Technology Reading

Attack toolkits (crimeware)

2011-03-13T10:30:00.001-07:00

Brain Virus

written by Basit and Amjad (Alvi brothers) in 1986 of Lahore, Pakistan
first malware which is relatively harmless and capable of infecting a DOS-based PC
embedded their real names and business address in the code
wrote the virus to protect their medical software from piracy

Malware

useful tool of bad guys used to steal information
production and online sale of “kits” that allow relatively unskilled hackers to create and launch malware attacks
facilitate concerted and widespread attacks on networked computers
composed of prewritten malicious code for exploiting vulnerabilities along with various tools to customize, deploy, and automate widespread attacks
selling on the Web from $40 or $50 to about $4000
even offer online support, subscription services and updated versions
offering to help install and set up purchased attack kits for a fee

7 reasons to concern

easier for unsophisticated hackers to launch an attack
simplicity and effectiveness of the attack kits likes ZeuS designed primarily to steal financial details
cyber criminals spending money to buy those attack kits believe in a return on investment
newest and most potent versions of the malware means users will be hit even harder.
exploits for vulnerabilities that encompass multiple applications and technologies
can attack multiple platforms
anti-virus and other types of protection might not recognize them, but many are known

Brain Virus

written by Basit and Amjad (Alvi brothers) in 1986 of Lahore, Pakistan

first malware which is relatively harmless and capable of infecting a DOS-based PC

embedded their real names and business address in the code

wrote the virus to protect their medical software from piracy

Malware

useful tool of bad guys used to steal information

production and online sale of “kits” that allow relatively unskilled hackers to create and launch malware attacks

facilitate concerted and widespread attacks on networked computers

composed of prewritten malicious code for exploiting vulnerabilities along with various tools to customize, deploy, and automate widespread attacks

selling on the Web from $40 or $50 to about $4000

even offer online support, subscription services and updateds versions

offering to help install and set up purchased attack kits for a fee

Six reasons to concern

easier for unsophisticated hackers to launch an attack

Source: http://www.itworld.com/security/133912/pc-virus-turns-25-new-worry-emerges-attack-toolkits

Watch these 5 OSS security projects

2011-03-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

PacketFence

http://www.packetfence.org
open source Network Access Control (NAC) system for wired and wireless
integrates with the Snort intrusion detection system and the Nessus vulnerability scanner

SmoothWall

http://www.smoothwall.org
a firewall in hardened GNU/Linux OS with Web management interface
has iso image for Intel and AMD processors and installation can be updated online
has a standard set of firewall features and does QoS, traffic stats, Web proxying and real-time graphs
offers commercial support for the product and sells appliances

ModSecurity

http://www.modsecurity.org
open source Web application firewall (WAF) project as a module for the Apache HTTP server
features its own scripting, HTTP traffic monitoring, logging and real-time analysis, attack prevention and a rules engine

Untangle

http://www.untangle.com
multi-purpose security gateway in Linux image and runon dedicated hardware or virtual machines
supports free and paid security applications likes web Filter, anti-virus, spam prevention, advertising and phishing blocking, anti-spyware, firewall and tools for reporting and VPNs

TrueCrypt

http://www.truecrypt.org
can encrypt an entire partition or storage device, including USB flash drives or regular hard drives.
encryption is in real-time and should be transparent to the user
supports hardware-accelerated encryption on modern processors
run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

SmoothWall

ModSecurity

SmoothWalModSecuritySss

Source: http://www.itworld.com/security/134152/5-open-source-security-projects-watch

Tech//404® Data Loss Cost Calculator

2009-10-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.tech-404.com/calculator.html

Interactive tool designed to assess the impact of a data breach or identity theft data loss incident, according to a release. Analysts at the Farmington, Conn.-based company studied data from media reports, as well as several industry analyst reports, to develop the tool's proprietary algorithms.

Estimate financial exposure in three categories:

internal investigation expenses;
customer notification and crisis management expenses, and
regulatory/compliance expenses.

PortableApps.com

2009-09-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

http://portableapps.com

Portable software for USB drives.

Cheat Sheets

2009-09-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

http://packetlife.net/cheatsheets/

Universe

2009-09-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

http://universe.daylife.com/

Graphical depiction of the world from a conglomeration of daily new headlines on the Web.

Measurement Lab (M-Lab)

2009-08-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.measurementlab.net/

A Web site that lets consumers test their Internet connections to reveal possible interference and traffic management by service providers.

Shark Bait

2009-08-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

http://sharkbait.computerworld.com/

"Shark Bait is the place to post your experiences on all things IT -- the good, the bad, and the downright crazy stuff that you have to deal with every day."

Common Weakness Enumeration

2009-08-19T02:36:00.000-07:00

http://cwe.mitre.org/index.html

Dictionary for software bugs.

INetSim: Internet Services Simulation Suite

2009-08-17T00:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.inetsim.org/index.html

"a comfortable single suite to simulate different internet services with common logging and centralized control functions".

