11 Software And Utilities For Securing Your Network

Security tools are useful for both newbies and professionals. At a time when even your government is spying on your data, what tools are you using? 

Security is one of the buzzwords on the internet nowadays. When we talk about security, two things come to mind — hackers and security software. Utilities and software related to security is especially useful as they make it easy for even less savvy users to improve their security arrangements. Here are 11 of these security software and utilities that you can use in order to improve your system's protection against attackers.

As cited on netsecurity.about.com, here are 11 such tools that offer protection-
ZoneAlarm Pro –This is freely available and offers much more protection. Zonelabs has added extra security functionality including the quarantining of malicious email attachments and increased protection for your privacy at the time of surfing the Web.

Hidden Object Locator – You can locate hidden NDS objects in your tree. This zip file consists of two files: an NLM and a text file with instructions.

ippl – This is a daemon that logs IP packets sent to a computer. This keeps running in the background, and displays information regarding the incoming packets. Criteria can be utilized for specifying what packets should be logged and what packets should be ignored.
Intrusion SecureHost – In lieu of detecting and then reacting to an attack post the damage has been done, SecureHost stops the attack from happening in the first place. It instantly defines application behaviors, which are acceptable, based on corporate policy. If any rules for proper application behavior are violated, SecureHost stops the activity before any damage is done.

Riverhead Detector/Guard - Riverhead products spot and defeat the most complex DDoS attacks, retaining business continuity and protecting your most valued corporate assets.
Securify SecurVantage – This is an automated security system enabling customers to quickly produce business-driven security policies, monitor networks for compliance and produce relevant information.

NFR Sentivist IPS – This offers organisations with highly accurate attack prevention. It offers industry unique features like Confidence Indexing, customisation capabilities and minimal impact design.

ISS RealSecure Server Sensor – This offers automated, real-time intrusion protection and detection by analyzing events, hosting logs and inbound and outbound network activity on servers for preventing malicious activity from damaging critical assets.

Scanlogd – This is a TCP port scan detection tool, that was initially designed to show various attacks an IDS developer has to deal with. Different from other port scan detection tools, Scanlogd is quite safe to use.

Folder Lock – This is a fast file-security software which can lock, hide or encrypt a number of files, folders, pictures and documents within seconds. The files are kept safe with your choice of password.

GIANT Anti-Spyware – This searches for and destroys existing spyware on your computer and quickly alerts you as and when potential dangers arise, stopping many spyware even before it is installed.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

12 Free Ebooks On Information Security

Security professionals have been highly sought after employees recently. With the growing security concerns, it is important for computer professionals to know the various security methods properly. So, with that in mind, here are 12 of the best books on security that you can read!

1. Algorithms for Audio Watermarking and Steganography: This book deals with a combination of digital signal processing, communications theory and psychoacoustic modeling for developing the algorithms for audio watermarking and steganography.

2. An Introduction to Computer Security: The NIST Handbook: This is a handbook for securing computer-based resources. It consists of important concepts in the field, along with topics like cost and the relationship to security controls.

3. Coding Theory and Cryptography: As the name suggests, it deals with coding theory and cryptography. This book consists of a number of advanced concepts on the subject.

4. Creating a Robust Form of Steganography: This is a paper that makes a proposal for a transform embedding method along with notions from digital watermarking, in order to improve them and make them suited for steganography.

5. Cryptanalysis of RSA Using Algebraic And Lattice Methods: This book deals with the security of public key cryptosystems. It deals with the RSA public key cryptosystem and it’s variants.

6. Forensic Discovery: This book is perhaps the best guide for computer forensics. It teaches the nooks and crannies of gathering digital evidence and then analysing it.

7. Handbook of Applied Cryptography: While this book deals with several cryptographic methods it covers a variety of classical cyptosystems as well.

8. Handbook of Information Security Management: This book is especially suited to professional cryptographers, who can use it as a reference guide for their purposes.

9. Image Steganography and Steganalysis: This is another book that can act as a good reference book for security professionals. It is well suited to those pursuing Certified Information System Security Professionals (CISSP) certification.

10. Introduction to Modern Cryptography: Steganography is the art of hiding information and steganalysis is the method for countering it. This book explains both.

11. IT Security Cookbook: Block ciphers, symmetric and asymmetric encryption, pseudorandom encryption, authentication etc. are all part of this book.

12. Lecture Notes on Cryptography: This is a collection of 283 pages of lecture notes from a summer course taught at MIT. 

Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill