Day 6, auditing Unix. By this time, most of the class was pretty wiped. With a few exceptions, (myself included) the bulk of the class had little or no Unix experience, so having to do stuff on the Unix command line was… well, eye-opening. Continue reading “SANSFire 2008, Audit 507, Day 6 – Unix”
How I Fixed Firefox 3's Annoying Crashing Problem on Windows
It took a while, but I finally decided to read the error reports. When I did so, I found that nearly every one of Firefox’s crashes that I experienced was related to a specific extension. I dug around in the registry and the extensions folder, and found that it was none other than the Java plugin.
Living on the edge, I decided to just remove it. I uninstalled Java, then deleted references to the plugin in the registry and filesystem. Voila. Everything works and Firefox hasn’t crashed on me in over a week.
I Almost Got Phished!
Actually, I might have gotten phished, scammed, or trojaned – I really can’t tell. Anyway, I just returned from SANSFire 2008, and had the following email waiting for me in my inbox: Continue reading “I Almost Got Phished!”
SANSFire 2008 – Audit 507, Day 5 – Windows
Day 5: Auditing Windows systems. Not really a lot of earth-shattering news here today. Having been exposed to Windows tools like MMC, Security Policies and Group Policies, and the Event Viewer for years now, I was in pretty familiar territory. There were some reminders (why LM hashes are bad, what to do about them if you still have them) and some new ideas (methods for baselining a system and taking periodic diffs to compare, moving forward), but no real “aha moments” for me. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’ve had enough new stuff for now. At least today my brain did not feel like it was completely overflowing.
I also took a sneak peek at tomorrow’s book on auditing Unix. Familiar stuff there too. (*phew!*)
Congratulations!! *You Have Won 500,000.00 GBP*
Yes, I got an email with this subject in my inbox this morning. I thought I’d share, in case anyone else wanted to claim their prize as well. Continue reading “Congratulations!! *You Have Won 500,000.00 GBP*”
SANSFire 2008 – Audit 507, Day 4 – Web applications
Day four of SANSFire 2008, and I’m feeling a bit tired.
Alright, I am burned out.
Continue reading “SANSFire 2008 – Audit 507, Day 4 – Web applications”
Happy Anniversary, Sweety!
Today is the fifth anniversary of our wedding.
(Yes, I’m in Washington, D.C. while my wife is at home. Sure to be a popular move at some point in the future, but I digress!)
Happy anniversary, babe! Love you!
SANSFire 2008 – Audit 507 – Day 3
Day three – Auditing Networks, done. Today we covered what it takes to audit a network, including those little things called modems. Remember them? You used to used them to do stuff like, send faxes, connect to your local BBS, or get dial-up Internet access! And, if you’re a poor, unfortunate soul who lives in Vermont, odds are pretty good that you still use one of those modems for dialup access. (Not that I would know anything about that.) Continue reading “SANSFire 2008 – Audit 507 – Day 3”
SANS STI Masters Degree in InfoSec
I just found out that the SANS Technology Institute is offering two Masters degree programs in Information Security. A couple of years ago, I had toyed with the idea of pursuing an MBA, but after realizing that I was already a) making more money than the average MBA graduate right out of school and b) owning my own business and fairly happy with life at the time, I asked myself “why would I want to spend the time and money to get an MBA to change what’s not broken?” Needless to say, since I’m not “Peter Nikolaidis, MBA,” I didn’t pursue that course.
But a Master degree in something that I am very interested in, made up of SANS classes (which, if the one I’m taking is any indication, are very interesting and relevant to what I want to be doing), may be exactly what I’m looking for. Watch this space for details!
Christopher Moore's Blood Sucking Fiends
Just before I left for SANSFire 2008, I decided to down one more of Christopher Moore’s hilarious books, Blood Sucking Fiends
This book made me laugh, a lot. Moore manages to quickly give you enough background information on the characters that you can get to know them, without losing your interest in the main plot, and every chapter is entertaining. I really liked Moore’s take on the master vampire and his sanctum, which was an interesting spin on Dracula’s ghost ship.
Two thumbs up for Blood Sucking Fiends