Here are the most common complaints, and simple ways to fix them:

Taking forever to get to the part they care about: Especially early in the sales cycle, customers are just trying to narrow down their options between a lot of potential vendors. They usually have two or three questions they need answered in order to either decide you’re a player or eliminate you. Ask them what they’re looking to learn- and give it to them as quickly as possible.HINT- no one is impressed with your login screen. Move on-fast.

Too much “good stuff”: The most common complaint about product (especially software) demos is that customers get easily overloaded with details. The good news is you’re excited about your product and know every “cool” thing it can do. Your customer is still trying to figure out if it will solve their problem and until they know that, all your “value added” has no value whatsoever.HINT- if you find yourself saying “oh by the way…” a lot, you’re giving them too much information at this stage.

Speaking an alien language: We are not talking about foreign languages and accents here. We’re talking about terminology which makes perfect sense to a programmer (or someone who spends too much time with programmers) but might as well be Martian to the mere mortals you’re selling to. Terms like “user interface”, “algorithm” and the like are “screens” and “the software” to the rest of the human race.HINT- if you tell them it’s “intuitive” and they don’t get it, you’re really calling them a moron. Stop it. Now.

Not moving the sale forward: All too often the person delivering the demo is not a sales person, and doesn’t think like one. They show the customer the software and leave it up to the customer to take the next step. Here’s the problem- the customer is spending a lot of money (or at least it feels like it to them) and is nervous. They don’t often know what the next step is or need to feel assured it’s the right thing to do.HINT- Even if you’re not the sales person of record, this is a sales call. ALWAYS ask for the business. Write a question like “so are you ready to move forward with a license” and have it in front of you so you don’t forget to ask. You’d be amazed how often just the relief of finishing the demo means we don’t close the deal.

No customer is watching your demo for amusement. Help them achieve their goal and you’ll be surprised how much more they “enjoy” your hard work.

With Broadband becoming the standard access to the Internet in all four corners of the world, the benefits and possibilities of utilizing rich media and interactivity in marketing are starting to become a reality if not the norm. One of the most active areas is in the so-called Animated Avatars know by many names such as: Talking Web Characters, Virtual Representatives, Virtual Characters and Web Compares. Their popularity growing every day, it’s not by accident, one critical reason is… “they work” , but when it comes to using them to deliver training, presentations or integrated into CBT and education the Virtual Teacher rises eminently to the challenge. 

Assisted Education Delivery using the ubiquitous Virtual Tutor comes of age.

Virtual Teachers, educational presenters and tutor can have a new face, available 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, with the same happy disposition, virtual, animated, automated lip-syncing and compelling content combined with contextual delivery. We know that retention is improved, we know that “lean back” education can be effortlessly absorbed and we know that there is nothing more powerful when it comes to delivering complex ideas or facts than the spoken word. Virtual Teachers can be available in different forms, ages, sexes and even fantasy. The flexibility is endless. Education creators can concentrate on the subject matter and choose the ideal Virtual Tutor to assist in the process. Literature assignment can be delivered in context and even brain teasing science and math education can become more precise when you have the help of a virtual tutor that has the power of “voice”. Un-attended education across the web or operated locally makes virtual education delivery highly effective and manageable. CBT has a new face, interactive courses can have virtual assistants and guides. Many training and formal educational environment incorporate media within their presentations and educational content, and it’s not by accident, why? because it works! The ability to concentrate on content and its compelling and memorable delivery is the reason that Virtual Teachers and Tutors are common place in establishment high in the corporate stratosphere and junior schools alike, they both have something in common, the recognition that compelling animated virtual teachers can give results in a planned and precise manner, where achievements can be accelerated at all learning levels. This is no accident, its technology at its best, with a face and a purpose. Take a PowerPoint presentation, graphs, facts, figures and images, nice enough, add a virtual full animated teacher into the mix and you now have a new breed of educational delivery.

In an educational setting it’s a proven fact that information retention and concentration is enhanced when faced with compelling content. So what should you look for in your animated talking character.

1: The Avatar Look

Is your talking animated character “attractive”, or does it look as though it has fallen out of the ugly tree, is it well crafted and generally compelling, or amateurish and poorly animated. Does it suit your image and delivery requirements… is the quality something you are comfortable associating with.

2: Automated Lip-Syncing

Is the avatar lip-sync accurate? there is nothing worse than watching a virtual representative that resembles a badly dubbed movie, it is critical, our brains react in micro-seconds when faced with something that doesn’t look right! It seems bizarre but most animated talking character offerings have less than convincing lip-syncing to say the least. Simple tests include; Does the virtual tutors lips stop moving when silent? Does it shape the phonemes correctly or is it just a random selection of gibberish?

3: Virtual Teachers Ambient animation, Less is more.

Animations during the narration should be kept to a minimum and be subtle, almost invisible. When watching a news broadcast you would feel uncomfortable is the compares eyes rolled from side to side and they exhibited strange and seemingly un controllable head movements. It is the content being delivered by the speaking avatar that is important, and all animations should be kept to a minimum to avoid distraction. Less is definitely more.

