NETWORK SECURITY

Every computer along the path of your data can see what you send and receive.

USERNAMES and PASSWORDS Username can be assigned to you eg.

Student ID Password is your choice. The more

characters the harder it is to guess.

USERNAMES AND PASSWORDS (CONT…)Number of Characters

Possible Combinations(using A-Z, 0-9)

Average time to Discover Human Computer

1 36 3 minutes 0.000 018 second

2 362 = 1 300 2 hours 0.000 65 second

3 363 = 47 000 3 days 0.02 second

4 364 = 1 000 000 3 months 1 second

5 60 000 000 10 years 30 seconds

10 3 700 000 000 000 000

580 million years 59 yearsIdeally, you would have upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols like #, $, ! . This means that for an eight character password there are 728 combinations (700 000 000 000 000) (this would take 15 years to crack)

USERNAMES AND PASSWORDS (CONT…) If you change your password regularly,

more than once every 15 years, your data should be safe!

Some systems have “3 strikes and you’re out” allowing three tries before the user is locked out of the account.

Read tips on p.218 of text.

FIREWALLS A firewall is the hardware and/or

software that restricts access to data and information on a computer or a network. A proxy

server can act as a gate to the network. It is outside the network itself. It hides the identity of the network computers.

PROXY SERVER

WIRELESS SECURITY To avoid others piggy-backing your

internet and stealing data Have a firewall Ensure the wireless access point does not

broadcast a network name Use WEP (wireless Equivalent Privacy),

which is the standard of data encryption.