN). They help to keep one particular "conversation" distinguishable from another. Default port numbers have been assigned to most applications or services. For example, standard web access (http) runs over port 80, and secure web access (https) runs over port 443. Official well-known port numbers can be found at the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority's website, which is linked in the Resources section. Many commonly known unofficial port numbers are in use by vendors as well. Step 1 Open a terminal. For Windows, open a command prompt by clicking on "Start" and typing "CMD" in the "Run" box. For a Mac, type "terminal" in the finder, or go to the Applications folder, open the Utilities folder and open "Terminal." These commands can be run from the client computer or from the server side. Oftentimes, you will not have access to

PRTG is an option geared more at larger networks that span several locations, or even countries. It has strong monitoring focused around downtime prevention and prediction, but also boasts many of the stronger granular tools to let you examine traffic on a smaller scale in terms of users and protocols. Similar to SolarWinds' software above, PRTG tries to be much more preventative than palliative. Alerts and monitoring attempt to predict and prevent the occurrence of problems by using metrics and history to find trends and alert you before it reaches a catastrophic point. Coupled with PRTG's ability to examine bandwidth on a smaller scale gives you an overall balanced tool for network monitoring on a large scale. find more :  network security level

A modem security key is used to protect users from any potential intruders that may want to use their network to connect to the Internet. Security keys can often be forgotten. Consequently, users can't connect to the Internet using their own modem. However, there are ways you can get your original security key, but you should keep it handy in a safe place. 2wire Modem Default Security Key Step 1 Grab a paper and pen. Step 2 Look on the bottom of your modem, below the serial number and bar code. Step 3 Write down the 10-digit number with brackets around it. That is your default security key. read more :  network security level

If the NTLM authentication setting on your Windows computer is not set to NTLMv2, your computer may repeatedly prompt you for your IU username and passphrase when you attempt to access your IU Exchange account via Outlook (or any other desktop email client). Windows 8.x and later and Windows Server use NTLMv2 authentication by default, but in rare instances, this setting may become incorrect, even if the NTLM setting was previously correct. You only need to use one of the following methods. Using the Local Security Policy console is easier, but not all versions of Windows include the secpol.msc application necessary to use this method. It is usually found on business-class versions of Windows (for example, Enterprise and Ultimate). The registry option will work on all versions of Windows. Use the Local Security Policy console To use the local security settings to force Windows to use NTLMv2: Open the Local Security Policy console, using one of the following methods: From the

Special-purpose Windows service accounts are more secure than generic domain user accounts, but it's important to choose the right service account for the right task. One of the fundamental rules for running an application within a Windows operating system is that the application will be able to run only if it has sufficient permissions to do so. If an application is run interactively, then the application will normally inherit the permissions of the user who is running the application. Microsoft Word is able to run on Windows 10, for example, not because Windows recognizes Word as a trustworthy application (although there are mechanisms for that, too), but because the user who is running Word has sufficient permissions to do so. Unlike desktop applications such as Microsoft Word, most server applications do not run interactively. As such, these applications get their permissions from service accounts. Early on, service accounts were little more than standard domain user accou

There are several ways to hook up individual computers into a network. One is to use hardware routers to link up the network segments. If you buy hardware bridges, those will also connect the computers with each other. In Windows XP, simply clicking the "Bridge Connections" icon joins parts of a network together, even if the parts use different media to link their segments. Advantages Using a router or a hardware bridge requires buying more equipment to connect your computers. With a wireless router, each computer and network segment needs its own Internet Protocol (IP) address in order to direct data to the right computer. Both methods may require an IT professional or experienced amateur to connect everything properly. With Windows XP, building a bridging connection requires just a few clicks of your mouse in the right places. Bridging To make a bridge, you must log in as an administrator on your network or your computer. Click the computer's "Control Panel,

NTLM attacks are especially relevant to Active Directory environments. One of the most common attack scenarios is NTLM Relay, where the attacker compromises one machine and then spreads laterally to other machines by using NTLM authentication directed at the compromised server. The best way to cope with NTLM vulnerabilities is basically not to use NTLM, as there are better and safer authentication methods out there. But easier said than done, because most large and veteran infrastructures contain machines that can only use NTLM. Is this case, it is important to make sure they are configured in the most secure fashion possible. POLICY DESCRIPTION: LAN Manager (LM) is a family of early Microsoft client/server software that allows users to link personal computers together on a single network. Network capabilities include transparent file and print sharing, user security features, and network administration tools. In Active Directory domains, the Kerberos protocol is the default authen

If your home has broadband service where you receive both TV and Internet over cable, you can use an LAN modem to transmit the cable TV signal to your TV set. You will need to have an LAN port on your TV, which many HD TV sets now come with. By connecting your TV set through a LAN, you can share your cable and Internet without having to deal with possible problems from a cable splitter, and you can free up the TV set's RG coaxial port for another possible connection. Step 1 Connect the cable running from inside the wall of your home to your cable modem's input port. This is the cylindrical threaded port much like the main port on the TV set. Step 2 Plug an LAN Ethernet cable into one of the output ports on the modem. Step 3 Connect the same cable to the LAN input port on your TV set. Step 4 Plug the modem into a wall socket. It often takes up to two minutes for the modem to fully power up. Step 5 Turn the TV set on. If the TV signal does not immediately appear o

