Know or listen to those who know.
Baltasar Gracian (1601 - 1658); Spanish philosopher, writer.
- Protection against spies and sniffers -
Oxygen3 24h-365d, by Panda Software (http://www.pandasoftware.com)

Madrid, October 3, 2003 - One of the most common attacks launched against
networks involves capturing data being transmitted between two systems using utilities called sniffers.

In today's Oxygen3 24h-365d, we are going to look
at sniffers and how to prevent them from listening in on network traffic.

The most widely used communications protocol in local networks is Ethernet.

Traditional Ethernet networks work as repeaters and when data is sent from one system, it reaches all the systems in the network, however only the
recipient collects the data whereas the rest reject it. The main problem in these environments is that one machine can be configured to accept all the
traffic received by the network, even if it is not the recipient. This would allow an attacker to access all data transmitted across a network.

One way to prevent these kinds of attacks is to use a switch instead of a hub. Switch technology is capable of recognizing the recipient the traffic
is addressed to and sending the data to the corresponding port only, preventing it from reaching the rest of the network. Switch networks are a significant obstacle to traditional sniffers, but advanced techniques have been developed that can even capture data in these environments.

A general solution to local network monitoring is to encrypt all traffic. By doing this, even though the data could be captured, the attacker would not
be able to access the decrypted information. This security measure is essential when transmitting confidential data via the Internet, as the
traffic passes through multiple systems that are not in the user's domain.

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The 5 most frequently detected viruses by Panda ActiveScan, Panda Software's
free online scanner: 1) Gibe.C; 2) Bugbear.B; 3) Blaster; 4) Klez.I; 5)
Istbar.C.

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