4: Virtual Tutor – The Voice

Text to speech may seem convenient but it has a tendency to sound really bad. Remember! this is a virtual representative, your own animated web or media compare it is an extension of your image, unless you sound like a robot steer clear of synthesized voices. Use your own voice, or a friends, or shell out for a professional voice over artist, they are not as expensive as you think! In the future TTS will probably improve but at the present it should only be used if you have no other option.

5: Tailoring your Virtual Character

Some offerings give you loads of tailoring options, they even allow the visitor to play with the character during its narration. Generally you should try and restrict tailoring to clothing and backgrounds for the best effect. You want your visitors and users to build a rapport with your virtual teacher, so changing its looks continually does not offer continuity to the visitor or student. Having a Virtual tutor that the visitor can mess with only detracts from their message.

6: Integration and Hosting your Virtual Teacher

Consider that many education delivery requirements may be remotely across the internet. Give a great deal of thought to this area as its rife with potential additional charges and risks. If you are on a Pay-for-view contract, a contract that charges you a monthly fee for so many streams, the risk is your growth in visitation, you end up with one of two potential problems; you have to pay more because you had a higher visitation as your site grows in popularity, or, you can’t afford to pay more, so your talking avatar disappears and leaves a block with the suppliers logo in place. The same goes for supplier hosting, you have no control over their hosting facility, if you rely on your web compare and your service suppliers servers go down you have lost your “voice”. If you own internet service goes down at least the whole site is no longer visible. Always try and use a solution that will give you total control, create your composition in your time, generate industry standard output (Flash, Flash Video or conventional Video ) and have total flexibility when it comes to integration.

7: Flexibility gives your choice.

Is flexibility important, would it be nice to have access to the native output of your efforts in an industry standard format such as Flash, Flash Video, AVI etc so you could integrate your work into other environments such as Powerpoint, Camtasia, youTube etc. Are there any other services that can assist you from the supplier such as Voice-Overs, integration and bespoke services. Can your composition work off-line, can you create them off-line. Flexibility adds to the return on your investment.

Summary

Doing any job badly is not a good idea, many people grab hold of a new technology and throw it at their audience with little thought. Implementing a bad Animated Virtual Representative is detrimental and could reflect on your business and/or educational requirements, take your time in the creation and don’t settle for second best.

Step 1: Choose Your Type of Conference Call

You can choose between hosting your call using the modern method of online or using the traditional way which is using regular phone lines.

Traditional Phone Conference Calls

In the older days, conference calls were hosted using normal land line telephones. Even though there are more advanced, easier technologies today, you can still use the traditional method to host your calls. You simply get a special conference number from the service provider you are using. Then you will first call the number yourself and start the conference.

After you have started the call as the host, then everyone else can call now and join the conference. You have more limited power to control the call when using a traditional telephone conference service. That’s why more people prefer the web conference services much better.

Web Conference Call Services More and more companies and businesses are switching to online conference call hosting. Because it is faster, easier, and you can manage all areas of your call – from who can access and who will be blocked. In the online solution, you simply login to your online account and start the conference. Then people can join either by logging in to the room (like a chat room) or by calling a phone number that is connected to your online conference center.

This way you can see who is online, who is talking and who are listening, mute any of the users you wish, and much more helpful features.

Step 2: Choosing the Right Conference Call Service

There are many various companies out there offering services to host your conferences. And they each claim to be the best. But you and I know it can’t be true. Some of these companies provide you with a poor and unreliable service which only will create a frustrating experience for anyone who joins your conference call.

But there are also some companies that offer a great service with top quality, clear smooth voice, and lots of extra features. That’s why it’s very important you do enough research to choose the best conference company to help you best to host your calls.

As far as dedicated servers are concerned, the concept is extremely simple: you pay for a server, and it hosts your website. You pay the same amount each month regardless of how many resources you use. Nowadays, you need to pay for what you used is an approach which is as controversial as it is innovative. Cloud hosting is all about usage-based billing. In other words, if you are used more server resources today than yesterday, you will pay more today. An eloquent example is represented by websites, which are subject to the dig effect every once in a while. Let us assume that your website receives 1,000 unique per day, but that it makes it to the dig front page once or twice per month. The result: a huge spike of traffic which takes its toll on the server.

The owner of such a website has a difficult decision to make: normally, a Virtual Private Server or even shared hosting is enough if you are only receiving 1,000 visitors daily. On the other hand, you can get in trouble if your websites receives sudden spikes of traffic.

Should you stick with your current plan and pay less? You could do that but what if your server goes down the minute you start receiving a lot of traffic from Dig? Would you be willing to let tens of thousands of visitor land on a page which does not load and never come back?

How much is that traffic worth to you? Should you upgrade to a dedicated server? Would not you be overpaying if you go dedicated just because you receive more traffic a few days per month?

