Comfortable? Enjoying your coffee at the corner café while watching the world go by? And so you should, it’s a lovely day outside. You’ve even got your notebook on the table, finishing some work; life is good. But what about the guy up the back? Think he’s also enjoying a large decaf while working out of the office? No, he’s actually enjoying himself looking at the websites you’re visiting and busily searching your notebook and taking everything he’s interested in. Public place vs. private property it may sound far-fetched, but this happens every day to people using unprotected public Wi-Fi networks. While the wireless network at your home or business is (hopefully always) protected by decent levels of encryption using WPA or WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access) certified programs, many public Wi-Fi hot spots do not provide such basic security. But why is encryption so important? And is it difficult to organize? Keep it to …
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Manage Telecommuting Easily and Securely
If you could roll out of bed, commute just 40 feet, work in your robe and fuzzy slippers, and save thousands of dollars on travel expenses, would you do it? And, as a business owner or manager, would you offer the same benefit to your employees?, according to a survey commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry Association, 67 percent of respondents said their organization has seen greater productivity as a result of allowing employees to telecommute, either full or part-time, the main reason for the increase in output less commute time. No doubt telecommuting benefits employees and employers alike, but with the distractions of home beckoning children to drop off, a kitchen to clean, and laundry to wash can a telecommuter be as productive as employees in the office more important, can technology keep your data secure, your teams connected, and your staff accountable? It can, if you plan well.
Read More »Creating Networks with ISA 2004 (Part 2)
In part one of this article series we focused on network creation and network relationships. In this article we will focus on advanced network design and network flow within ISA 2004. We have already established in the previous article that the ISA server is used to divide networks and that networks are able to be defined and policies assigned to each network in form of a defined rule base for each network. Contrary to sensationalist belief, the DMZ and networks like it are still alive and well and have a place in networking. In fact the very people that say that the DMZ is dead are the ones that are paranoid about publishing servers that reside on the internal network and for this reason prefer to have an extremely secure back to back firewall scenario in place that offers highly secure access. This in itself is an advanced type of …
Read More »Creating Networks with ISA 2004 (Part 1)
Most organizations have started to realize the true benefit of ISA 2004 as an enterprise grade firewall and I have noticed a trend emerging among numerous enterprises moving towards using ISA to protect critical information assets. ISA is also being used to replace competitive products that do not offer similar application level protection for Microsoft networks. For this reason the creation and segmentation of networks is pertinent within ISA. ISA Server 2004 is built to provide a multi-networking model that affords granular control of network traffic between networks. These networks can be defined within the network objects in the ISA Server Management; by configuring these options, advanced configurations of multiple networks with intricate relationships can be achieved. ISA networks ISA networks are designed or created depending on the location of ISA server in relation to the other network elements within the network. For example if a DMZ is required and …
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