When you are connected to a network (Internet or private), your TCP/IP stack must know which DNS server(s) use to resolve host names into IP addresses. For a while, publicly alternative DNS servers – like OpenDNS or Google DNS – implemented a blacklist protection mechanism. If a domain is suspected
Tag: Software
Attacking by Obscurity
Everybody agrees to consider “security by obscurity” a false sense of security. By using this principle, the security of an information system in (falsely) increased by hiding sensitive details. Such information can be removed like: by altering the application welcome banner (in Apache, sendmail, etc), by changing the default port
How to Prevent the Windows Screensaver Autolock Feature?
A quick and dirty tip if you need to keep a Windows workstation or server console unlocked. This can be required for several purposes, good or bad. In my case, I’m working on a workstation to access network resources. I don’t have a login and cannot know the local password.
The Cloud is (Sometimes) Your Best Friend!
Everything has been said about the “cloud”, or more precisely, “cloud computing”. Like any new technology, there are pro and con, good and bad things. BTW, the cloud is not so new. For a while, lot of organizations already used a cloud infrastructure but it remained a “private cloud”. Since
iOS4 from a Security Point of View
The brand new firmware for the iPhone announced by Apple a few weeks ago is publicly available since yesterday. Called “iOS4” (special dedicace for cisco.com), it includes more than 100 new features like multitasking, folders, etc. I won’t review them here, there are multiple complete reviews already available online. Google
Welcome to Maltego v3!
It was discussed during the last edition of BlackHat Europe: Maltego v3 was almost ready to be released. Today is the D-day: The latest version is out! A quick reminder for those who still not know the product: “Maltego is an open source intelligence and forensics application. It will offer
Never Trust the Files Downloaded from the Internet
It became a daily action for most of us: We are looking for a piece of software which could improve our tasks. Google provides us thousands of links, we select the most attractive, download it and install it (there is no restriction in the users not the operating systems). That’s
Vulnerability Scanner within Nmap
Port and vulnerability scanners are common tools used by good as bad guys. Performing a port scanning is one of the first operations required to find potential vulnerabilities on a target system. That’s why vulnerability scanners have built-in port scanners. Writing a port scanner is really easy with a few
Detecting USB Storage Usage with OSSEC
Next step in my investigations with OSSEC. The possibilities of OSSEC are awesome and could clearly, in some case, replace a commercial log management solution! After collecting the Secunia vulnerabilities into OSSEC, I switched to the “dark side”: the Microsoft Windows agent. The USB sticks are very popular at users
OpenSSH New Feature: “Netcat mode”
The new version (5.4) of OpenSSH has been released early this morning. OpenSSH is THE free implementation of the SSH protocol available on common devices and operating systems. The primary goal of OpenSSH is to allow remote access to hosts for management purpose. But many other features make OpenSSH a