Requiring your users to use complex passwords and enforcing that policy is useless if you authenticate and locally store easily cracked password files. By default, Windows NT, 2000, and XP locally store legacy LAN Manager (LM) password hashes (LANMAN hashes). LM uses a weak encryption scheme to store passwords, and hackers can usually crack it in a very short period of time. Windows stores LM hashes in the Security Account Manager (SAM) database. By default, clients have LAN Manager authentication enabled, and servers accept this authentication. This allows workstations to send weak LM hashes across the network, making Windows authentication vulnerable to packet sniffing and reducing the amount of effort an attacker must expend to crack user passwords. To disable this ability and better secure your workstations, follow these steps: Go to Start | Run, and enter Regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ control\LSA. Find the LMCompatibilityLevel va

When you connect to a network for the first time in Windows, Windows saves the network profile and assigns a name to it. Connections using Ethernet (wired) use a generic name such as Network 7 usually while wireless networks the SSID of the Wi-Fi network the device connected to. Some users and administrators may dislike the non-descriptive nature of wired network connections on Windows. Good news is that it is possible to rename network profile names to make them more descriptive on the operating system. The following guide was written for Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system but the process should work in previous versions of Windows as well. You can check the current name in the Network and Sharing Center on Windows or in the Settings application on Windows 10. 1. Tap on Windows-I to open the Settings application. 2. Go to Network & Internet > Ethernet or Wi-Fi depending on the connection type. The name of the network is displayed at the very top of the

Skype needs to connect to the Internet to verify account information, and generate encryption keys. The Skype network is created by all of its users; it's a peer-to-peer network. Every computer connected acts as a client and a server. Once a Skype account authenticates online it can operate within your LAN. Since Skype uses the fastest connections available to it, it will remain within your LAN as long as all the users it's communicating with are within that LAN. Step 1 Connect to your LAN, and have all your Skype contacts do the same. Step 2 Start Skype, and log in to your account. Have all contacts you wish to communicate with do the same. Step 3 Start a chat, audio call or video call with another Skype user in your LAN. The communication will take place over your LAN. know more :   windows lan

To remotely boot a computer on a network, you'll need a "Wake-On-LAN" supported network adapter. Once the adapter is installed, the computer can be "pinged" from another computer on the network to initiate the boot sequence. A ping is a signal sent from one computer to another and can be sent directly from the Command Prompt in Windows. Step 1 Open the "Start" menu on the computer that will be pinged, then type "CMD" into the Search box and press "Enter." Step 2 Type "ipconfig/all" then press "Enter." Make note of the following items: Physical address, IP address and subnet mask. Step 3 Open the Command Prompt on the computer from which you will be sending the wake-on-LAN command. Type "ping" followed by the computer that you will be sending the wake-on-LAN command's IP address. For example, if the IP address is "192.168.1.1," type "ping 192.168.1.1" and press the "

Nowadays, practically every personal computer is connected in one form or another to a network. There exists of course the biggest network of all —the Internet— but several other types of smaller networks like LANs (local area networks) and enterprise networks also exist. Network operating systems (NOS) serve as gatekeepers to data and applications on all manner of these networks. Network operating systems don't differ too much from the single-processor operating systems almost every computer user is familiar with, says Andrew Tannenbaum in his book "A History of Operating Systems", but they have their own unique, fascinating history. The concept of data communications between computers began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when researchers began developing a way of connecting computers and exchanging information by way of packets of data. Soon, the concept of a local area network (LAN) took hold, replacing the previous model of a central computing node and so-calle

NTLM (NT LAN Manager) has been used as the basic Microsoft authentication protocol for quite a long time: since Windows NT. Although Microsoft introduced a more secure Kerberos authentication protocol in Windows 2000, the NTLM (generally, it is NTLMv2) is still widely used for authentication on Windows domain networks. In this article, we’ll consider how to disable NTLMv1 and NTLMv2 protocols and start using Kerberos in your Active Directory domain. The main NTLMv1 problems: weak encryption; storing password hash in the memory of the LSA service that can be extracted using different tools (like mimikatz) and then the hash may be used for further attacks; the absence of mutual authentication between a server and a client that results in data interception attacks and unauthorized access to network resources (some tools such as Responder can capture NTLM data sent over the network and use them to access the network resources); and other vulnerabilities. Some of them were fixed in

NTLM is a challenge/response protocol where in the authenticating server or domain controller issues a challenge which the client authenticates using the password hash as a key. NTLM has been repeatedly patched over the years to address security vulnerabilities. The oldest Windows systems can only send back the LM response originally developed in the 80s for LanManager. With NT Microsoft developed a stronger hash and response mechanism called NTLM but continued supporting LM. Vulnerabilities were found in NTLM prompting NTLMv2. For more information on NTLM see “Network security: Do not store LAN Manager hash value on next password change”. These patches affect connectivity to/from older versions of Windows and this setting allows you to tweak NTLM on this computer to be strict and less compatible with older systems or more compatible but less secure. Note that the values for this setting impact how the computer handles NTLM authentication both as a client and as the authenticating s