Certain changes in services or devices can often be misheeded; failure to recognize even subtle changes can later result in unpleasant consequences. Below we list several examples of such incidents; the checks described are rather lightweight and can be run frequently for critical network assets. The cases below assume that any change in current device’ state should be treated as security issue.

There are three basic types of activity in information security – those that should be performed periodically to reduce possible risks to minimum. Periodic updates is one of them: as software pieces are being developed and enhanced, it is required to update them for many reasons, one of them being possible vulnerabilities.

While monitoring different types of OS, it is essential to reduce the number of tools used to a logical and reasonable minimum. Under “tools”, we understand all kinds of APIs, software packages and technologies are used to perform the monitoring tasks. For example, same or similar tasks of monitoring system resources can be solved by using SNMP, WMI, various scripting languages, such as PS1, Python, VBasic and so on.

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is an actual standard to access and/or control Windows components, services and applications. With its query language (resembling the SQL used by many relational databases), WMI allows collecting information from multiple sources, so-called providers. However, this comes at a cost: running WMI query is a resource- and time-consuming operation (comparing to certain alternatives).

Nowadays, many people, even those far from IT industry, depend on remote conferencing services, either on premises, or global ones. Unless the status of those services is watched, its unexpected absence can disrupt upcoming meetings, causing all kinds of negative consequences. Let us provide a brief list of several remote conference services along with means to monitor their status and availability.