Even the received stream of a radio station can be separated automatically into individual songs. And this feature is possible only when a radio station is listed. Similarly you can edit the list and can remove the list entries whenever needed. All the internet based talk radio stations also provide online technical support, which can be contacted in case of any difficulties in viewing any programs. Although the concept of internet radio is totally new, but still a lot of web based talk radio stations have made their presence felt in this world. The primary reason for such growth can be attributed to its low operational costs and flexibility in its usage.

Various means have been now used to transmit text, music and video audio via internet. The radio talk shows are very popular since it allows users to interact and express their thoughts and decisions via internet. Lively conversation makes people more interested. The different talk shows on internet radio are highly popular since people organizing or hosting those talk shows have enough knowledge about the topic of discussion. The arguments, suggestions and inferences that all took place in a talk show are highly impressive and appeal also to wide group of audience. Internet talk radio is gaining popularity day by day due to its easy mode of transmit. It can be accessed from anywhere at anytime. It also serves as a great advertising tool. With these huge qualities internet talk radio is an essential part of our lifestyle.

Proper in the center of these two options is the VPS hosting account, which involves a small selection of men and women sharing a machine, and computer software to make it appear as if you have a device to your self, with your personal ip tackle and so on.

A low-priced VPS account isn’t significantly far more pricey that a shared approach these days – so is it well worth shelling out just a handful of more bucks per month to get a VPS?

The major benefit that you will get from a VPS, or virtual non-public server approach in contrast to affordable shared accounts is the versatility and further handle. If you get a jump in visitors to your web page, for illustration, it is simple to obtain extra assets to deal with that targeted traffic.

A different benefit is that you get your internet site on a special ip tackle / nameserver. That usually means that you can’t have complications with other people sharing the same server giving you a poor title by their dodgy pursuits and potentially getting you knocked out of or down the search success in Google and the other research engines, which can materialize on a shared account.

What is the difference amongst a low-priced VPS hosting and a semi-devoted server? Are these servers 1 and the exact? Not seriously. Indeed, equally have been remarkably advise as the finest stopover involving shared hosting and committed hosting. In man or woman, I will go for affordable VPS internet hosting. I may well not own the bodily server here but I unquestionably have command around its virtual pieces. In terms of protection also, low-priced VPS hosting makes sure me extra. In a semi-committed server, you carry on to share the bodily server with other web sites, only this time you share it with just a number of.

Okay, let me explain the variation involving the servers by understanding what all those are.

Affordable VPS internet hosting

A physical server is divided into logical partitions and every division turns into a low-priced VPS hosting. Now, one particular virtual server does not interfere with yet another. You get full management on them. You can configure them in accordance to your personal specifications. You do not have to share your virtual server with one more internet websites.

Naturally a virtual private server is a wonderful possibility if you need complete management about your virtual server. This will need the awareness to setup, maintain, secure and optimize your server. Any licenses like cPanel, Direct Admin, etc will arrive at an excess total price. Server management may possibly arrive at an excess price, etc.

There are two types of VPS in the current market. 1st a person is Linux VPS and 2nd 1 is windows VPS. Linux VPS is chipper than windows VPS.

Semi-Focused Server

Unlike a devoted server, you do not unique the semi-dedicated server. The hosting firm owns it. This server act in a individual manner like a shared server in the feeling that you share it with one more web sites. Even so, this time your share is greater as you share the server with a handful of websites. You get root entry and control in excess of a piece of the server.

Some would say a semi-devoted server is improved due to the fact that you get a far better and bigger share with it. On the a different hand, you can get numerous virtual servers and operate with them. The variety among the two is dependent fully on your specifications.

Various net internet hosting companies are presenting a lot of diverse hosting options based mostly on their options.

You should start off by listing out your near and future goals. Have an idea of what you are trying to accomplish with your website. If you have a vision where your site will be presented in a professional manner and generate heavy traffic daily, a reliable and secure host is a must. You also need to make sure that the hosting account you sign up for has got sufficient bandwidth in order to accommodate the heavy traffic.

However, if you are just experimenting here and there or you aren’t really sure where your site is heading to, pick free hosting plans instead. After all, what’s the point of paying wads of cash if you have no solid plans for your site when you wouldn’t need the bells and whistles? A free package would be enough as a starting point and if you feel that it’s time to get serious, you’ve just got to switch plans, as easy as that.

In addition to that, you would need to be able to search for a reputable and respected hosting company. And by that, I don’t mean that you should just check the companies out via search engines. This method might be very convenient but it is also extremely risky. You should be aware that not all companies listed on search engines are completely reliable and legit. There is always the risk of fraud if you are not careful enough.

To avoid that, you should always seek for a second opinion. Getting more information from family members and friends is always ideal. Listening to other people’s experiences would help you have an idea of what to expect from a hosting company. You can also get similar information from forums on web hosting. Webmasters and Internet users are always roaming these sites to post up their past experience in web hosting. You would be able to see for yourself which provider or company is the best in its field.

So after picking the hosting company which you find most suited for your site, do not just plunge into signing the agreement. Check thoroughly for deals and discounts on the hosting plan you are interested in. More than often, these companies do give out discount coupons with codes on them. Try looking up on those in hosting forums to snap a good deal and save some money.

Introduction-

How to know your enemy

Knowing your enemy is vital in fighting him effectively. Security should be learned not just by network defense, but also by using the vulnerability of software and techniques used for malicious intent. As computer attack tools and techniques continue to advance, we will likely see major, life-impacting events in the near future. However, we will create a much more secure world, with risk managed down to an acceptable level. To get there, we have to integrate security into our systems from the start, and conduct thorough security testing throughout the software life cycle of the system. One of the most interesting ways of learning computer security is studying and analyzing from the perspective of the attacker. A hacker or a programming cracker uses various available software applications and tools to analyze and investigate weaknesses in network and software security flaws and exploit them. Exploiting the software is exactly what it sounds like, taking advantage of some bug or flaw and redesigning it to make it work for their advantage.

Similarly, your personal sensitive information could be very useful to criminals. These attackers might be looking for sensitive data to use in identity theft or other fraud, a convenient way to launder money, information useful in their criminal business endeavors, or system access for other nefarious purposes. One of the most important stories of the past couple of years has been the rush of organized crime into the computer attacking business. They make use of business processes to make money in computer attacks. This type of crime can be highly lucrative to those who might steal and sell credit card numbers, commit identity theft, or even extort money from a target under threat of DoS flood. Further, if the attackers cover their tracks carefully, the possibilities of going to jail are far lower for computer crimes than for many types of physical crimes. Finally, by operating from an overseas base, from a country with little or no legal framework regarding computer crime prosecution, attackers can operate with virtual impunity [1].

Current Security

Assessing the vulnerabilities of software is the key to improving the current security within a system or application. Developing such a vulnerability analysis should take into consideration any holes in the software that could carry out a threat. This process should highlight points of weakness and assist in the construction of a framework for subsequent analysis and countermeasures. The security we have in place today including firewalls, counterattack software, IP blockers, network analyzers, virus protection and scanning, encryption, user profiles and password keys. Elaborating the attacks on these basic functionalities for the software and the computer system that hosts it is important to making software and systems stronger.

You may have a task which requires a client-host module which, in many instances, is the starting point from which a system is compromised. Also understanding the framework you’re utilizing, which includes the kernel, is imperative for preventing an attack. A stack overflow is a function which is called in a program and accesses the stack to obtain important data such as local variables, arguments for the function, the return address, the order of operations within a structure, and the compiler being used. If you obtain this information you may exploit it to overwrite the input parameters on the stack which is meant to produce a different result. This may be useful to the hacker which wants to obtain any information that may grant them access to a person’s account or for something like an SQL injection into your company’s database. Another way to get the same effect without knowing the size of the buffer is called a heap overflow which utilizes the dynamically allocated buffers that are meant to be used when the size of the data is not known and reserves memory when allocated.

We already know a little bit about integer overflows (or should at least) and so we Integer overflows are basically variables that are prone to overflows by means of inverting the bits to represent a negative value. Although this sounds good, the integers themselves are dramatically changed which could be beneficial to the attackers needs such as causing a denial of service attack. I’m concerned that if engineers and developers do not check for overflows such as these, it could mean errors resulting in overwriting some part of the memory. This would imply that if anything in memory is accessible it could shut down their entire system and leave it vulnerable later down the road.

Format string vulnerabilities are actually the result of poor attention to code from the programmers who write it. If written with the format parameter such as “%x” then it returns the hexadecimal contents of the stack if the programmer decided to leave the parameters as “printf(string);” or something similar. There are many other testing tools and techniques that are utilized in testing the design of frameworks and applications such as “fuzzing” which can prevent these kinds of exploits by seeing where the holes lie.

In order to exploit these software flaws it implies, in almost any case, supplying bad input to the software so it acts in a certain way which it was not intended or predicted to. Bad input can produce many types of returned data and effects in the software logic which can be reproduced by learning the input flaws. In most cases this involves overwriting original values in memory whether it is data handling or code injection. TCP/IP (transfer control protocol/internet protocol) and any related protocols are incredibly flexible and can be used for all kinds of applications. However, the inherent design of TCP/IP offers many opportunities for attackers to undermine the protocol, causing all sorts of problems with our computer systems. By undermining TCP/IP and other ports, attackers can violate the confidentiality of our sensitive data, alter the data to undermine its integrity, pretend to be other users and systems, and even crash our machines with DoS attacks. Many attackers routinely exploit the vulnerabilities of traditional TCP/IP to gain access to sensitive systems around the globe with malicious intent.

Hackers today have come to understand operating frameworks and security vulnerabilities within the operating structure itself. Windows, Linux and UNIX programming has been openly exploited for their flaws by means of viruses, worms or Trojan attacks. After gaining access to a target machine, attackers want to maintain that access. They use Trojan horses, backdoors, and root-kits to achieve this goal. Just because operating environments may be vulnerable to attacks doesn’t mean your system has to be as well. With the new addition of integrated security in operating systems like Windows Vista, or for the open source rule of Linux, you will have no trouble maintaining effective security profiles.

