Category Archives: hardware & software

Microsoft & UEFI Secure Boot

A technical solution has finally been proposed to avoid locking out Linux and other OS vendors from UEFI shipped motherboards.  A couple of months ago Microsoft made waves by announcing their Windows 8 support for UEFI.  Open source supports took … Continue reading

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When more security results in less security…

I read an article that famed cryptographers at Elcomsoft have discovered a method to brute force RIM Blackberry device passwords.  Usually a Blackberry will only allow 10 failed password attempts before wiping the device.  Elcomsoft discovered if a user enables media … Continue reading

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Steps to improve cable modem performance

Benchmark current signal — access common cable modems via http://192.168.100.1 Target these power levels: Downstream  in the range -15 dBmV to +15 dBmV Upstream transmit within the range +8 to +58 dBmV Remove unnecessary power distractions i.e.:

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wtf

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Commercial Web Application Scanner Benchmark

There’s a great post doing a feature comparison of commercial & open source scanners over at the Security Tools Benchmarking blog. It appears as though IBM Rational’s AppScan and W3AF are the winners in the commercial and free/open source categories, … Continue reading

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Microsoft: Sex, Lies……and cybercrime?

Microsoft also recently released an eye catching paper aptly named that discusses the validity of security reports.  Far from being broadly-based estimates of losses across the population, the cyber-crime estimates that we have appear to be largely the answers of … Continue reading

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Latest Microsoft Security Report

Microsoft’s Security Intelligent Report (SIR) v10 has been released and can be found here. The key highlights from Microsoft’s own Roger Halbheer: Industry vulnerability disclosure trends continue an overall trend of moderate declines since 2006. This trend is likely because … Continue reading

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pandaflux’s list o’ recommended browser plugins

Firefox googlesharing: encrypts your google traffic and routes it through a proxy where it is combined with many other people. https-everywhere: Automatically enables a secure connection for websites that supports it. better privacy: Among other things, Better Privacy will delete “flash … Continue reading

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Microsoft’s DEP, ASLR: Can’t have one without the other…

There’s an interesting series on the Microsoft Security Research & Defense blog covering ASLR and DEP memory protections found in Windows XP SP3+. DEP effectiveness (without ASLR) Summary: DEP breaks exploitation techniques that attackers have traditionally relied upon, but DEP … Continue reading

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GoogleSharing: a firefox addon

While reading the latest issue of Information Security Magazine I came across an article of a tool Moxie Marlinspike released at Blackhat this past summer, Googlesharing.  Marlinspike has introduced several tools that help people concerned about privacy avoid giving up … Continue reading

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