Computer Forensics

Data Recovery Service For RAID 0

2012-01-19T11:03:00.000-08:00

The RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) divide the data evenly across two or more disks (striped) with no parity information for redundancy. RAID 0 is not one of the original RAID levels and does not provide data redundancy. RAID 0 is typically used to improve performance, although it can also be used as a way to make a small number of large virtual disks from a large number of small physical ones. At first, RAID 0 is used to form a partition that is larger than some hard drive in a cost efficient. The system is to combine the capacity of multiple hard drives. Data written to the disk-drive is divided into fragments. The fragments are dispersed throughout the disk. Thus, if one hard drive has physical damage, then the data cannot be read at all. If your raid is damaged, you can ask for assistance to the Data Retrieval for data recovery services.

RAID 0 data recovery is one of the most complex types of data recovery. Almost all raid systems have a high error tolerance, but it does not create a raid array is really very easy. A raid recovery case is a top priority in Data Retrieval New York. Before starting actual recovery operations, they usually do a free evaluation. You will be provided with detailed diagnostic reports and price quote. Then you can decide whether you want to continue with the service or not. Privacy and security of your data will be kept confidential. With a workforce trained in the practice of data retrieval, making Data Retrieval New York become a reliable place to repair your data. So many companies and organizations that use their services, such as the YMCA, NASA, etc.
If you need some help for solving your data problem, feel free to contact:
Data Retrieval New York
newyork@dataretrieval.com
445 Park Avenue @ 57th Street, 9th Floor, Suite 958
New York, NY, 10022 USA
(646) 351-0817

An Overview of Computer Forensics

2011-09-13T07:28:00.000-07:00

Computer forensics may be the approach to while using the latest understanding of science with computer sciences to gather, evaluate and provide proofs for the criminal or civil courts. Network administrator and maintenance staff administer and manage systems and understanding systems must have complete understanding. Forensics may be the technique which deals to discover evidence and recouping the information. Evidence features a fit condition for example finger marks, DNA test or complete files on computer hard disks etc. The consistency and standardization it across courts isn't recognized strongly as it is new discipline.

It is important for network administrator and maintenance staff of networked organizations to train computer forensics and could have understanding of laws and regulations and rules and rules and rules and rules because rate of cyber crimes evolves greatly. It's very interesting for mangers and personnel who would like to experience the way may become a effective component of their organization security. Personnel, maintenance staff and network administrator should recognize all of the process. Computer experts use advanced tools and methods to extract removed, broken or corrupt data and evidence against attacks and utilizes.

These evidences are collected to follow along with together with along with together with along with cases in civil and criminal courts against individual's causes who committed computer crimes. The survivability and integrity of network infrastructure connected acquiring an organization is dependent on using computer forensics. Within our situations computer forensics ought to be taken because the fundamental component of computer and network security. It might be an excellent advantage for the organization knowing all of the technical and legal areas of computer forensics. Just in case your network is assaulted and crook is caught then good understanding about computer forensics can help you supply evidence and prosecute the issue inside the court room.

If you've been risks just in case you practice computer forensics badly. If you do not absorb it account then vital evidence may be destroyed. New laws and regulations and rules and rules and rules and rules are progressively being designed to safeguard customers' data however, if certain type of particulars aren't correctly protected then many liabilities may be designated for the organization. New rules bring organizations in criminal or civil courts when the organizations don't safeguard customer data. Organization money may also be saved by utilizing computer forensics. Some mangers and personnel spent a considerable part of their IT request network and computer security. It's reported by Worldwide Data Corporation (IDC) that software for vulnerability assessment and invasion recognition will approach $1.45 billion in 2006.

Life Alert Systems: Valuable Technology For Elderly Adults

2011-09-07T07:27:00.000-07:00

The life alert system is fast becoming a more essential technology for the future of senior citizens.