Secunia Online Software Inspector (OSI)

2009-08-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/

Feature Overview:

Detects insecure versions of common/popular programs installed on your PC
Verifies that all Microsoft patches are applied
Assists you in updating, patching, and protecting your PC
Activates additional security features in Sun Java
Runs through your browser. No installation or download is required

Data protection

2009-08-14T10:13:00.001-07:00

Protect your precious data in PC physically and logically

Risks

computer get smaller and more powerful and store more data
some just want the computer not the data
internal theft of systems from in offices
- desktop PC stolen from the office, complete with personnel and project records
- release of personal information
missing USB flash drives with sensitive data
high-profile corporate losses due to thefts
CSI/FBI survey for loss
- $19,562 per respondent in 2005
- $30,057 per respondent in 2006

Source of data

desktops
laptops
USB flash drives
portable devices

Measures

physical security devices
- can deter temptations to steal
- computer locks: Kensington
disk encryption
- store all data in encrypted mobile devices: U3 smart drive
- disk drives that include built-in encryption devices
- PGP public key encryption tools: PGPdisk, PGP Whole Disk Encryption or PGP Desktop
biometrics
- USB drives that have built-in fingerprint scanners: Index Security
- fingerprint scanners that are built into laptops
auto destruct data
- data will be destroyed once it is copied through Internet to a secure location
- MyLaptopGPS, ZTrace, Computrace
policies were set up for encrypting drives
- works involving companies data should be done in the office only
protect mobile devices
- do not leave any personal information on any mobile device or USB disk

Securing Wireless Network

2009-07-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

Steps on how to secure wireless network.

1. Change the router password

Change the router’s default password into a stronger one.

2. Turn off SSID broadcast

•Wireless router has service set identifier (SSID) name that allows clients to find and associate to it.
•Do not broadcast this (turned on by default for ease of use).
•Choose a random name and remember it.

3. Use WEP or WPA

Use encryption by using key.

Wireless network encryption standards:

•Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
◦simple, effective and widely used but not a bulletproof encryption method
◦several key lengths, including 64, 128, 152, and 256 bits
◦also called 40 and 104 but they are the same as 64 and 128
◦encryption key remains the same unless it is changed

•Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
◦newer, more sophisticated encryption and better protection than WEP
◦changes the secret key periodically and automatically
◦two versions of WPA: WPA and WPA2 (with AES)

4. Do not use ad-hoc networking

Wireless-enabled computer has two basic modes of communication

•infrastructure networking
◦connection between computers (local or external) is through router

•ad-hoc networking
◦direct connection without going through any router or devices e.g. for file sharing

Change Your Vista Product Key

2009-07-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Control Panel –> System

Under the Windows activation section, click the Change product key link.

The window that appears will allow you to enter a new product key and thereby upgrade to a different version of Vista.

Page2RSS

2009-06-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

Page2RSS is a service that helps you monitor web sites that do not publish feeds. It will check any web page for updates and deliver them to your favorite RSS reader.

http://page2rss.com/

Doug Engelbart: The Demo

2009-05-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Doug Engelbart giving the "mother of all Demos" 1968

A great thinker in our field is Doug Engelbart, who is mostly remembered for inventing the computer mouse. And on one of the early hits you can watch the demo he gave in 1968 to 3,000 people in San Francisco, showing them what the world of the future would be like.

Split large file

2009-01-28T01:52:00.000-08:00

split -b 250000k bigfile prefix

Install BitDefender for Ubuntu

2008-11-24T23:14:00.000-08:00

Reference: http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/

Add the BitDefender repository key to the list of apt trusted keys:
```
wget http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb/bd.key.asc
apt-key add bd.key.asc
```
NOTE that the second command must be run as root or by using sudo

Add the following line to the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb/ bitdefender non-free

Refresh your apt cache by running:
```
apt-get update
```
or
```
aptitude update
```
Install the desired BitDefender packages using your prefered apt front-end
For example:
```
apt-get install bitdefender-scanner
```
To update
```
bdscan --update
```
To scan
```
bdscan filename
```

Word Quiz

2008-11-17T20:32:00.001-08:00

http://www.ournique.com

CSS Tricks

2008-11-06T23:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/

http://www.petefreitag.com/item/475.cfm

http://www.strictlycss.com/

CSS Cheat Sheet

http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/css-cheat-sheet/

Web 2.0 effects to your own website

2008-11-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

SimpleJS is a JavaScript library simple and light proposing functions ready with the use to facilitate the exploitation of ajax.

http://simplejs.bleebot.com/

Security Educational Resources

2008-10-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Free Text Editors

2008-10-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Compare Content Management Systems

2008-10-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

CMS Matrix

This site is provided as a community service to everyone interested in looking for a means to manage web site content. Here you can discuss, rate, and compare the various systems available on the market today. This site works because of community involvement. Please rate any systems you’ve used and discuss them in the forums. If you notice any errors, please report them via the feedback form located on each CMS’s listing page.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org

Tips on how consumers can fight card fraud

2008-09-08T18:39:00.001-07:00

Video-Hosting Web Sites

2008-09-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

Mail::Box::Manager with ClamAV

2008-07-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

use Mail::Box::Manager;
use File::Scan::ClamAV;

$socket = "/var/run/clamav/clamd.ctl";
#$socket = 'netstat -nl | grep clam | grep -v milter | awk '{print \$9}'';

my $mailspool = 'Inbox';
my $mgr = Mail::Box::Manager->new;
my $folder = $mgr->open(folder => $mailspool);
$msg_num = $folder->messages;

foreach $msg ($folder->messages) { # all messages
my ($code, $virus) = $av->streamscan($msg->string);
if ($virus) {
print "$virus\n";
}
}

Google Services

2008-05-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

Code Search
http://www.google.com/codesearch

Google Search 3rd Party Tools

2008-04-17T03:21:00.000-07:00

TouchGraph Google Browser
Use this free Java application to explore the connections between related websites.
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html