IT Certification and Training Blog

By Val Bakh

2.7.4 Internet Explorer Security Features

The Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Nowadays, the Internet gives us access to e-mail, instant messaging, telephone, television, banking, shopping, research—you name it. It is so completely woven into nearly everything we do so that most of the time we don’t even think of it as something external, something that we need to connect to before we can make use of it. That is, of course, until something goes wrong. The Internet is not only a convenience; it is also a potential danger.

When you are physically in a crowded place, such as a shopping mall or a busy street, you are very much cognizant of the fact that most people around you are total strangers. You wouldn’t climb to a podium and shout out your name, address, date of birth, place of work, or any other personal information for everyone’s benefit. Most of the time, you wouldn’t even fumble in your wallet too openly. And if you come across a banking machine and decide to do some banking, you’ll make sure no one is watching over your shoulder when you are entering your PIN, you’ll never forget to remove your banking card when you are done, and you’ll never leave behind any receipts that the machine printed for you. When you are browsing the Internet from the comfort of your home, there is no jostle or bustle of a physical crowd, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no one watching you or that everyone in cyberspace is a friend you can trust. Therefore, certain precautions are in order if you want to stay safe.

By Delana Hallstedt

My initial plan for this blog post was to attempt to unravel the alphabet soup approach to all things technology related – Why so many acronyms?!? However, upon doing a little bit of research on the origins of acronyms (retronyms, neologism, and alphabetism oh my!), I quickly talked myself out of that and settled on one particular acronym.

ARP FTW!

By Amy Haigh

As a network administrator, you will be responsible for ensuring that each host on your network is configured with the appropriate TCP/IP parameters to communicate with other hosts. To communicate on a network, either private or public, a host must be configured with — at minimum — an IP address, a subnet mask, and a default gateway. On a small private network with consistent hosts, you can manually configure these options on each host. But if you administer a large network, or even a small network where laptops and tablets continuously connect and disconnect, you will find implementing Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to be a lifesaver.

DHCP, defined by RFC 2131, describes both the client-server model by which TCP/IP configuration parameters are assigned to a host and the protocol by which those assignments are delivered to the host. For instance, a Cisco router or switch, or even a Microsoft server configured to perform routing functions, can act as a DHCP server and assign TCP/IP parameters to requesting hosts; for a host to request and receive TCP/IP parameters from a DHCP server, that host must be configured as a DHCP client.

2.7.3 Windows XP Mode

By Val Bakh

We don’t talk much of Windows Vista nowadays. It didn’t stay on the market very long and was soon replaced with a “new-and-improved” version, Windows 7. The important fact, however, is that Windows Vista was the first of the new generation of Microsoft’s operating systems. The move from Windows XP to Windows Vista and Windows 7 is perhaps even more significant than the long-forgotten departure from Windows NT in favor of Windows 2000. In the big scheme of things, Windows 2000 brought us Active Directory, but from a regular user’s perspective, the change was not all that significant: a prettier graphical user interface (GUI), but not much difference in the applications that users could run. Windows XP added a few new bells and whistles but did not hinder our ability to run most of our favorite legacy applications.

The arrival of Windows Vista put an end to those “golden days.” The code base of the new operating system is so different that many legacy applications can no longer run, or even be installed, on it. Although lots of new programs are flooding the market and sticking to old software might appear to be a nostalgic whim, there is no denying the fact that some legacy apps are still so important to some of us that we are reluctant to switch to a newer operating system.

By Kailin Acheson

If you are a network administrator, you might be familiar with various types of attacks that malicious users might launch against the network in an attempt to destroy it. These attacks, described in Network Security Part 1: Attacks, include passive, active, close-in, insider, and distribution attacks. As a network administrator, you should also be familiar with possible threats to the network. These include physical threats, reconnaissance attacks, and access attacks.