This system is amazing because it will know instantly if an elderly individual has fallen or met an accident. It is capable of monitoring similar conditions as well. At present, leading technology firms are engaged in continuous research and experiments to uncover more features and enhance capabilities of emergency medical alert systems. However, there are difficult challenges that these companies are facing. For one, robotics, monitoring and tracking devices as well as apparatus do not easily recognize the normal attitudes and actions of people. For technology to become aware of these subtle changes in human lives, a brand new level of development must be achieved in manufacturing and evaluating the emergency alert systems.

The long-standing target of industry players is to conceive more advanced strategies for calculation and conventional configuration, filtering, trending, adaptive modelling, and pattern identification. This would help caregivers a lot because of the safety procedures and the fact that it gives them peace of mind knowing that their wards are properly secured if accidents do happen. If the life alert system is a foolproof device, then there are lesser things to worry about.

Nonetheless, in the complex job of producing, improving and changing emergency medical alert systems, it will require sufficient time to prevail over impediments. Current motion sensors can only perceive the presence of a person in the room. The exact location cannot yet be pinpointed. Likewise, these new devices rely heavily on existing security systems. There is an urgent need to refurbish the infrastructure of such systems through highly improved technology. These have been configured to detect simple cases and lack the facility to make out intricate patterns and trends.

According to some sources, these emergency alert systems are being checked and assessed to make sure that these have been established to work relatively well. These system sensors are not difficult to install and employ equipment that is meant to be very functional. These gadgets are energized by batteries and communicate with the monitoring unit through a wireless process.

The conduction of data involves a device connecting computers through a stable phone connection to the security panel. It transports everything to a central location using said network. Albeit geographic limitations do exist regarding the use of the emergency medical alert systems and where it can be located, sensors fixed in precise areas around the house provide trouble-free installation and retrieval of needed information. The system requires a protected website that caregivers can use to check in on the homes of elderly or persons with special sicknesses.

Based on latest industry updates, emergency alert systems are now being designed to cope with various kinds of scenarios such as special ailments and preferences of patients. The progress has been rapid but technical experts are still in the midst of infusing improvements and changes to try to make the most efficient life alert system. After all, the aim of technology is to improve what has been done for the benefit of users.

PCI Compliance In 10 Minutes A Day - Using File Integrity and Log File Monitoring Effectively

2011-08-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

PCI Compliance Is Hard for Everyone!

In some respects, it can be argued that, the less IT 'stuff' an organization has, the fewer resources are going to be needed to run it all. However, with PCI compliance there are still always 12 Requirements and 650 sub-requirements in the PCI DSS to cover, regardless of whether you are a trillion dollar multinational or a local theatre company.

The principles of good security remain the same for both ends of the scale - you can only identify security threats if you know what business-as-usual, regular running looks like.

Establishing this baseline understanding will take time - 8 to 24 weeks in fact, because you are going to need a sufficiently wide perspective of what 'regular' looks like - and so we strongly advocate a baby-steps approach to PCI for all organizations, but especially those with smaller IT teams.

There is a strong argument that doing the basics well first, then expanding the scope of security measures is much more likely to succeed and be effective than trying to do everything at once and in a hurry. Even if this means PCI Compliance will take months to implement, this is a better strategy than implementing an unsupportable and too-broad a range of measures. Better to work at a pace that you can cope with than to go too fast and go into overload.

This is the five step program recommended, although it actually has merit for any size of organization.

PCI Compliance in 10 Minutes per Day

1. Classify your 'in scope of PCI' estate

You first need to understand where cardholder data resides. When we talk about cardholder data 'residing' this is deliberately different to the more usual term of cardholder data 'storage'. Card data passing through a PC, even it is encrypted and immediately transferred elsewhere for processing or storage, has still been 'stored' on that PC. You also need to include devices that share the same network as card data storing devices.

Now classify your device groups. For the example of Center Theatre Group, they have six core servers that process bookings. They also have around 25 PCs being used for Box Office functions. There are then around 125 other PCs being used for Admin and general business tasks.

