Local Security for the office PC -=The Firestarter=- :'######::'##:::::'##::::'###::::'########: '##... ##: ##:'##: ##:::'## ##:::... ##..:: ##:::..:: ##: ##: ##::'##:. ##::::: ##:::: . ######:: ##: ##: ##:'##:::. ##:::: ##:::: :..... ##: ##: ##: ##: #########:::: ##:::: '##::: ##: ##: ##: ##: ##.... ##:::: ##:::: . ######::. ###. ###:: ##:::: ##:::: ##:::: :......::::...::...:::..:::::..:::::..::::: ___ ___ ___ _____ ___ ___________ _ _ _____ | \/ | / _ \| __ \ / _ \ |___ /_ _| \ | || ___| | . . |/ /_\ \ | \// /_\ \ / / | | | \| || |__ | |\/| || _ | | __ | _ | / / | | | . ` || __| | | | || | | | |_\ \| | | |./ /____| |_| |\ || |___ \_| |_/\_| |_/\____/\_| |_/\_____/\___/\_| \_/\____/ .'`-_-`',.`'-_ Issue 41 Article 4 _-'`,.'`-_-`', (____________________________________________________) | Local Security for the office PC | (____________________________________________________) -=The Firestarter=- [x--------------------------------------------------x] Well for some of us, ensuring that our privacy needs are met in the office is always something thats an issue, now 99% of us will never store anything dodgy on there work PC. BUT that still doesn't mean that the draft copies of personal e-mails you typed up are not going to be eyeballed by coprorate types. So how are we going to keep the personal things (or half typed SWAT articles if your like myself) hidden from prying eyes? Well first off its all going to depend on how your computer systems function. Example. The PC i'm connected to is part of a nice phat network, this pulls a backup of my HD every night. What does it backup? well lucky me here knows that it only takes the My Documents folder, which, i must admit, does keep 99% of everything safe, HOWEVER, since i want my PC backed up, i have to leave my drives shared, not a good thing to do at the best of times, why? well anyone will be able to snoop around and pull copies of my files off the system. So first off, lets keep people out of the PC, what shall we use? a personal firewall! I chose BlackICE defender, purely because i had the choice, and it is currently on a 30 day trial, after that i'll probably use Zone Alarm (coz its free), just installing it and leaving it on default settings is more than enough, allowing ONLY the backup system to access my drives, no other machine is able to get in. So that closes one possible hole in my privacy. Its easy to configure and it gives me some idea as to the kinda of network traffic that seem to ping and probe my machine a lot. Next up is file security, since i know that only my documents is backed up i can start to hide things and keep them safe. Now i'm not going to go over the top with hiding files, besides which, theres nothing on my PC that is incriminating so a simple directory on C:\ will be fine. That keeps it from getting backed up, HOWEVER, what if i wanted to keep it backed up? i mean, it saves me the time copying files all over the place. I guess we'll have to encrypt the files first! So i choose... Cryptext freely avalible from: http://www.pcug.org.au/~njpayne/ ok i like this because it intigrates itself with Explorer and with a single click you can encrypt anything with 160-bit encryption. More than ample for you run of the mill office PC. Since this neat little application can encrypt/decrypt at the click of a button, its idea for just hiding everything in your "personal" directory. a single click, you enter a password, and it all gets hidden. Easy really! Now i can safely pop the files into My Documents and be assured that they will remain hidden from prying eyes. BUT what if i forget to encrypt them ? heh now that would be dumb. PGPDisk comes in handy here! Most of you out there will have used it, if you haven't then the basic run down is that it creates a large file that contains all of your goodies, this file is then accessed as if it where a second hard drive. Resulting in what can only really be described as a safe and secure way to keep your files from prying eyes. Just remember to work from the second drive, and anything else MUST be encrypted. E-Mail is another! now we all know that no matter what you send, it can be read by third parties. BUT did you know that each bounced mail gets saved in the postmater mail box? Hotmail or Hushmail are great for these occations! the rule is simple, don't e-mail anything thats not work related. If you do, encrypt it! Ok so its easy to keep things hidden, but we don't want to attract too much attention, so we have to choose our tools wisely, always opt for freeware programs, they don't have to be some top of the range uncrackable programs, just simple ones will be fine. You may work for a multi million pound company, but they are not gonna invest a penny in cracking anything you have on your PC (unless for some reason you tend to attract that kinda attention). Freeware programs are good because it avoides the licensing issues. Everything on your home PC might be pirated, but companies WILL NOT like you running pirate software. "so why do you encrypt things on your pc?" "I just keep all my passwords and things togeather so i don't loose them" or "Its a letter to my girlfriend i was working on at lunch" Something like that will most of the time be fine, especially if its in the directory "c:\personal" few companies have a real problem with the odd few personal files on the computer, as long as they are nice and neatly stored, you won't have a thing to worry about. Enjoy! [x--------------------------------------------------x] SWAT Magazine : Spreading information since 1997 www.swateam.org Copyright (c) SWAT Magazine 1997 - 2001 Permission to reproduce, spread, print, transmit, and anything or everything else that you wanna do with it is granted - just give us credit! [x--------------------------------------------------x]