This was because of a breach of the Data Protection Act that allowed millions of UK gamers’ details to be made available online, including names, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth and account passwords. Credit card details were also at risk, the ICO said following an investigation.

It affected systems running the PlayStation Network (PSN) back in April 2011.

According to the ICO, if the latest security patches had been applied to the system software, then the data breach could not have occurred.

This could have been prevented had the IT staff responsible regularly run a network security tool such as GFI LanGuard, which guarantees that security patches are applied in a timely manner.

For as little as $10 per monitored IP for a 250 IP network, GFI LanGuard offers three vital services:

1)      Vulnerability assessment checks the network against a frequently updated database of known vulnerabilities that may be exploited by hackers

2)      Patch management ensures that the latest security and non-security patches are applied to servers, workstations, laptops on your network; both Windows and Mac OS X machines are supported

3)      Network auditing discovers all the hardware and installed software on your network and can flag open ports, unexpected users and groups and detect unauthorized applications being installed and extra devices being added by comparing the network to a known safe baseline.

GFI LanGuard helps to prove compliance to security standards which can protect companies from being fined, and costs a tiny fraction of the quarter of a million that companies like Sony have experienced.

It is a false economy not to invest in such a tool, which brings benefits of comprehensive network security and increased productivity for your IT staff and end users, in addition to setting your mind at ease over compliance.

Learn more about GFI LanGuard 2012 or start your 30-day trial today!

One popular CEO gadget is a Mac laptop, even when the rest of the company has standardised on PC workstations and laptops.

There is also a growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) where laptops, mobile phones, even tablets from home are expected to be embraced by the corporate network. How is the overworked system administrator meant to balance the requirements of supporting these devices, without compromising the security of the corporate network?

BYOD is causing CEO gadgetry to spread to the CxOs, executives and even down to grass-roots employees. Its benefits of being able to use the device of choice to maximize productivity when on the road, at home, out of the office or even on vacation, outweigh the potential threats to security – at least in the minds of those not responsible for maintaining security.

Yet such threats of exposing the network to malware and other vulnerabilities which can result in data loss and network downtime cannot be ignored. Unless the system administrators can use sophisticated tools to help him or her, there is a real risk to the security of the network. For some businesses, any network breaches can mean failure to meet security compliance standards which may translate to lawsuits and fines.

Scanning for vulnerabilities and remediating any found through automatic patch management is a must. And it can’t be limited to the Windows machines on your network. It needs to work cross platform, and a vital first step is to support the Macintoshes on the network.

These can be “executive gadget”-style Macs, but also many businesses have their own design departments, where Mac desktops and laptops are prevalent.

The latest version of GFI LanGuard 2012 supports patching of the Mac OS X operating system and its applications, in addition to patching Windows operating systems, Windows applications and other third party applications such as Adobe, Firefox and Safari. Check it out – it will make your life as a SysAdmin easier, boost the security of your network and help to keep you compliant.

Every month the number of vulnerabilities discovered grows, and the risk of not applying a patch in time grows correspondingly.

There was a time where on-demand network scans for vulnerabilities in all the computers on the network could be managed serially from a central console.

However as the complexity of the scan grew, there was no longer enough time to complete the entire network scan, even when run overnight. Consequently it became essential to offload the scanning load onto the target computers by installing a small agent that communicates with the central console.

This effectively parallelized the task, leading to dramatic performance improvements in getting the entire network scan completed.

It also brought other benefits, such as being able to run when the target computers were not on the network, as is commonly the case with laptops, and then communicating results back to the console when the laptop returned to the network.

However, there is more to network security than simply scanning for vulnerabilities. Remediation is essential, especially through patch management and deployment to the machines where the vulnerabilities have been detected.

Typically, remediation takes place from a centralized patch repository, where the service packs, critical security update patches and less critical non-security update patches are stored.

On large networks, and geographically diverse networks – which are typical in multi-site organizations, it can take a long time to remediate vulnerabilities to all machines in the network.

Deploying patches machine by machine from the centralized patch repository across the WAN link uses too much network bandwidth and takes too long.

Instead, it becomes necessary to use a caching solution to offload the remediation load – analogous to the agent solution described above to offload the scanning load.

By designating one of the target machines with an agent installed as a “relay”, patches are copied once from the centralized patch repository over the WAN and then served up many times to local machines that the relay is responsible for, across the local LAN.

Even when a WAN connection is not involved, on very large networks with thousands of workstations, laptops and servers, it can be very beneficial to designate a set of relay agents to speed the deployment of patches when remediating.

The number of types of devices with vulnerabilities which can be exploited is also growing. First servers and workstations, then laptops; next not just PCs but also Macs and Linux computers; now even devices such as printers, switches and routers need to be checked for vulnerabilities in their firmware.

You need a solution that can address all these types of devices, and offer efficient parallelized scanning and remediation through patch deployment.

If only such a solution existed…

It does! GFI LanGuard 2012, which has just been launched, acts as a virtual security consultant by incorporating three vital security tools: patch management, vulnerability assessment and network auditing. It includes agent technology for scanning and relay agent technology for remediation. It includes support for both security and non-security patches from Microsoft operating systems and applications and other third party applications. Finally it scans for vulnerabilities in servers, workstations and laptops; PCs, Macs and Linux computers; printers, switches and routers.

Learn more about GFI LanGuard 2012 or start your 30-day trial today!