Physical threats, which are active attacks, fall into four main categories:

By Kailin Acheson

If you are the administrator of a network, you likely have been thinking about, and possibly worrying about, potential network attacks. It's much more rewarding (and less stressful) to protect a network than to fix it (unless, as Tim Charlton wrote in one of his recent blogs, you like the pressure. It might be helpful to try to answer the following questions as you consider attacks on the network:

• Who might attack this network?
• What attacks might those attackers launch?
• What is the purpose of those attacks, and what outcome could the attackers be expecting?
• How can I protect the network from these and other attacks?

By James Hanback

You've spent all these weeks and some of your hard-earned cash studying for Cisco's 640-816 ICND2 exam only to discover that there's a brand new Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) version 2.0 track. Cisco's 200-101 exam, along with its 100-101 ICND1 prerequisite, was announced on March 26 and is now available to candidates pursuing CCNA certification or recertification. Cisco also released a new version 2.0 of the composite exam, which is numbered 200-120. Among the many questions these new developments raise in your mind as you consider heaving your old 640-816 study guide toward the trash bin might be "Have I wasted my time studying for 640-816?"

The good news is that you haven't wasted your time. Candidates who want to continue pursuing CCNA certification on the old version 1.1 track (640-822 and 640-816, or the composite 640-802) have been given until Sept. 30, 2013 to complete those exams. So you can pluck that old study guide from the garbage, wipe away the coffee grounds, and fire up your NetSim labs and your Boson Exam Environment (BEE). The old exams will be available to you for another five months.

By Michael Aldridge

Have you ever felt like the cartoon character who tries to kick the football, but at the last second, the football is jerked away, causing the poor guy to flip into the air and land flat on his back? Some of you who are studying for your Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT) or Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certifications might feel that way after Cisco's recent announcement of brand new ICND1, ICND2, and CCNA exams. But fear not! You're in a much better position than our cartoon counterpart is.

On March 26, 2013, Cisco announced the release and immediate availability of the new Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) version 2.0 track. Like the previous version of the CCNA, there is a two-exam path that consists of the 100-101 ICND1 exam and the 200-101 ICND2 exam, and for the brave souls among us, there is a one-exam path that consists of the 200-120 CCNA composite exam.

By Kailin Acheson and Delana Hallstedt

As you begin the process of setting up a network, you will likely first need to figure out how to best connect the devices on the network so that communications are optimal. You might have to do a little research, planning, and organizing to make sure everything is positioned to maximize performance on that network. One good place to start is with the devices you will need to deploy. You can ask a few key questions to help point you in the right direction, such as the following:

• How many devices will be on the network?
• Are the devices all in the same room? House? Office building?
• Are the devices spread throughout a city? State? Country?
• What type of redundancy should the network have?

Two keys to any network design are the network type and the network topology. A network is the infrastructure that allows for communication between connected devices. The topology describes how the devices are connected to each other.

By Delana Hallstedt

Any Tech will tell you: the most difficult customers are not the ones you encounter while at work, they are typically the ones that find you when you are at home! That’s right, the most difficult customers aren’t customers at all, they tend to be the son trying to print his homework, the uncle with the modem that won’t allow him to connect to the Internet, or the mother/brother/friend/pastor/dog groomer’s wife who calls you on a Saturday morning to ask “a quick question” when all you really want to do is sip your cup of coffee and read your favorite online news blog. Because seriously, who really gets a physical paper anymore? That’s another topic altogether. Recently I’ve had quite a bit of the first scenario, the son trying to print his homework, along with the husband trying to print documents he needs for work the next day. Many times I have been ripped away from preparing dinner by the shrieking question, “Why can’t I print?!?!”

It doesn’t take much for a home to quickly turn into what’s known as a small office/home office (SOHO) network. One day a standalone printer used primarily by one person is all you need, then all of a sudden you quickly evolve into a house full of people all wanting to print at the same time from every room in the house from devices with wires and devices without wires. They all seem to think that because their device offers a print feature, so should your network. I mean, there’s the printer, right there, sitting on the desk, isn’t that what it’s for?