Security Tip: Three inexpensive ways to increase security

by Brent Huston

April 10, 2007 —

Want to increase overall security of your small to mid-size business network without spending much time or money? These three inexpensive ideas will help bring more security and less hassle to your environment.

1. Migrate users away from Internet Explorer

A great deal of compromise that companies experience is the result of the browser choice, and let's face it, Internet Explorer has issues. If you can't switch from IE completely, consider changing to Deepnet Explorer (http://www.deepnetexplorer.com), which still utilizes the IE rendering engine, but wraps it in a much safer interface.

2. Implement Egress Filtering for all unneeded ports

It's likely that you have a firewall or router at the perimeter. Use this device to block outbound connections that are likely to be malware, spyware or otherwise malicious traffic. You must still allow outbound critical services such as the web, mail and others, but you certainly don't need all 65,535 ports allowed outbound to the Internet.

3. Map your network

Upwards of 75% of all the organizations we perform assessments of have no organized map of their network environments. Make sure you know your external and internal IP spaces, your domain structures and have a clear understanding of existing trust relationships. Take it one step further and actually use Visio or something similar to draw a real network map.

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