Re: Oh Dear, Where to start?!

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Date: 25 Jun 2003 18:12:59 -0000
To: security-basics@securityfocus.com

Okay wow,

Sounds like your in a mess of trouble...

For policies, I recommend reading http://www.sans.org/resources/policies/
this will give you a great start.. this is what most of my policies are
based off, and I've yet to run into any trouble with them.

Next, you have to have anti-virus, it's a must... This does cost money,
and I've found that if you can make a good presentation of how much it
would cost to repair the damage caused by a virus, most employers will
spend the cash.. I recommend products by Symantec, and Computer
Associates.

If open shares are a must, then make sure you are running some kind of
firewall. There are plenty of free firewalls out there, but you'll need
to scavenge a machine to run it on. Try looking into the GPL of
www.smoothwall.org, there are so many it's really what your comfortable
with.

If I had to start somewhere, I would start with anti-virus.

>Hey everyone,
>
>Ok... I am in a bit of a jam here and I was hoping to
>get some feedback from some of you with appropriate
>experience in the field of network security and policy
>development.
>
>I am an senior at RIT studying (essentially) systems
>administration. My main focus and priority has been
>computer security and policy development. I recently
>took a internship with a small government office
>helping out with computer administration tasks. Upon
>arrival, I decided it would be fun to do a windows
>update to see what sort of things would come up for my
>PC. Low and behold, there were over 40 critical
>updates, driver updates, and recommended updates.
>
>Right off the bat this triggered the feeling that
>there was absolutely no security or update plans in
>place at this particular organization. I quickly
>addressed the issue, and have been working to draft a
>comprehensive security policy and implement technical
>controls.
>
>What I need advice on is the following: If you were
>introduced to a mixed network (literally all versions
>of windows since 3.1 and mac systems) that have no
>updates, backups, or patches installed... connected to
>a network with only a basic NAT table and no other
>security... with not even anti-virus software
>enabled... with no user policies or disaster plans in
>place... with unprotected netbios shares everywhere...
>where would you start the process of building some
>sort of security solution?
>
>I mean, I've seen passwords on monitors, shared
>accounts, open public ports (even the wiring cabinet
>was unlocked in plain view of passbys to the
>building). I've been tasked with creating the security
>policies relating to internet use, network and phone
>use, passwords, physical security, backup/disaster
>plans, antivirus, incident response, email
>use/protection, and whatever else needs done. This
>wouldnt be so bad normally I guess, but there is
>virtually no budget allocated to help for this project
>and I have approximately 3 months to do it. To make
>matters worse, I am also responsible for systems
>admin, network admin, tech support, programming, and
>whatever other tasks may need to be done in the
>meantime.
>
>So basically, if you had to start from nothing, where
>would you start first? What would you consider to be
>the most important things to be implemented? I am
>literally working from ground zero here... heh!
>
>Thank so much in advance ;-)
>
>Steve Frank
>
>----------------
>President SPARSA
>Security Practices and Research Student Association
>Rochester Institute of Technology

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• Previous message: Ansgar Wiechers: "Re: Firewall on server itself"
• Maybe in reply to: Steve Frank: "Oh Dear, Where to start?!"
• Next in thread: Des Ward: "RE: Oh Dear, Where to start?!"
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