Finally I want discuss what kind of technology were seeing to actually hack the hacker, so to speak. More recently a security professional named Joel Eriksson showcased his application which infiltrates the hackers attack to use against them.

Wired article on the RSA convention with Joel Eriksson:

“Eriksson, a researcher at the Swedish security firm Bitsec, uses reverse-engineering tools to find remotely exploitable security holes in hacking software. In particular, he targets the client-side applications intruders use to control Trojan horses from afar, finding vulnerabilities that would let him upload his own rogue software to intruders’ machines.” [7]

Hackers, particularly in china, use a program called PCShare to hack their victim’s machines and upload’s or downloads files. The program Eriksson developed called RAT (remote administration tools) which infiltrates the programs bug which the writers most likely overlooked or didn’t think to encrypt. This bug is a module that allows the program to display the download time and upload time for files. The hole was enough for Eriksson to write files under the user’s system and even control the server’s autostart directory. Not only can this technique be used on PCShare but also a various number of botnet’s as well. New software like this is coming out everyday and it will be beneficial for your company to know what kinds will help fight the interceptor.

Mitigation Process and Review

Software engineering practices for quality and integrity include the software security framework patterns that will be used. “Confidentiality, integrity, and availability have overlapping concerns, so when you partition security patterns using these concepts as classification parameters, many patterns fall into the overlapping regions” [3]. Among these security domains there are other areas of high pattern density which includes distributive computing, fault tolerance and management, process and organizational structuring. These subject areas are enough to make a complete course on patterns in software design [3].

We must also focus on the context of the application which is where the pattern is applied and the stakeholders view and protocols that they want to serve. The threat models such as CIA model (confidentiality, integrity and availability) will define the problem domain for the threats and classifications behind the patterns used under the CIA model. Such classifications are defined under the Defense in Depth, Minefield and Grey Hats techniques.

The tabular classification scheme in security patterns, defines the classification based on their domain concepts which fails to account for more of the general patterns which span multiple categories. What they tried to do in classifying patterns was to base the problems on what needs to be solved. They partitioned the security pattern problem space using the threat model in particular to distinguish the scope. A classification process based on threat models is more perceptive because it uses the security problems that patterns solve. An example of these threat models is STRIDE. STRIDE is an acronym containing the following concepts:

Spoofing: An attempt to gain access to a system using a forged identity. A compromised system would give an unauthorized user access to sensitive data.

Tampering: Data corruption during network communication, where the data’s integrity is threatened.

Repudiation: A user’s refusal to acknowledge participation in a transaction.

Information Disclosure: The unwanted exposure and loss of private data’s confidentiality.

Denial of service: An attack on system availability.

Elevation of Privilege: An attempt to raise the privilege level by exploiting some vulnerability, where a resource’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability are threatened. [3]

What this threat model covers can be discussed using the following four patterns: Defense in Depth, Minefield, Policy Enforcement Point, and Grey Hats. Despite this all patterns belong to multiple groups one way or another because classifying abstract threats would prove difficult. The IEEE classification in their classification hierarchy is a tree which represents nodes on the basis of domain specific verbatim. Pattern navigation will be easier and more meaningful if you use it in this format. The classification scheme based off of the STRIDE model alone is limited, but only because patterns that address multiple concepts can’t be classified using a two-dimensional schema. The hierarchical scheme shows not only the leaf nodes which display the patterns but also multiple threats that affect them. The internal nodes are in the higher base level which will find multiple threats that all the dependent level is affected by. Threat patterns at the tree’s root apply to multiple contexts which consist of the core, the perimeter, and the exterior. Patterns that are more basic, such as Defense in Depth, reside at the classification hierarchy’s highest level because they apply to all contexts. Using network tools you will be able to find these threat concepts such as spoofing, intrusion tampering, repudiation, DoS, and secure pre-forking, will allow the developer team to pinpoint the areas of security weakness in the areas of core, perimeter and exterior security.

Defense against kernel made root-kits should keep attackers from gaining administrative access in the first place by applying system patches. Tools for Linux, UNIX and Windows look for anomalies introduced on a system by various users and kernel root-kits. But although a perfectly implemented and perfectly installed kernel root-kit can dodge a file integrity checker, reliable scanning tools should be useful because they can find very subtle mistakes made by an attacker that a human might miss. Also Linux software provides useful tools for incident response and forensics. For example some tools returns outputs that you can be trusted more than user and kernel-mode root-kits.

Logs that have been tampered with are less than useless for investigative purposes, and conducting a forensic investigation without logging checks is like cake without the frosting. To harden any system, a high amount of attention will be needed in order to defend a given system’s log which will depend on the sensitivity of the server. Computers on the net that contain sensitive data will require a great amount of care to protect. For some systems on an intranet, logging might be less imperative. However, for vitally important systems containing sensitive information about human resources, legality issues, as well as mergers and acquisitions, the logs would make or break protecting your company’s confidentiality. Detecting an attack and finding evidence that digital forensics use is vital for building a case against the intruder. So encrypt those logs, the better the encryption, the less likely they will ever be tampered with.

