Grey Panthers Savannah

Category: security

  • Stop the “Anti-Spyware” nonsense!

    Some time ago the term “spyware” was invented, and promptly “anti-spyware” products appeared. Their “myth” still persists, many people (who should know better!) recommending that you have an “anti-virus and a anti-spyware product” (I’ve even seen “anti-malware” added to this list which is an even bigger nonsense, since the term malware includes both viruses and…

  • Stepping beyond the vendor-centric security solution

    Even these days too many organisations have a “one silver bullet solution” mentality when it comes to IT security. Most often the software presented as solution is an AV package. However, I argue, this is far from sufficient and the better solution would be to have experienced and knowledgeable people implement and maintain a multi-layered…

  • Security Maxims

    Via Bruce Schneier: security maxims. Update: at the request of the original author I removed the embedded version. Please follow the link provided above to view the presentation (it is available free of charge and without registration). Some of my favourites: The confidence that people have in security is inversely proportional to how much they…

  • Interesting phish

    Recently I’ve received the following phish: Return-Path <[email protected]> Authentication-Results mta403.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=hosts.co.uk; domainkeys=neutral (no sig) Received from 85.233.160.25 (EHLO outgoing-smtp.namesco.net) (85.233.160.25) by mta403.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:04:47 -0700 Received from [192.168.0.7] (helo=artemis.hosts.co.uk) by outgoing-smtp.namesco.net with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1KrKrG-0008PU-2d for [email protected]; Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:05:20 +0100 Received from babs-education.info…

  • “Updated” UAC

    Via the Grand Stream Dreams blog: Symantec seems to came out with an “updated” version of UAC. My opinion? In the short term solutions like this are effective for at least two reasons: (a) they are to particular for “bad guys” to care about (why should they but effort into something which is used by…

  • Installing Avast

    Besides AVG, Avast! is the other free AV out there, so I’ve created a tutorial about installing it too. I don’t have as long experience as with AVG, so feedback is welcome and I’ll update this guide when I receive it. The premise is: you are installing this for a friend / relative / family…

  • Installing AVG 8

    The premise of this tutorial is that you wish to install AVG for home use (because the free license covers only that) at a friend, relative, parent, etc, and the person who you are installing it for is not a power user. In fact these two posts (Installing AVG and Installing Avast) are an extension…

  • Autorun malware

    There seems to be a lot of confusion out there about this topic, so I’ll try to provide here some high-quality technical information to help users / sysadmins out. What is autorun malware? Autorun malware is malware which uses the autorun feature present in Microsoft Windows as a way to spread itself. This might or…

  • What you are willing to pay for

    Disclaimer: as always, these are my own opinions, and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of my past or current employers. To be read with Eminem – Loose Yourself in the background I’ve just finished an intervention at a large company. They had a major virus problem and we were brought in to offer expert advice.…

  • Is vulnerability research ethical?

    Over the TaoSecurity blog you can find a good summary on the Bruce Schneier (nice poster btw) vs Marcus Ranum face-off regarding the ethicacy of vulnerability research (also read the comments, they are worth your time). I fully agree with Bruce on this and think that Marcus is confusing two things: the act of finding…