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Is your website hackable? Why you need to worry (Page 1 of 3)

Apocalypse Now

Just because you think your data is safe does not mean your database of sensitive organization information has not already been cloned and is resident elsewhere ready to be sold to the highest bidder. To make matters worse, only recently, it has been discovered that hackers are not simply selling your; they’re also selling the fact that you have vulnerabilities to others be they hackers, industrial spies or terrorists.

It all sounds apocalyptic, doesn’t it? Well, rather than being an angel of doom, I’ll let the stats speak for themselves.

TJX Companies Inc.,

TJX Companies, owners of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Winners, HomeGoods, A.J. Wright, and Bob’s stores, on the 17th January this year, disclosed that 40 million of their customers’ credit and debit card details were stolen. In parallel, federal credit union SEFCU published a similar warning that the personal details of 10,000 of its customers were compromised in the hack attack.

Another 60 banks including Citizen Union Savings Bank and Bank of America seem to have customers whose credit and debit cards have been breached in this attack.

Ben Cammarata, Chairman and Acting Chief Executive Officer of TJX Companies, stated that the nature of the hack is not known and two computer security experts are at hand examining the problem. The warning issued by SEFCU sheds greater light and states “A fraudster may have gained access to … card information through one of those entities in the payment network, including the merchant.”

SC Magazine reports that hackers used data from the breach to purchase goods in a number of states in the US, in Hong Kong and in Sweden.

A digest of the latest developments follows:

* According to 3WCAX-TV Website, the attack is expected to cost consumers one-point-five (M) million dollars. This article was published before law suits started sprouting. * Brian Fraga, Standard-Times, reports that a class action lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court (Boston) against TJX. The amount of damages sought is undisclosed. According to SC Magazine, yesterday a West Virginia resident slapped another lawsuit and is suing TJX for $5 million. * U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, has called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the hacking, according to a eport today in the Boston Globe. * Today, the Government of Canada, stated that it is launching an investigation into TJX and the data breach. * Of note is that the hacking may have started in May 2006 and the breach was discovered only in December 2006 (and publicized in January 2007).

Universities

University systems are usually highly decentralized which makes it hard to ensure tight security. To the extent that one department may have deployed a hardened security infrastructure while others loll in lax measures making the whole system weak.

An introduction to SonicWALL

The public company, SonicWALL, is a professionally set up firm that deals in Internet security solutions and related appliances. Its products include devices that provide Their product lines within include devices that provide UTM (Unified Threat Management), firewalls, VPN (Virtual Private Network), value-added subscription services, anti-spam, content filtering and e-mail, back-up and recovery and software. Its deep inspection engine that is free of reassembly has the potential to scan any number of file sizes and downloads happening simultaneously on any TCP port, thereby providing superlative performance and scalability for growing networks.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, USA, SonicWALL also has a sales center in Tempe, Arizona, US and engineering centers in Seattle, Washington, USA, Shanghai, China and Bangalore, India. The company has a worldwide workforce of 700 people across its five international offices. Its offices in Bangalore, Sunnyvale and Tempe also double up as its support centers.

Founded in 1991 by two brothers Sreekanth and Sudhakar Ravi in Sunnyvale, California, the company was called Sonic Systems. It worked on making networking components for Apple’s product, Macintosh. In 1997, they came out with a security product called SonicWALL, which combined a firewall and VPN and a completely dedicated hardware appliance meant for small businesses. Two years later, the company renamed itself to SonicWALL Inc., and in November 1999, for the first time, they went public.

Since then, they went through several developments and acquisitions, and added several core technologies to their security appliances that included anti-virus, intrusion detection and prevention, continuous data protection backup and content filtering.

Some of its prominent acquisitions to this day remain the one with Phobos Corporation, Salt Lake City, Utah in November 2000 for $268 million. The company makes SSL security products. It also acquired the Internet security consulting services company, Ignyte Technology, Inc. in March 2001for $8.6 million. In the same year, it acquired SecureCom Networks, San Jose, California, and RedCreek Communications Inc., in Fremont, California, a company into VPN networking gear.