Fuzz Protocols

Protocol Fuzzing is a software testing technique that which automatically generates, then submits, random or sequential data to various areas of an application in an attempt to uncover security vulnerabilities. It is more commonly used to discover security weaknesses in applications and protocols which handle data transport to and from the client and host. The basic idea is to attach the inputs of a program to a source of random or unexpected data. If the program fails (for example, by crashing, or by failing in-built code assertions), then there are defects to correct. These kind of fuzzing techniques were first developed by Professor Barton Miller and his associates [5]. It was intended to change the mentality from being too confident of one’s technical knowledge, to actually question the conventional wisdom behind security.

Luiz Edwardo on protocol fuzzing:

“Most of the time, when the perception of security doesn’t match the reality of security, it’s because the perception of the risk does not match the reality of the risk. We worry about the wrong things: paying too much attention to minor risks and not enough attention to major ones. We don’t correctly assess the magnitude of different risks. A lot of this can be chalked up to bad information or bad mathematics, but there are some general pathology that come up over and over again” [6].

With the mainstream of fuzzing, we have seen numerous bugs in a system which has made national or even international news. Attackers have a list of contacts, a handful of IP addresses for your network, and a list of domain names. Using a variety of scanning techniques, the attackers have now gained valuable information about the target network, including a list of phone numbers with modems (more obsolete but still viable), a group of wireless access points, addresses of live hosts, network topology, open ports, and firewall rule sets. The attacker has even gathered a list of vulnerabilities found on your network, all the while trying to evade detection. At this point, the attackers are poised for the kill, ready to take over systems on your network. This growth in fuzzing has shown that delivering the product/service software using basic testing practices are no longer acceptable. Because the internet provides so many protocol breaking tools, it is very likely that an intruder will break your company’s protocol on all levels of its structure, semantics and protocol states. So in the end, if you do not fuzz it someone else will. Session based, and even state based, fuzzing practices have been used to establish the connections using the state level of a session to find better fault isolation. But the real challenge behind fuzzing is doing these techniques then isolating the fault environment, the bugs, protocols implementation and the monitoring of the environment.

Systems Integrations

There are three levels of systems integration the developer must consider for security. The software developer must consider the entire mitigation review of the software flaw and base it on the design implementation. This includes access control, intrusion detection and the trade-offs for the implementation. Integrating these controls into the system is important in the implementation stage of development. Attacks on these systems may even lead to severe safety and financial effects. Securing computer systems has become a very important part of system development and deployment.

Since we cannot completely take away the threats, we must minimize their impact instead. This can be made possible by creating an understanding of human and technical issues involved in such attacks. This knowledge can allow an engineer or developer make the intruder’s life as hard as possible. This makes the challenge even greater in understanding the attacker’s motivations and skill level. Think of it as infiltrating the hackers head by thinking like them psychologically.

Access Control

Even if you have implemented all of the controls you can think of there are a variety of other security lockdowns that must continually be supplemented to constant attacks against a system. You might apply security patches, use a file integrity checking tool, and have adequate logging, but have you recently looked for unsecured modems, or how about activating security on the ports or on the switches in your critical network segments to prevent the latest sniffing attack? Have you considered implementing non-executable stacks to prevent one of the most common types of attacks today, the stack-based buffer overflow? You should always be ready for kernel-level root-kits with any of these other attacks which imply the attacker has the capability of taking you out of command of your system.

Password attacks are very common in exploiting software authorization protocols. Attackers often try to guess passwords for systems to gain access either by hand or through using scripts that are generated. Password cracking will involve taking the encrypted or hashed passwords from a system cache or registry and using an automated tool to determine the original passwords. Password cracking tools create password guesses, encrypt or hash the guesses, and compare the result with the encrypted or hashed password so long as you have the encryption file to compare the results. The password guesses can come from a dictionary scanner, brute force routines, or hybrid techniques. This is why access controls must protect human, physical and intellectual assets against loss, damage or compromise by permitting or denying entrance into, within and from the protected area. The controls will also deny or grant access rights and the time thereof of the protected area. The access controls are operated by human resources using physical and/or electronic hardware in accordance with the policies. To defend against password attacks, you must have a strong password policy that requires users to have nontrivial passwords. You must make users aware of the policy, employ password filtering software, and periodically crack your own users passwords (with appropriate permission from management) to enforce the policy. You might also want to consider authentication tools stronger than passwords, such as PKI authentication, hardware tokens or auditing software [1].

But despite this, another developer might be interested in authenticating only. This user would first create minimal access points where the authenticator pattern will enforce authentication policies. The subject descriptor will define the data used to grant or deny the authentication decision. A password synchronizer pattern performs distributed password management. Authenticator and password synchronizer are not directly related. The users will need to apply other patterns after authenticator before they could use a password synchronizer.

