Tech-2 Security

Been doing a lot of work around password security lately and I think it is fair to say that given enough time any password can be cracked. The time could be hundreds or thousands of years in some cases when using brute force methods . In reality though this time is likely to be a lot shorter than we think due to end users only being able to cope with relatively short passwords. Using various tools on windows XP and Vista and 7 machines it was surprising to see just how many passwords were recovered in a matter of minutes and not hours or years even. Passwords on Windows machines can be local or cached Domain credentials. Password attacks can be classified into two main categories: Online: Where the attacker is physically on the PC or network in question and is either actively trying tools against the host pc or attempting to sniff the traffic to and from that machine for hashes on the wire(Later take offline). An important note here is that we do not need administrative credent...

Stuxnet worm

SC Magazine Full Story

American university sees $1 million stolen after banking malware intercepts controller's credentials Full Story

Its been a while since I last posted.  Been pretty busy with work which is good.  I've been playing around with a lot of new products and thought I would write this quick update. Back in the day when the only options were to configure systems via command line your average generalist would leave this type of thing to the "experts".  Now with the number of servers and workstations growing, the generalists have become more multitasking, bringing knowledge from home to the workplace and vice versa.  So what about security ?  Well this is an area in which a lot of people dabble without understanding the complexities of the task.  Just getting something working may be acceptable to get a result but not fully understanding the how and why poses the risk in security.  A GUI somewhat simplifies most tasks but an "invisible" command entered at the CLI of the same device will likely go unoticed. Everyday admins make changes to make their job easier, and often tak...

Microsoft `s final release of Office 2010 is due next month.  Most users with 64 bit machines will dive straight in and choose to install the 64 bit version.  Before doing so, read the following Microsoft recommendations. The recommendations for which edition of Office 2010 to install are as follows: If users in your organization depend on existing extensions to Office, such as ActiveX controls, third-party add-ins, in-house solutions built on previous versions of Office, or 32-bit versions of programs that interface directly with Office, we recommend that you install 32-bit Office 2010 (the default installation) on computers that are running both 32-bit and 64-bit supported Windows operating systems. If some users in your organization are Excel expert users who work with Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2 gigabytes (GB), they can install the 64-bit edition of Office 2010. In addition, if you have in-house solution developers, we recommend...

Google have been asked to hand over hard disks from their street cars for investigation by the German Authorities to find the extent of data collection from Wi-Fi hostspots . Google have not yet responded to this request.