Comments : 5

How to completely erase a Hard Disk

Posted by Vishal Vasu | Posted on 26-11-2011

Category : General

Tags: , ,

Have you ever sold or given away your old laptop or desktop to replace it with a new one? Certainly you might have at some point of time in life and you must also have backed up your data and then formatted your hard disk before selling or disposing it.

But did you know that data can still be retrieved from a formatted hard disk or storage media? Imagine if the data falls in the wrong hands of a Scammer and then that data can be used to learn about your browsing habits, your personal information, banking data and more. Scary isn’t it?

I know it is scary, but with the right kind of tools you can save yourself this fright. But before we take a peep in to some of my favourite tools, let’s understand a bit about how data is stored and what happens when you delete or format a disk.

Tossing files into the computers Recycle Bin and then emptying the trash deletes the record of the file, but not the actual data the file points to. Think of it as removing the labels from folders in a file cabinet. The folders and information in them still exist, even if retrieving the data takes more time and effort. When you delete a file from your computer, it’s not really gone until the areas of the disk it used are overwritten by new information. If you use the normal Windows delete function, the “deleted” file is sent to the Recycle Bin until the space it uses is required by other files. If you use Shift-Delete to bypass the Recycle Bin, the space occupied by the file is marked as available for other files. However, the file could be recovered days or even weeks later with third-party data recovery software. As long as the operating system does not reuse the space occupied by a file with another file, the “deleted” file can be recovered.

The same is true if you format a hard drive. It is still possible for someone with the right tools to retrieve data on the drive. Yikes!

The same goes with formatting a hard drive. The kind of formatting that we do normally is high level formatting. What high level formatting does is set up the file system from scratch and in the process the information where files were stored is removed. In short, high level formatting is the process of writing the file system structures on the disk that let the disk to be used for storing programs and data. Formatting a disk this way removes all information about the pointers in the File Allocation Table (FAT) which point to the location of a file on the disk. This means that old data still remains loaming in the dark.

Low level formatting on the other hand re-initializes the disk and resets the values of each and every one bit, to zero. Remember, data is stored in digital format as 1 & 0? Low level formatting is the process of outlining the positions of the tracks and sectors on the hard disk and writing the control structures that define where the tracks and sectors are. This is often called a “true” formatting operation because it really creates the physical format that defines where the data is stored on the disk.

Here are some tools that would help you to safely and securely wipe out the slate clean before you sell it or recycle it.

Darik’s Boot and Nuke: Darik’s Boot and Nuke (“DBAN”) is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.

DBAN is a free software product that can be used at home or in a business at zero cost.

URL: http://www.dban.org/

SDelete: Good old Microsoft with their free command line utility called SDelete. SDelete is a command line utility that takes a number of options. SDelete (Secure Delete) implements the Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DOD 5220.22-M, to give you confidence that once deleted with SDelete, your file data is gone forever.

URL: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx

Eraser: Eraser is a freeware and open source security tool to completely remove data from your hard drive. Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

URL: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Evidence Nuker: This piece of software allows you to choose which items would you like to erase such as Address Bar History, Browser Cache, Cookies, Documents History and much more. Evidence Nuker features several shredding methods, including 5220.22-M, the military standard set by the Department of Defense.

URL: http://www.evidencenuker.com/

The next time you think of selling your laptop, desktop or dump your USB Pen drive, make sure that the data on the storage medium is properly erased and not just deleted.

Remember, protecting data sometimes means erasing it.

If you know of any more tools that you think will benefit the computing community, do share them as part of the comment. Many will surely benefit from it.

Comments : 0

Why Outsource Customer Support and Server Administration?

Posted by Vishal Vasu | Posted on 22-03-2011

Category : General, Microsoft Windows Server

Tags: , , , ,

The bulk of IT budgets is spent just “treading water” rather than adding new business value. The current economic climate and resulting pressure on IT budgets has made the task of just treading water, that much more difficult, while the need to add real business value to compete in difficult market conditions is even greater. The idea to Outsource Customer Support and Server Administration can help your IT department flip that equation, so that you can reduce costs on core workloads and realign IT resources to help your business compete in challenging market conditions. More than ever, you need to free up those “up and running” resources to help your company compete through IT! Consider the graphic below:

There are “good” and “bad” pressures on IT. The green arrows represent the good pressure: pressure to add new business value by increasing productivity, driving customer connections, etc. The red arrows represent the “bad” pressures: the necessary, day-to-day pressures that require lots of time, resources, and effort to address but that don’t necessarily push the business ahead. It’s these pressures that consume 80 percent of most IT budgets today, according to analysts; that’s a lot of investment spent on “standing still” when you’d rather be spending resources that add new business value and take the business further.

As companies grow, their IT infrastructures grow along with them. But more often, the pace of that growth is uneven, driven as much by the conditions under which the infrastructures operate as by the models they aspire to. You add an application here. You add functionality there. You add people across the board. Yet the more variables you add to your infrastructure, the harder it can be to manage and, more importantly, to keep secure.

