Conducting network assessments and application protocols

¶ … Computer Security by Rozeberger and Zeldich. The tutorial gave a basic overview of computer security, including viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. It discussed how to avoid attacks or at least to become aware of the potential of attacks. The tutorial also looked at how hackers work, to help explain how breaks are performed. I chose this tutorial because I believe that computer security is one of the most significant and serious issues for any emerging IT professional. It a network is not secure, it will become vulnerable to attack by hackers. Therefore, any other work that an IT professional does on a computer must be considered secondary to the safety of the network.

The tutorial began with an extensive history of computer hacking. This history was fascinating. While I do not feel like it would contribute to my daily knowledge as an IT professional, in that I could not use that information to secure current networks, I felt as if it gave me significant background information. For example, I learned that early hackers seemed motivated by profit (they hacked into phone systems to make free calls), which differentiates them from many modern hackers who seek to create chaos rather than generate profit.

The really useful part of the tutorial was the description of a basic computer attack. Hackers exploit vulnerability, so it is up to the computer professional to eliminate vulnerability wherever possible. The two most interesting components were password security and social engineering. While adequate software protection should be able to protect the network from worms, viruses, and Trojan horses, they are useless if users allow access to the network by unauthorized people. What this made me realize is that, as an IT professional, a significant part of my job will necessarily involve the education of and communication with network users, to help keep the network safe.

In Debby Koren's tutorial, Local Area Network Portal, one can learn about the different ways to connect networks. I selected this tutorial because I feel as if connectivity is the key to computer services. After all, a computer that stands alone and is not connected to any other devices may be capable of amazing functions, but it is unable to perform information-sharing. It is this information-sharing that serves as the hallmark of the computer age. Therefore, understanding how computers are linked to one another in networks, particularly local networks, is of critical importance to the IT professional. I will provide some basic information about the tutorial in a moment, but I did have a basic complaint about this tutorial; it was immense. The amount of information in the tutorial was so significant that it made it difficult to peruse in a single sit-down session. I personally feel that tutorials should be small enough to allow for easy access of information, and having to repeatedly access the information makes it less likely the student will complete the tutorial. That said, the information in the tutorial was excellent and helpful.

Koren begins the tutorial with an overview of computer networking, discussing its evolution from terminal-computer communication. She discusses local area networks (LAN) and defines them as networks with distance limitations and are controlled by one administrative authority. Some IT professionals will be the administrators for these LANs and need to understand them. LANs tend to be faster than wide area networks (WANs), and can therefore transmit data at much faster rates.