October Blog Post: IT & Internet Security

It goes without saying, security in IT is very important, without network security financial information for every person that uses a bank could easily have their information stolen and sold on a black market. A job in in network security can easily earn you six figures a year, and there is an ever increasing demand for network security analysts and the like ever increasing in a world that is moving many of its data to the cloud.

Plot of the salary for IS professionals throughout the US.

At Jeved management we have to worry about our online storage accounts with services such as Box and Dropbox being secure in the event of an information leak from the company. IT needs not worry just about the actual information being stored with the services being secure, but the databases owned by the companies that contain the financial and log-in information for each of the employees, as with any website that the company has its employees use.

Folder hierarchy for Jeved Management on their Box account.

In order to efficiently and effectively manage its employee's passwords, Jeved has an Enterprise account with a service called LastPass that allows the employees to have their passwords saved in a centralized database, and the IT at Jeved can set restrictions on passwords that require them to be complex.

As you can see Jeved is only using about 8% of the available features, it will be my job to setup and configure the rest of those features.

I am writing about network security and its role in IT as my research has been leading me towards articles that deal with having secure networks, but also due to a Cyber Security Fair that I attended at Cal Poly Pomona in which speakers presented on the importance of making sure things are secure in an age where there are increasing security threats everyday.

Cyber Security Fair Flyer.

An interesting and quite fun part of the Fair was on the idea of penetration testing which is where a company will hire a consultant to try to break into their system by any means necessary to find any security flaws that may exist. This included a hands on activity that made use of a $35 dollar computer the size of a credit card called the Raspberry Pi.

The Awesomeness that is the Raspberry Pi, I do own one, but I use it as a media center.

We used the Raspberry Pi to exploit weaknesses in a target computer to show how easy and scary it is for a "bad guy" to break into a computer or network and steal information or just wreck havoc. This presentation taught me that making sure your devices are up to date and have any security updates installed as our target computer was a desktop with Windows 7 that had little to no updates installed. This definitely showed the importance of making sure things are up to date as Windows 7 is what the computers at Jeved use, and is not an outdated OS either, meaning there are many more people in the world that are vulnerable to exploits.

A screenshot of metasploit being used to exploit a server, the very last line states that the user id # of the terminal that the exploit was able to open on the target server is id # 0, otherwise know as the root account which also a hacker to have full control over the server D:

Blog 8: Research and Working EQ

1.  What is your working EQ?

• What are significant factors that lead to a successful IT department?

2.  What is a possible answer to your working EQ?

• Full adaptation and use of new technologies or services in a workplace can be achieved through on-the-job training for employees.
• Extensive research of services and their implementation can help the transition between different services or workflows.

3.  What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ?

• I feel that my most important source of information would have to be my mentor as she has on the job experience over many years, and I actually get to have hands-on experience. Besides that I feel my second most important source of information was the article titled "How IT workers learn in the workplace" because an IT department can be considered successful when the employees can properly use what has been put forth by the IT department, and one of the best ways to achieve that is through training.

4.  Who is your mentor, or where are you volunteering, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?

• My mentor is Maria Tarozzi, IT Director at Jeved Management, and the actions she takes to improve the technology at Jeved Management are examples of possible answers to my EQ. Some of these examples include detailed documentation of services and their hiearchy, making sure all employees understand the services the company wants them to use, and searching for new services/technology to fit any of the company's needs.

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• The company I am currently mentoring in, Jeved Management, is going to be purchasing new computers for the office workstations soon and I plan to help conduct the research as to what computers would be best. Ultimately I will help to set them up and make sure that all the programs and services that necessary are available.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• I plan to document the process of research, along with screenshots of working on computer configurations with in-depth descriptions, documentation and descriptions of the programs and services that are going to be used, and of course, photos of me in the office preparing and installing the new workstations.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• IT departments at one time or another must get new gear for the company, either for everyone or just someone whose needs aren't being met, and it is their job to research the needs of the employees and find what it will take to meet those needs for the company with the budget at hand.

4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your mentorship log and call it the independent component 1 log.