Intrusion Detection

Intrusion detection is used for monitoring and logging the activity of security risks. A functioning network intrusion detection system should indicate that someone has found the doors, but nobody has actually tried to open them yet. This will inspect inbound and outbound network activity and identify patterns used that may indicate a network or system attack from someone attempting to compromise the system. In detecting the misuse of the system the protocols used, such as scanners, analyzes the information it gathers and compares it to large databases of attack signatures it provides. In essence, the security detection looks for a specific attack that has already been documented. Like a virus detection system, the detection system is only as good as the index of attack signatures that it uses to compare packets against. In anomaly detection, the system administrator defines the normal state of the network’s traffic breakdown, load, protocols, and typical packet size. Anomaly detection of segments is used to compare their current state to the normal state and look for anomalies. Designing the intrusion detection must also put into account, and detect, malicious packets that are meant to be overlooked by a generic firewall’s basic filtering rules. In a host based system, the detection system should examine the activity on each individual computer or host. As long as you are securing the environment and authorizing transactions, then intrusion detection should pick up no activity from a flaw in the system’s data flow.

Trade-Offs

Trade-offs of the implementation must also be taken into consideration when developing these controls and detection software. The developer must also consider the severity of the risk, the probability of the risk, the magnitude of the costs, how effective the countermeasure is at mitigating the risk and how well disparate risks and costs can be analyzed at this level, despite the fact that risks analysis was complete, because actual changes must be considered and the security assessment must be reassessed through this process. The one area that can cause the feeling of security to diverge from the reality of security is the idea of risk itself. If we get the severity of the risk wrong, we’re going to get the trade-off wrong, which cannot happen at a critical level. We can do this to find out the implications in two ways. First, we can underestimate risks, like the risk of an automobile accident on your way to work. Second, we can overestimate some risks, such as the risk of some guy you know, stalking you or your family. When we overestimate and when we underestimate is governed by a few specific heuristics. One heuristic area is the idea that “bad security trade-offs is probability. If we get the probability wrong, we get the trade-off wrong” [6]. These heuristics are not specific to risk, but contribute to bad evaluations of risk. And as humans, our ability to quickly assess and spit out some probability in our brains runs into all sorts of problems. When we organize ourselves to correctly analyze a security issue, it becomes mere statistics. But when it comes down to it, we still need to figure out the threat of the risk which can be found when “listing five areas where perception can diverge from reality:”

-The severity of the risk.

-The probability of the risk.

-The magnitude of the costs.

-How effective the countermeasure is at mitigating the risk.

-The trade-off itself [6].

To think a system is completely secure is absurd and illogical at best unless hardware security was more widespread. Feeling of the word and reality of security are different, but they’re closely related. We try our best security trade-offs considering the perception noted. And what I mean by that is that it gives us genuine security for a reasonable cost and when our actual feeling of security matches the reality of security. It is when the two are out of alignment that we get security wrong. We are also not adept at making coherent security trade-offs, especially in the context of a lot of ancillary information which is designed to persuade us in one direction or another. But when we reach the goal of complete lockdown on security protocol that is when you know the assessment was well worth the effort.

Physical Security

Physical security is any information that may be available, and used in order to gain specific information about company related data which may include documentation, personal information, assets and people susceptible to social engineering.

In its most widely practiced form, social engineering involves an attacker using employees at the target organization on the phone and exploiting them into revealing sensitive information. The most frustrating aspect of social engineering attacks for security professionals is that they are nearly always successful. By pretending to be another employee, a customer, or a supplier, the attacker attempts to manipulate the target person into divulging some of the organization’s secrets. Social engineering is deception, pure and simple. The techniques used by social engineers are often associated with computer attacks, most likely because of the fancy term “social engineering” applied to the techniques when used in computer intrusions. However, scam artists, private investigators, law enforcement, and even determined sales people employ virtually the same techniques every single day.

Use public and private organizations to help with staffed security in and around complex parameters also install alarms on all doors, windows, and ceiling ducts. Make a clear statement to employees about assign clear roles and responsibilities for engineers, employees, and people in building maintenance and staff that they must always have authorization before they can disclose any corporate data information. They must make critical contacts and ongoing communication throughout a software product and disclosure of documentation. Mobile resources must be given to employees that travel and there should be installed on their mobile devices the correct security protocols for communicating back and forth from a web connection. The company must utilize local, state, and remote facilities to backup data or utilize services for extra security and protection of data resources. Such extra security could include surveillance of company waste so it is not susceptible to dumpster diving. Not to say an assailant might be looking for your yesterday’s lunch but will more likely be looking for shredded paper, other important memo’s or company reports you want to keep confidential.

Dumpster diving is a variation on physical break-in that involves rifling through an organization’s trash to look for sensitive information. Attackers use dumpster diving to find discarded paper, CDs, DVDs, floppy disks (more obsolete but still viable), tapes, and hard drives containing sensitive data. In the computer underground, dumpster diving is sometimes referred to as trashing, and it can be a smelly affair. In the massive trash receptacle behind your building, an attacker might discover a complete diagram of your network architecture, or an employee might have carelessly tossed out a sticky note with a user ID and password. Although it may seem disgusting in most respects, a good dumpster diver can often retrieve informational gold from an organization’s waste [1].

