Over the 5 year lifetime of the IrishHoneynet, we have witnessed hundreds of thousands of scans, probes and attacks against the servers that comprise the network. Our estimation is that given an average of 3,000 attack attempts a week, each server has seen more than 700,000 compromise attempts over the 5 years. Taken at face value, this is a remarkable figure.

The attacks have been thick and steady, and the relentless hackers appear hell bent on taking control of as many vulnerable systems as possible. This article will focus on providing some basic guidelines that will serve to assist you in conducting your own vulnerability management and performing scans against your own systems and networks, in the hope that you will identify and remedy any serious vulnerabilities and bugs in advance of the unyielding hackers, ultimately resulting in computer systems that are secure and protected.

The link for this article located at Help Net Security is no longer available.