So even as the costs for hardware and software are going down, the costs of managing and supporting your infrastructure are increasing. In today’s competitive times, outsourcing non-core activities makes a lot of business and economic sense. Organizations are realizing that they can’t provide each and every service to their clients. As a result, they are focusing more on their core competencies and relying on service providers to manage critical but non-core processes for them. Offshore technical support can no longer be treated as a peripheral process. It requires a experienced and dedicated support team who will work around the clock to deliver higher value to customers.

In addition to this, there are many more reasons why a company should consider outsourcing. Some of the reasons are outlined below:

  • Because you need to focus more on core business activities
  • Because you don’t have the time to do it yourself
  • Because you want to avoid the cost of new technology
  • Because you want to reduce your present operating costs
  • Because you want to reduce capital costs of infrastructure
  • Because you want to make the best use of competitive resources available worldwide
  • Because you don’t have the skills to do it yourself
  • Because you want to maximize customer satisfaction
  • Because you want to benefit from the provider’s expertise in solving problems for a number of clients with similar requirements

In today’s globalized and networked economy, outsourcing has never been so easy or made so much business sense. The question is not “Why outsource?” but rather, “Why not?”.

Comments : 0

Basic Steps to Secure Wi-Fi

Posted by Vishal Vasu | Posted on 22-09-2010

Category : General

Tags:

Recently I was in a corporate building visiting my client. While waiting in the reception, I flicked my smartphone’s Wi-FI on and was surprised to find a list of unprotected wireless connections which I could connect to without any authentication. The best part was when I was able to get a lease from a DHCP of an internal network’s IP address which actually allowed me to use UNC and access shared folders in the network. WOW – now that’s what I call a potential security breach in that company. Yes, there have been tales floating around of successful “war driving” through corporate buildings and parking lots just to find out open and unsecured Access Points which allows a competitor or a techie hired by a competitor to enter the corporate network.

Essentially, for a wireless network to be practical in enterprise networks, it needs to satisfy several requirements that are best addressed in a wired network.

Security policies differ from companies to companies but there are certain definate core requirements essential to secure wireless networks. The requirements of wired and wireless access have a great deal in common. From a security perspective, the main difference is that a wired network is assumed to be safe from eavesdropping whereas in a wireless network, it is assumed that all bits are open for all to hear. Here are some security items that should form a part of your core wireless security checklist:

  • Authentication and Policy: This helps to keep prying eyes out of your network. The rule is, allow the right people in the network and keep the unauthorised people out. Moreover, once a user is authenticated, items like which network resources need to be protected and to what degree, who should access the resources, etc. should also be identified.
  • Change Default Router Settings: The first thing to do is to login to your router’s administration page and change the password of the administrator account to something more secure. By default this is accessible from http://192.168.1.1 using username as ‘admin’ and password as ‘admin’ or ‘password’. This will prevent others from accessing the router and you can easily maintain the security settings that you want.
  • Hide SSID: Always ensure that the data sent over the wireless network is not being intercepted. A wireless signal serves as an open invitation to those unwelcome individuals who—at a minimum—want a free ride on the Internet, but who could also steal corporate information and damage the organization in other ways. Most Access Points and routers automatically and continiously broadcast the network’s name, or SSID (Service Set IDentifier). This makes your Wireless LAN visible to any wireless systems within range of it. Turning off SSID broadcast for your network makes it invisible to your neighbors and passers-by. Do remember that Wi-Fi scanning tools like inSSIDer (Windows) and Kismet (Mac, Linux), which are available freely on the Internet will still allow anyone to find all the available Wireless Networks in an area even if the routers are not broadcasting their SSID name. But again, every bit of inconvenience for those prying eyes helps.
  • Enable Network Encryption: In order to prevent other computers in the area from connecting to your wireless network, you need to encrypt your wireless signals. There are several encryption methods for wireless settings, including WEP, WPA (WPA-Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2). WEP is basic encryption and therefore least secure and can easily be cracked using tools like AirCrack. A better way to protect your WLAN is with WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). WPA provides much better protection and is also easier to use, since your password characters aren’t limited to 0-9 and A-F as they are with WEP. Enter a passphrase to access the network; make sure to set this to something that would be difficult for others to guess, and consider using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters in the passphrase.
  • Use MAC Filters: Whether you have a laptop or a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone, all your wireless devices have a unique MAC address (nothing to do with Apple Mac). Unlike IP addresses, MAC addresses are unique to specific network adapters, so by turning on MAC filtering you can limit network access to only your systems (or those you know about). In order to use MAC filtering you need to find (and enter into the router or AP) the 12-character MAC address of every system that will connect to the network, so it can be inconvenient to set up, especially if you have a lot of wireless clients or if your clients change a lot. MAC addresses can be “spoofed” by a knowledgable person, so while it’s not a guarantee of security, it does add another hurdle for potential intruders to jump.
  • Disable Remote Administration: Most WLAN routers have the ability to be remotely administered via the Internet. Ideally, you should use this feature only if it lets you define a specific IP address or limited range of addresses that will be able to access the router.

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