In 2005, it acquired Lasso Logic, a San Francisco, California, company that makes continuous data backup and recovery solutions based on appliances. It also acquired enKoo, a remote access technology developer in San Jose, California. The following year, it acquired MailFrontier, a company in Palo Alto, California, that develops e-mail security solutions, outbound content control and compliance and spam protection for a record $31 million. In 2007, a provider of enterprise SSL VPN remote access solutions, Aventail Corporation, was acquired for $25 million.

The benefits of using SonicWALL are many. For instance, it is easy to deploy and use in terms of configuration and policy creation, which make it ideal for small and medium-sized companies. It also has very easy to use configuration guides to help users maneuver and navigate through the network environment.

SonicWALL has a very powerful operating platform called SonicOS, which simplifies the most difficult task. This is due to its robust suite of features that enable network administrators to quickly and easily add wireless guest services and object-based management features. This wonderful product has many more features and benefits that make it a sought-after product.

An introduction to SonicWALL

The public company, SonicWALL, is a professionally set up firm that deals in Internet security solutions and related appliances. Its products include devices that provide Their product lines within include devices that provide UTM (Unified Threat Management), firewalls, VPN (Virtual Private Network), value-added subscription services, anti-spam, content filtering and e-mail, back-up and recovery and software. Its deep inspection engine that is free of reassembly has the potential to scan any number of file sizes and downloads happening simultaneously on any TCP port, thereby providing superlative performance and scalability for growing networks.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, USA, SonicWALL also has a sales center in Tempe, Arizona, US and engineering centers in Seattle, Washington, USA, Shanghai, China and Bangalore, India. The company has a worldwide workforce of 700 people across its five international offices. Its offices in Bangalore, Sunnyvale and Tempe also double up as its support centers.

Founded in 1991 by two brothers Sreekanth and Sudhakar Ravi in Sunnyvale, California, the company was called Sonic Systems. It worked on making networking components for Apple’s product, Macintosh. In 1997, they came out with a security product called SonicWALL, which combined a firewall and VPN and a completely dedicated hardware appliance meant for small businesses. Two years later, the company renamed itself to SonicWALL Inc., and in November 1999, for the first time, they went public.

Since then, they went through several developments and acquisitions, and added several core technologies to their security appliances that included anti-virus, intrusion detection and prevention, continuous data protection backup and content filtering.

Some of its prominent acquisitions to this day remain the one with Phobos Corporation, Salt Lake City, Utah in November 2000 for $268 million. The company makes SSL security products. It also acquired the Internet security consulting services company, Ignyte Technology, Inc. in March 2001for $8.6 million. In the same year, it acquired SecureCom Networks, San Jose, California, and RedCreek Communications Inc., in Fremont, California, a company into VPN networking gear.

In 2005, it acquired Lasso Logic, a San Francisco, California, company that makes continuous data backup and recovery solutions based on appliances. It also acquired enKoo, a remote access technology developer in San Jose, California. The following year, it acquired MailFrontier, a company in Palo Alto, California, that develops e-mail security solutions, outbound content control and compliance and spam protection for a record $31 million. In 2007, a provider of enterprise SSL VPN remote access solutions, Aventail Corporation, was acquired for $25 million.

The benefits of using SonicWALL are many. For instance, it is easy to deploy and use in terms of configuration and policy creation, which make it ideal for small and medium-sized companies. It also has very easy to use configuration guides to help users maneuver and navigate through the network environment.

SonicWALL has a very powerful operating platform called SonicOS, which simplifies the most difficult task. This is due to its robust suite of features that enable network administrators to quickly and easily add wireless guest services and object-based management features. This wonderful product has many more features and benefits that make it a sought-after product.