So we would define 'PCI Server', 'Box Office PC' and 'General PC' classes. Firewall devices are also a key class, but other network devices can be grouped together and left to a later phase. Remember - this isn't cutting corners and sweeping dirt under the carpet, but a pragmatic approach to doing the most important basics well first, or in other words, taking the long view on PCI Compliance.

2. Make a Big Assumption

We now apply an assumption to these Device Groups - that is, that devices within each class are so similar in terms of their make-up and behavior, that monitoring one or two sample devices from any class will provide an accurate representation of all other devices in the same class.

We all know what can happen when you assume anything but this is assumption is a good one. This is all about taking baby steps to compliance and as we have declared up front that we have a strategy that is practical for our organization and available resources this works well.

The idea is that we get a good idea of what normal operation looks like, but in a controlled and manageable manner. We won't get flooded with file integrity changes or overwhelmed with event log data, but we will see a representative range of behavior patterns to understand what we are going to be dealing with.

Given the device groups outlined, I would target one or two servers - say a web server and a general application server - one or two Box Office PCs and one or two general PCs.

3. Watch...

You'll begin to see file changes and events being generated by your monitored devices and about ten minutes later you'll be wondering what they all are. Some are self explanatory, some not so.

Sooner or later, the imperative of tight Change Control becomes apparent.

If changes are being made at random, how can you begin to associate change alerts from your FIM system with intended 'good' changes and consequently, to detect genuinely unexpected changes which could be malicious?

Much easier if you can know in advance when changes are likely to happen - say, schedule the third Thursday in any month for patching. If you then see changes detected on a Monday these are exceptional by default. OK, there will always be a need for emergency fixes and changes but getting in control of the notification and documentation of Changes really starts to make sense when you begin to get serious about security.

Similarly from a log analysis standpoint - once you begin capturing logs in line with PCI DSS Requirement 10 you quickly see a load of activity that you never knew was happening before. Is it normal, should you be worried by events that don't immediately make sense? There is no alternative but to get intimate with your logs and begin understanding what regular activity looks like - otherwise you will never be able to detect the irregular and potentially harmful.

4....and learn

You'll now have a manageable volume of file integrity alerts and event log messages to help you improve your internal processes, mainly with respect to change management, and to 'tune in' your log analysis ruleset so that it has the intelligence to process events automatically and only alert you to the unexpected, for example, either a known set of events but with an unusual frequency, or previously unseen events.

Summary Reports collating filechanges on a per server basis are useful This is the time to hold your nerve and see this learning phase through to a conclusion where you and your monitoring systems are in control - you see what you expect to see on a daily basis, you get changes when they are planned to happen.

5. Implement

Now you are in control of what 'regular operation' looks like, you can begin expanding the scope of your File Integrity and Logging measures to cover all devices. Logically, although there will be a much higher volume of events being gathered from systems, these will be within the bounds of 'known, expected' events. Similarly, now that your Change Management processes have been matured, file integrity changes and other configuration changes will only be detected during scheduled, planned maintenance periods. Ideally your FIM system will be integrated with your Change Management process so that events can be categorized as Planned Changes and reconciled with RFC (Request for Change) details.

Successful IT Infrastructure Convergence For Healthcare Sector Through Managed Network Services

2011-08-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

Healthcare industry is associated with intricate communication systems, life safety and monitoring applications such as fire alarms, nurse call systems and doctor paging systems that require dedicated infrastructures for operation due to their life safety implications. As a result of which, management and maintenance of such systems becomes a big hassle. What could serve to be the biggest solution other than a managed network services provider? Let your applications be in control of a managed network services provider, while you can concentrate on providing better healthcare to your patients.

Evolution of technology has lead to great enhancements to the clinical systems for smooth and efficient healthcare delivery processes, including picture archiving and communications systems, computer-based doctor order entry systems, real-time locating systems, clinical decision-support systems, interactive patient entertainment services, electronic medical records systems and patient management systems. All these systems are managed individually by the corresponding providers or sometimes the internal IT and network management teams. Think how convenient it will be when you see the entire set of applications and systems running on a single platform, while having one point of contact for each and every concern you might have.

