RADIUS RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service), defined in RFC 2865, is a protocol for remote user authentication and accounting. RADIUS enables centralized management of authentication data, such as usernames and passwords. When a user attempts to login to a RADIUS client, such as a router, the router send the authentication request to the RADIUS server. The communication between the RADIUS client and the RADIUS server are authenticated and encrypted through the use of a shared secret, which is not transmitted over the network. The RADIUS server may store…

Environments SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) refers to equipment often used to manage automated factory equipment, dams, power generators, and similar equipment. The Security+ exam does not heavily emphasize this, because the security measures will depend on the device. However, the infamous Stuxnet virus targeted specific SCADA equipment, so the need for SCADA security is not simply hypothetical. Embedded systems (such as printers, smart TVs, and HVAC controls) have their own security needs. Most modern printers, even midrange printers, have hard drives, RAM, and an operating system. That means…

Cloud Storage The first couple of PCs that this author owned booted from media (tape with one and floppies with another) and did not include hard drives. After saving up for quite a while, I bought and installed my first hard drive—costing more than $600. It had a capacity of 20 MB, and I could not fathom what I would possibly do with all of that space. Today that number is so small, it’s laughable. The trend for both individuals and enterprises has been to collect and store as much…

Operating system security and settings The ability to run the administrative interfaces within the operating system, and the applications associated with them, is often the difference between a standard user and an administrative user. The person running the administrative interfaces can make configuration changesto the system(s) and modify settings in ways that can have wide-ranging consequences. For example, a user who is able to gain access to the administrative tools could delete other users, set their own ID equal to the root user, change passwords, or delete key files. To…

Device Security Mobile devices, such as laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones, provide security challenges above those of desktop workstations, servers, and such in that they leave the office and this increases the odds of their theft. In 2010, AvMed Health Plans, a Florida-based company, had two laptop computers stolen. Together, over one million personal customer records were on those computers, and this is but one of many similar stories that happen on a regular basis. At a bare minimum, the following security measures should be in place on mobile devices:…

Fuzzing Fuzz testing or Fuzzing is a Black Box software testing technique, which basically consists in finding implementation bugs using malformed/semi-malformed data injection in an automated fashion. Let’s consider an integer in a program, which stores the result of a user’s choice between 3 questions. When the user picks one, the choice will be 0, 1 or 2. Which makes three practical cases. But what if we transmit 3, or 255? We can, because integers are stored a static size variable. If the default switch case hasn’t been implemented securely, the…

Penetration testing It is becoming more common for companies to hire penetration testers to test their system’s defenses. Essentially, a penetration tester will use the same techniques a hacker would use to find any flaws in your system’s security. Hacking and penetration testing are areas that seem quite exciting to many people. Unfortunately, this has led to a number of unqualified (or at least underqualified) people calling themselves penetration testers. It is imperative when hiring a penetration tester that you ensure the person in question has the requisite skill set….

Interpret results of security assessment tools Similar to packet sniffing, port scanning and other “security tools”, vulnerability scanning can help you to secure your own network or it can be used by the bad guys to identify weaknesses in your system to mount an attack against. The idea is for you to use these tools to identify and fix these weaknesses before the bad guys use them against you. The goal of running a vulnerability scanner is to identify devices on your network that are open to known vulnerabilities. Different…

Monitoring system logs The general goal of monitoring is to detect suspicious behavior by external users or employees, or malfunctions. An organization can do this directly, such as by monitoring for specific events, or indirectly, such as by watching the state of a server over time and investigating anomalous behavior. Your security organization will have to determine its specific monitoring policy. Within this policy, you will have to determine your organization’s specific monitoring goals. Some questions you will have to answer are: – Are you going to baseline your server’s…

Applications such as Content Management Systems (CMS), Wikis, Portals, Bulletin Boards, and discussion forums are being used by small and large organizations. Every week hundreds of vulnerabilities are being reported in these web applications, and are being actively exploited. The number of attempted attacks every day for some of the large web hosting farms range from hundreds of thousands to even millions. All web frameworks (PHP, .NET, J2EE, Ruby on Rails, ColdFusion, Perl, etc) and all types of web applications are at risk from web application security defects, ranging from…