Conclusion

Security development involves the careful consideration of company value and trust. With the world as it exists today, we understand that the response to electronic attacks is not as lenient as they should be but none the less unavoidable. Professional criminals, hired guns, and even insiders, to name just a few of the threats we face today, cannot be compared to the pimply teen hacker sitting at his computer ready to launch his/her newest attacks at your system. Their motivations can include revenge, monetary gain, curiosity, or common pettiness to attract attention or to feel accomplished in some way. Their skill levels range from the simple script kiddies using tools that they do not understand, to elite masters who know the technology better than their victims and possibly even the vendors themselves.

The media, in retrospect, has made it a distinct point that the threat of digital terrorism is in the golden age of computer hacking. As we load more of our lives and society onto networked computers, attacks have become more prevalent and damaging. But do not get discouraged by the number and power of computer tools that harm your system, as we also live in the golden age of information security. The defenses implemented and maintained are definitely what you need. Although they are often not easy, they do add a good deal of job security for effective system administrators, network managers, and security personnel. Computer attackers are excellent in sharing and disclosing information with each other about how to attack your specified infrastructure. Their efficiency on information distribution concerning infiltrating their victims can be ruthless and brutal. Implementing and maintaining a comprehensive security program is not trivial. But do not get discouraged, we live in very exciting times, with technologies advancing rapidly, offering great opportunities for learning and growing.

If the technology itself is not exciting enough, just think of the great job security given to system administrators, security analyzers, and network managers who has knowledgeable experience on how to secure their systems properly. But also keep in mind that by staying diligent, you really can defend your information and systems while having a challenging and exciting job to give you more experience. To keep up with the attackers and defend our systems, we must understand their techniques. We must help system administrators, security personnel, and network administrators defend their computer systems against attack. Attackers come from all walks of life and have a variety of motivations and skill levels. Make sure you accurately assess the threat against your organization and deploy defenses that match the threat and the value of the assets you must protect. And we have to all be aware that we should never underestimate the power of the hacker who has enough time, patience and knowhow to accomplish anything they put their minds to. So it is your duty to do the same.

Getting exact values for creating a website is a hard thing to do. Website developer’s prices vary considerably. But if you decide to make your own website, you certainly won’t have to spend huge amount of money.

Although it is on a case to case basis, the reality is that you do get what you pay for. Often, if your only goal is to have a cheap website, you may end up having a substandard site, full of maintenance issues in the future.

There should be a balance between what you are paying for and what you are getting in return. Compute costs and fees for web concept, design, development and maintenance. Other recurring fees that are applied are hosting, domain renewal and maintenance fees. Website developers rate their services from as low as $100 for a simple website (services only, no web host, etc.) up to $5000 or more for more complex sites.

Web Developers and their Services

General fees vary, but most of online Web Developers offer a flat rate of $75 per service. If you plan to hire a web developer with 5 services then you would be paying a good rate of $375. Additional fees would be applied for other obligations: $20 for a 2 year domain name registration, and $4-20 for web hosting. Add a recurring fee of another $75 for maintenance.

For a standard website you would be paying around $490 more or less in total. If you know how to make your own website, it would drastically minimize your expenses and would let you focus on spending on other features or services for your website.

Are Free Web hosts Okay?

For professional and business websites, ABSOLUTELY NOT. A lot of them offer mediocre features. Additionally, if you analyze and study the trends, you will notice that:

Often, websites that are created on these type of hosting providers have their data corrupted or in a worst case scenario, deleted.
Backups are sometimes an issue, even though some web hosts offer it for free
Many free web hosting companies rely on ads being posted on their client’s websites, and the companies who don’t make successful earnings with this strategy close down their company at the expense of their customers.

Paid hosting, on the other hand, has a much better reputation for taking care of their customers. Since “you are actually paying for the service”, these types of companies offer additional features with their web hosting packages. This includes email, fast technical support and even data backup.

The biggest advantage of being in a paid hosting is that most reputable paid web hosts will guarantee their host server reliability and the security of your website.

So, if you want to make your own website well from the outset paid web hosting is the preferred solution.

But on the other hand, there are free conference services that have poor quality and are just a waste of your time. So it is very important that you find the right free service to be like what you’re looking for.

Are Free Conference Call Services Really Reliable?

Good question. After all, aren’t free services usually free for a reason?

With conference call services online becoming more and more popular and the competition getting touch among conference service providers, companies need to find new ways to win the heart of the customers. So some start offering quality free conference solutions to attract more people to their services. For this reason it’s very common to find conference call hosting for free for what we used to pay to get.

The good news for you? You can enjoy the free service while enjoying the complete, advanced benefits that others pay to receive.

Where Can You Find the Best Free Conference Call Hosting?

With so many various companies offering call hosting services, it’s easy to get confused. So here are some tips to help you find the exact best conference service that is best for you…

1. It should be reliable.

Make sure you check out some customer reviews about them saying their call service is reliable. You don’t want your voice getting cut off or the recording to fail suddenly in middle of an important conference call, you know?

2. It should be easy to use

Simple is always the best. You want to be easily start using the service to host conference calls in a snap, not having to wander around it for hours to figure out how it works.