Archive for the 'Security' Category

HOW TO: Secure Your EMail and IM Communications

Wired and wireless networks can be easily snooped. What does that mean to you? Anyone with a computer on your network—or in your area, if you use wireless access—can monitor your communications, unless you make sure those communications are secured.

HOW TO: A free and easy way to test your Wi-Fi security

If you’re wondering just how secure your home network is, here’s an easy way to find out. Pure Networks, makers of the popular Network Magic management tool for home networks, has a free diagnostic scan that will deliver a scorecard on your network’s security status.

HOW TO: Secure Ubuntu With AppArmor

AppArmor is one way to protect your assets on your Ubuntu Gutsy system. AppArmor attempts to protect processes on the server or desktop from security threats. AppArmor enforces limits on what processes can access on the system. It attempts to restrict processes to those resources that the process requires to function only. AppArmor will not […]

HOW TO: keep my Mac safe from other users

When you initially set up your Mac, OS X creates a single user account for you. That account includes administrative rights, which give you the authority to install, change, or delete anything on the computer. Using that administrator account as your normal, day-to-day login account can be risky.

HOW TO: Secure your Mac

Although viruses pose much less of a threat to the Mac platform, individuals and organisations shouldn’t forego protecting Mac systems with a quality antivirus application. In this article we show you the right tips to make sure your Mac is adequately protected.

HOW TO: 10 things you should do to a new Linux PC before exposing it to the Internet

Linux, like Microsoft Windows, is simply a computer operating system. When I talk to friends or co-workers who are embarking on the Linux experience for their initial time, this is the first point I stress. Linux in itself is not a magic wand that can be waved and make all sorts of computing problems disappear. […]

HOW TO: Encrypt your instant messages with Gaim

You’re instant messaging your wife from the office and you’d rather the IT guys weren’t privy to the conversation. You’re IM’ing a potential investor about your stealth startup at the coffee shop. These are just two scenarios when you might want to keep your instant messages from prying eyes.

HOW TO: Locking Down Ubuntu

Security is an important issue in computing. Unfortunately, many computers allow a cracker to gain access to them and retrieve sensitive information, or just make life hard. This article will review the basics in general security and explain how to apply it to two Linux distributions–Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

HOW TO: Crack Mac OS X passwords

As we are all aware, Mac OS X is based on BSD. Mac OS X is an UNIX-like operating system (much like Linux and the various other BSD variants FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD).
So what does that mean?
It means that your Mac is a multi user operating system. While at the present time, only one user can […]

HOW TO: Bypass BIOS Passwords

BIOS passwords can be add extra layer of security for desktop and laptop computers, and are used to either prevent a user from changing the BIOS settings or to prevent the PC from booting without a password. BIOS passwords can also be a liability if a user forgot their passwords, or if a malicious user […]

HOW TO: Hardening Linux Web Servers

Security is a process, not a result. It is a process which is difficult to adopt under normal conditions; the problem is compounded when it spans several job descriptions. All the system level security in the world is rendered useless by insecure web-applications. The converse is also true—programming best practices, such as always verifying user […]

HOW TO: Protect your Mac

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Your Mac is the safest personal computer on the market. Even though we’ve had a couple of scares this year, there are still almost no Mac viruses. According to research done by Sophos (a maker of antivirus software), at press time there were only four known […]

HOW TO: Encrypt your email

Most email messages you send travel vast distances over many networks, secure and insecure, monitored and unmonitored, passing through and making copies of themselves on servers all over the Internet. In short, pretty much anyone with access to any of those servers - or sniffing packets anywhere along the way - can read your email […]