Security Operations in Your Organization

• Prevention technologies are designed to keep individuals from being able to gain access to systems or data they are not authorized to use.



• Previously in operational environments, prevention was extremely difficult and relying on prevention technologies alone was not sufficient. This led to the rise of technologies to detect and respond to events that occur when prevention failed.



• An important part of any organization’s approach to implementing security are the policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines that are established to detail what users and administrators should be doing to maintain the security of the systems and network.

Physical Security

• Physical security consists of all mechanisms used to ensure that physical access to the computer systems and networks is restricted to only authorized users.



• The purpose of physical access controls is the same as that of computer and network access controls—you want to restrict access to those who are authorized to have it.

Social Engineering

• Social engineering is the process of convincing an authorized individual to provide confidential information or access to an unauthorized individual.



• Social engineering takes advantage of what continually turns out to be the weakest point in our security perimeter—human beings.

Environment

• Environmental issues are important to security because they can affect the availability of a computer system or network.



• Problems with electrical power and fire are two of the more common environmental conditions that should be considered.

Wireless

• There are two main standards for wireless network technology: Bluetooth and 802.11.



• Wireless networks have many security issues including the transmission and reception areas covered by access points which are not easily controlled and can thus provide easy network access for intruders.

Electromagnetic Eavesdropping

• With the appropriate equipment, the exact image of what is being displayed on a computer monitor can be re-created some distance away allowing eavesdroppers to view what you are doing.



• Providing a lot of distance between the system you wish to protect and the closest place an eavesdropper could be is one way to protect against eavesdropping on electronic emanations. Devices can also be shielded so that their emanations are blocked.

Location

• The careful placement of equipment can provide security for known security problems exhibited by wireless devices and that arise due to electronic emanations.