A managed network services provider handles everything including the bandwidth consumption, avoiding downtime of applications, installation & troubleshooting the applications, updating & upgrading the applications and everything else associated with your organization to run a smooth operations cycle. A managed network services provider provides an IP-based Ethernet network with optimal performance for IT infrastructure convergence, while providing an integrated platform for real time monitoring and control of data, voice, video and other multimedia applications. As a result of integrated platform by a managed network provider, a healthcare organization can not only enjoy smooth operations but also a standard based industry compliant platform that facilitates the integration of new patient care applications making the entire system highly scalable.

Another big advantage lies for mobile care givers as they are able to execute a simple yet efficient process by accessing a single platform and making use of all applications without any interruption. Bigger hospitals / healthcare organizations are also looking to plan video conferencing and tell medicine which require data-intensive applications including digital image transfers, x-rays, consultations and other diagnostic imaging technologies. All this requires a non-interrupting, 100% stable communication platform that can be provided by a managed network services provider. Last but not the least outsourcing healthcare network management reduces the overall cost of operation and administration, while proving to the perfect return on investment.

Identifying Mule Accounts

2011-08-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

When there is fraud then there is mule account; in fact it is the more important than botnets or phishing methods because what will hackers do with the banking credentials they have if they cannot use them. It is an important part in fraud and fraudsters will look for ways just to recruit and also control the mules.

Today, mule recruitment is carried out in the internet by using scam. Fraudsters will send a false email about job searches saying that the victim's resume was reviewed and that they are suitable to work at home. Due to the fact that the economy is rough and it is an opportunity, victims will take the bait. In the next e-mail exchanges, victim will sign fake paperwork and receive instruction for his assignment. Sometimes mules will be told to accept funds from the compromised accounts, reshipping of goods that are bought using other person's credit card or even receiving the money.

Soon the fraudsters stumbled upon a problem, when potential recruits are asking about the company website. To fix the problem, fraudsters even built their own website as the front of their activities and candidates can view the site and see the vacancies. They made it look like a legit company by listing current employees and their jobs; details about their work and others.

Online mule recruitment has changed the way fraudsters operate because they don't need a physical presence in that country so that they can recruit potential mules. Since he is doing his recruitment online, he can further increase the number of mules to increase his profit. It has become a challenge for many law enforcement agencies and incident response teams of industries because the mules thought that they have legit jobs. Sometimes, even mules become victims as well.

Sometimes there are places where online recruitment may become a problem, thus fraudsters will still recruit mules in real world. Sometimes, these mules can be accomplices who know that they are working with fraudsters and they can open multiple banking accounts. Another type of mule is what police call as the vacation or tourist mules; mules who are flown to different country and opens accounts in certain banks for their operation.

Somehow it is difficult for banks to stop a mule in opening a banking account because mules can be like any other regular person who is trying to open a bank account. However, it is still possible to identify a potential mule and stop them before they make any wrong mistakes that they will regret. Since mules can either be accomplices who are trained liar or unwitting victims who are too willing to make money. Identifying the first one can be difficult but the second one is not.

Identifying unwitting mules can be very easy by asking simple question before they can open bank accounts. It is the same as security screening found in airports, where weird sets of questions are asked; questions that are not designed for liars but for certain individuals who were duped and place into a particular situation.

For example bank employees will ask the individual whether someone else told him or her to open a banking account in this bank; or asking if opening this particular bank account is related into a particular job offer he or she received on the internet or even in the real life. Or any other questions that would raise an alarm for the bank, but it doesn't mean that the employee can truly assess if that person is a potential mule or not. In fact the answers will be recorded and opening the bank account will be put on hold until further results from the investigations made by the incident handling or security team is available.

