Secure Corporate Networks Demand Better Implemented Policies

Businesses should become attentive towards the security of their networks and should automatically and regularly update their security software. They should also implement policies which identify those who can use detachable storage media devices such as external hard drives and USB flash, as well as share network resources in their organizations. Unless these aspects of security are taken care of, there will be no reduction in the amount of security threats, which will continue ruining their operations.

This the crux of the report from Director of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, Jose Campos, which he presented during a recent press conference on the topic in Singapore. Campos along with Ed Quek, Regional Manager for Next Web of Microsoft Asia-Pacific, conferred the recent discoveries of Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 7 that covered scenario for the first half of 2009.

Campos stated that during this period the most prevalent trend observed was the substantial growth in infections caused by worms across several regions and countries of the world, reported mb.com.ph in the final week of December 2009.

He noted that the Conficker and Taterf proved to be the biggest headache for enterprises in H1 2009. Conficker, which is known to have infected in excess of 97,000 systems in Malaysia, is a family of worms that is believed to spread mostly via removable drives shared by several PCs.

Taterf, which targets username and passwords for massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), propagates by means of mapped drives. He added that however the game targets online gamers, but many people do play games at work. Korea was reported as one of the biggest victim of this worm.

Although the Philippines were not included among the nations most badly affected on account of the abovementioned security threats, it is no assurance that the country was not vulnerable to these threats, Campos claimed. It might only mean that incidents of security breaches might not be reported/ documented properly as in countries like Malaysia and Korea.

Finally, Quek, expressing his views on the same issue, said that timely updating network security and adopting other upgrades can considerably reduce the spread and effect of malware. Microsoft advised PCs to be configured to use its updates so as to update Windows OS and other software of Microsoft, reported mb.com.ph in the final week of December 2009.

Related article: Secure Computing Released Internet Threats for Q2 of 2008

» SPAMfighter News - 1/18/2010