Year: 2011
Why Do You Need Good AD Account Lockout Tools?
Recent download poll results show that administrators need good tools for troubleshooting and resolving account lock-out issues. Strong password policies and account lockout thresholds exist for very good reasons and have been common practice for a number of years now as the first line of defense against hackers and thieves and are also required by … Continued
Humorous Error Messages
It’s Friday and adding some humor to lighten things every now and again is a good thing. I recently found this TechRepublic discussion forum post entitled ‘Looking for memorable error messages’. Ask and ye shall receive and receive it did. As of this time, there are 84 responses. Some of the contributions are very funny … Continued
What IT professionals think about HIPAA
A recent Spiceworks discussion on HIPAA compliance revealed many interesting thoughts from IT pros who have wrestled with HIPAA compliance directly. In this post I will attempt to summarize their perspectives on HIPAA and what you need to know. While it may sound scary, HIPAA was enacted to among other things, protect patient records and … Continued
Removable media: Convenient portable data storage or IT threat?
Trusted employees, on-site vendors and welcomed guests pose unique security concerns considering how easy it is to plug a portable storage device into a workstation, server, or laptop that has not been appropriately secured. Compounding this problem is the technological advancements seen in storage in recent years. USB drives are compact, high-speed, and can store … Continued
Top-3 demands for SQL Server auditing
This month’s poll results revealed some very interesting details on what administrators are looking for to support their SQL server environments. Of those polled, 33.6% stated they want SQL configuration settings audited. 22.9% expressed the need for security auditing such as logins and role change events. Another 15.7% stated they desire auditing of data changes. … Continued
Astounding need for analyzing Windows logon events
This week, we reviewed download poll results on two popular systems administration tools: Netwrix Logon Reporter and Netwrix Event Log Manager. Both tools help administrators gain visibility over their user activities and events that may be adversely impacting security or system performance. Maintaining a detailed history of these events for auditors is nearly impossible with … Continued
Good News: Proactive password security is increasing in importance.
In a recent download poll performed by Netwrix, an encouraging 54.3% of administrators expressed their need to reset passwords in-bulk reflecting the growing need to clear old passwords that for some may have not changed in years. This type of action indicates that password security is a concern and there is no better way to … Continued
Real-Time Alerting tops the list of must-have Event Log Management features
A Netwrix poll was recently taken to gauge primary interests in the intended uses of the Event Log Manager. The results of this poll revealed that of those that responded, 20% needed real-time monitoring. In addition, 10% respectively for both archiving and reporting purposes were cited as the main motivations behind better event log management. … Continued
Your security Question is: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck….
It seems that people are always struggling with creating ‘good’ security questions. Someone recently sent me an interesting list of security question guidelines that contains both Good and Bad example questions. The problem with a good security question is that it needs to be something that you will easily remember but that no one (or almost … Continued
Case Study: Eclipse Group Automates Infrastructure Change Auditing for Increased Security
With over 200 IT pros serving a wide variety of business needs, Eclipse Group offers a broad range of IT services and systems geared toward providing top-quality application development, infrastructure management, disaster recovery, risk management, modernization and more for IT departments across the globe. Following a serious security breach that impacted customer service provisions, Eclipse … Continued
SCOM Management Pack for Netwrix Change Reporter Suite
IT infrastructure change reporting integrated with System Center Operations Manager Netwrix recently released the SCOM Management Pack for Change Reporter Suite for automated auditing of the entire IT infrastructure. This MP captures all changes made to Active Directory, GPO, MS Exchange and other systems, and feeds the audit data to Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, … Continued
Netwrix’s Jeff Melnick Talks Endpoint Security With Help Net Security Editor In Chief
Netwrix’s own Jeff Melnick recently sat down for a discussion with Help Net Security Editor In Chief Mirko Zorz to discuss the complex world of endpoint security. Melnick and Zork spoke in detail about the challenges associated with end point client protection, the influx of potentially hazardous external devices (like the iPad), means to ensuring … Continued
Free Tool of the Day: Netwrix Active Directory Change Reporter
Today’s Free Tool of the Day, Netwrix Active Directory Change Reporter, Active Directory auditing solution that tracks and reports all changes made to Active Directory and Group Policy and creates change audit reports that show WHO changed WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE for all changes. Active Directory change auditing is an important procedure for tracking unauthorized … Continued
Free Tool of the Day: Netwrix Windows Update Checker
Today’s Free Tool of the Day, Netwrix Windows Update Checker, ensures that all computers have up-to-date patches. Keeping systems up-to-date with the latest patches and safe against security threats is a critical task for IT professionals, both for security and compliance. One of the most routine and error-prone aspects of patch management involves ensuring that … Continued
Free Tool of the Day: Netwrix Logon Reporter
Today’s Free Tool of the Day, Netwrix Logon Reporter, is a purpose-built product that automatically consolidates and archives all types of logon events from all Active Directory domain controllers and provides rich reporting capabilities. Logon auditing is one of the biggest priorities for many organizations because it provides clear visibility into user activity and is … Continued
Free Tool of the Day: Netwrix Network Infrastructure Change Reporter
Today’s Free Tool of the Day, Netwrix Network Infrastructure Change Reporter, is a network device auditing and reporting tool that tracks changes to all network devices and their settings. The product automatically detects new devices in specified IP ranges and tracks changes to their settings, such as modifications in IP routing tables, firewall rules, security … Continued