Basically, banks do not need to perform additional special training for their employees, a simple information campaign regarding new procedures will do. Customer education is really not that important at all, but it won't hurt the bank if they will try like giving away fliers or posting ads that explains the danger of mule scams would help. Instead, banking clients and the public will appreciate the information given by banks and can help deter frauds in recruiting more mules.

The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce. It is the owner and developer of 20 security certifications. EC-Council has trained over 90,000 security professionals and certified more than 40,000 members. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies. They also offer incident response training.

Company Policies That Will Help Lower Computer Repair Costs

2011-08-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

A lot of small enterprises expend a substantial amount of money trying to keep their computer systems working. Usually we are called in due to virus troubles and operating system concerns that are caused by staff members browsing the internet and looking at email and other personal activities that cause the computer system to get corrupted and worse. Some staff install any and all programs on their computer systems. The price tag to get things operating once again could be in the hundreds of dollars. We often times have to backup all of the data and reformat the personal computer to fix it appropriately.

That may be not the conclusion of it though. The programs must be reinstalled. More often than not that involves Anti Virus, Microsoft Office, Quickbooks and more. It has to have printers setup and mapped drives, system connections, connecting to domains and email restored and set up. It will require time which costs money.

I strongly recommend an organization. Tips and hints to consider:

    * Installing software applications which are not accepted are forbidden.
    * Internet browsing is for business functions only, not personalized browsing.
    * Staff must be taught to stay away from opening emails from unknown sources and ignore opening attachments which are not requested or expected.
    * Downloading applications or anything else is forbidden.
    * Private email will not be looked at on the business computer.
    * Examining company email should be limited to business pursuits only.

An alternative good idea will be to provide your worker with another computer to be used for checking their private emails and a lot more. It won't have a company purpose so that if it is corrupted it is very easily reformatted and ready to use again.

Are you aware that huge corporations setup their computers so that employees are not able to install programs, access email etc. They have costly computer software that could do all of that. Frequently the PCs at large companies may have 2 or 3 applications installed and that is all it does. Many small companies have 20 programs installed plus more. They're even more complicated and more difficult to bring back to their prior state when problems occur.

A correctly configured web filter could be used to prevent access to the internet except for those website the worker needs to access in order to complete their task. This minimizes the undesired browsing or checking private email. Also a good antivirus and firewall program is important.

New MacBook Pro Review

2011-07-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

It is true that lots of the new MacBook Pro review speaks highly of the new series. The new series has high-speed due to the Intel core I5 dual processor. The high-speed of 2.53GHZ make sure that you can well for your applications in a faster and more efficient way. The excellent Turbo Boost can maximize the speed for using multiple applications and at the same time reduce the power consumption to preserve battery life. It's owns 4GB DDR3 RAM and a hard drive of the 500 GB storage. It's eight times DVD/CD drive can ensure enough document room and make it possible to playing DVD and CD at the same time. Its inbuilt Gigabit Ethernet enables faster wired net working. Besides all of these, two USB 2.0 ports, built-in iSight camera, FireWire, Digital card slot, Wi-Fi used for wireless Bluetooth, and the 15 inch backlit LCD screen of high-resolution make the new MacBook Pro an amazing product.

Just the same as the MacBook pro review says, this laptop has high quality of video as well as all the other Apple products thanks to the Intel HD Graphics processor and Geforce GT300. The NVIDIA GT300 has automatic graphic switches to change between the optimal performances with the supporting from a Graphics memory of 256MB. Along with the widescreen of 15 inch, MacBook pro can create a real home theatre for you. Different graphic cards of this great laptop can work on different workload. The NVIDA works for heavy graphic processing workloads and the Intel HD graphics works for the light part.

MacBook pro review talks a lot about the powerful Mac OS X. this Snow Leopard operating system can offer the fastest processing speed and friendly feelings for users. One other thing that needs to be mentioned is the long battery life of this laptop. It can works for users for as long as 5 years. For one charge, it can last up to eight hours for general usage. A considerate feature of battery is that it is built-in without adding too much extra weight or thickness to the computer. The battery can hold 80% of its original capacity even after ten thousand times of charges.

