In the software business, quality is often left behind in the rush to be latest and greatest. Security products are no exception, according to a study released Monday by ICSA Labs. ICSA Labs, a unit of Verizon Business, provides third-party testing and certification of security products. The company examined 20 years of its testing data to create the "ICSA Labs Product Assurance Report". The report indicates that nearly 80 percent of security products fail to perform as intended when first tested, and generally require two or more cycles of testing before achieving certification. . ICSA studied data from their seven certification programs; anti-virus, network firewall, Web application firewall, network IPS, IPSec VPN, SSL VPNs and custom testing, which are customized testing programs designed for specific clients. ICSA found the most common reason why a product fails during initial testing is that it doesn't adequately perform as intended. Across the seven product categories, core product functionality accounted for 78 percent of initial test failures. Examples include an anti-virus product failing to prevent infection and firewalls not filtering malicious traffic, ICSA noted in a release on the findings. The link for this article located at CSO Online is no longer available. . An analysis uncovers ICSA Labs' conclusions regarding security solutions that did not meet certification criteria, emphasizing reliability concerns.. Security Products Testing, Product Certification Testing, ICSA Certification Failures. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
Firewalk is an active reconnaissance network security tool that attempts to determine what layer 4 protocols a given IP forwarding device will pass. Firewalk works by sending out TCP or UDP packets with a TTL one greater than the targeted gateway. If the gateway allows the traffic, it will forward the packets to the next hop where they will expire and elicit an ICMP_TIME_EXCEEDED message. If the gateway hostdoes not allow the traffic, it will likely drop the packets on the floor and we will see no response. Do you need to test your firewall? This article look at the firewall rulset testing tool called Firwalk. Test it how and let us know what you think?. The link for this article located at DarkNet is no longer available. . Investigate Firewalk, an advanced utility designed for evaluating firewall configurations and bolstering network defenses via dynamic probing.. Firewalk Testing Tool, Network Security Methods, Firewall Audit, IP Forwarding Testing. . Bill Locke
Recently, I wrote an article about "How to scan your Linux-Distro for Root Kits". Now that the machine is... clean! I think, a good thing TO-DO, is to test my Firewall (AGAIN!) The good news are that we can use the free tool FTester. The bad news are that FTester needs to be configured right...So...Let's get to work! . The tool consists of two perl scripts, a packet injector (ftest) and the listening sniffer (ftestd). The first script injects custom packets, defined in ftest.conf, with a signature in the data part while the sniffer listens for such marked packets. The scripts both write a log file which is in the same form for both scripts. A diff of the two produced files (ftest.log and ftestd.log) shows the packets that were unable to reach the sniffer due to filtering rules if these two scripts are ran on hosts placed on two different sides of a firewall. Stateful inspection firewalls are handled with the 'connection spoofing' option. A script called freport is also available for automatically parse the log files. The link for this article located at How To Forge is no longer available. . Enhance your Linux firewall's effectiveness with FTester by following key steps: install, configure, run tests, interpret results, adjust rules, monitor, and document. Linux Firewall Testing, Packet Injection Tool, Network Security Linux. . Brittany Day
ICSA Labs, which provides one of the most important certifications firewall vendors strive for, said yesterday it has completed the first wave of tests of product against version 4.0 of its certification criteria, writes Kevin Murphy. For the first time, . . . . ICSA Labs, which provides one of the most important certifications firewall vendors strive for, said yesterday it has completed the first wave of tests of product against version 4.0 of its certification criteria, writes Kevin Murphy. For the first time, ICSA has also split its certification into three categories and is awarding three different certification logos - for residential, small and medium business, and corporate firewall products. "Firewall vendors didn't want a firewall that costs $100,000 to buy to have the same certification as one costing $200," said ICSA Labs program manager Brian Monkman. "The one-size-fits-all criteria doesn't work any more." . ICSA Labs reveals the successful conclusion of more rigorous firewall assessments following updated certification standards for manufacturers.. Firewall Certification, ICSA Testing, Network Security Innovations, Vendor Compliance. . Anthony Pell
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