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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…
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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…
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“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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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Why security is in such a sad state?
Disclaimer: as always, unless expressly stated, the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarrily reflect those of my current or former employers. Because people hide behind titles! Some examples: Gary Warner Director of Research in Computer Forensics lists on his blog IP addresses associated with the latest run of Storm. I thought…
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Stop thinking in stereotypes!
Stereotypes may help you form a quick opinion about matters, however you almost certainly would be wrong. Romania has a few such associated stereotypes (like orphans), but the one related to IT security is East-European criminals. In-line with this perception we have the latest F-Secure blog post Romanian Whack-A-Mole and Linux Bots (disclaimer: I work…