The aluminum and gorgers surface of the laptop is what most MacBook pro review praises. The amazing design of exterior surface is also one of the reasons why Apple products attract so many fans all around the world. If you are in need of a MacBook pro, Apple official site can provide detailed information of the configuration, while MacBook pro review can show you the most honest feedback of its usage.

How To Deal With Google Panda

2011-07-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Google's Panda impact has led tonnes of websites either rank or tank. It underscores that "the highest quality contents" should get their due prizes while "the lowest quality contents" should suffer the Panda wrath. Websites with 'the lowest quality contents' can save themselves from the Panda ire if they replace their copy-contents with the original ones, or else they should keep themselves ready to pale into insignificance against the surge of the Google Panda. Google has hundreds of quality-controlling mechanisms. Among them, its Panda seems to be one of the most merciless systems that neutralizes the copy-contents. As a result, affiliate sites appear to get affected badly. The Panda impact can affect 20 to 80 percent of websites overall. It can cause miserable dips of search visibility for a large chunk of websites across the Google search engine.

However, this impact is limited to those websites which have infringed the copyright terms and conditions by copying contents from others and overlapping the same or similar topics with marginally different keyword variations. Allegedly, the Panda swipe cannot sometimes distinguish the original websites from the duplicate ones and that results in poor traffic performance of the original websites. Despite this allegation, Google claims that Panda considers original contents and gives ranks duly to them. Also, it values for the unique design, original content and good navigational speed of the web pages, among others. If Panda finds that web contents are meeting its parameters perfectly, it will give proper ratings to them. As a result, the flow of the web traffic to those web pages will swell automatically.

Nevertheless, thousands of website-owners are voicing against this artificial intelligence in the fear of losing page ranks and huge web traffic overnight. But, Google insists on its preference for quality contents over quantity. This giant search engine has made its stand clear in its official blog post that contains 23 relevant questions. If the website-owners go through that set of questions, they will come to know what kind of contents can qualify the Panda parameters.

Now, the myth about the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that is believed to be omnipotent will perhaps lose its significance. Panda says that redundant articles with spelling, stylistic and factual errors will no longer get a free-pass. Only quality, topic-based, research-based, informative, authoritative and flawless contents will help optimize the traffic flow of web pages and that will eventually improve their page rankings across the Google.

In the backdrop of Google Panda iterations, website-owners fear of a severe backlash. They have so far been able to manage to play hide-and-seek with the quality-check parameters of the giant search engine. But, it is untrue that there had not been any such monitoring system across the Google so far. To be honest, it had been there in place. With the advent of Google Panda updates in recent times, the monitoring system has only been beefed up with stronger mechanisms. As a consequent, the effectiveness of simulated articles and other techniques of SEO will come under stricter scanner and the chances of easy escape will be almost zero. However, there are some simple means that are able to deal with the Panda blows successfully. They are as follows.

i) Be original and remain safe and secure.
ii) Use unique contents for websites and ensure that a thorough research for content creation has been performed.
iii) Claims in the contents should match with the offers of website's services and products.
iv) Avoid using repeated product and service descriptions.
v) Use utmost numbers of 'Do-follow links' (Links back to the target site from social media sites).
vi) Avoid using optimization software.
vii) Increase number of page views and bounce rates.
viii) Maximize numbers of advertisements on web pages.
ix) Use those templates that have fresh contents.

With Google Panda roll-out, a lot of hype and hoopla has been created across the web. While it has made thousands of websites suffer due to the lack of their original contents, it has generated hopes among thousands of hundreds of website-owners who have been in the gloomy corners of the Google search. Panda, the brainchild of a Google engineer named Navneet Panda, has been monitoring them and gradually driving them out of the ambit of traffic-generating-competition. However, the revival of a degraded web page is possible only when they replace their copy-contents with the original contents.