Title: IT Trenches

Cookies disabled? - You can still be fingerprinted when browsing

Published on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:14:00

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, who’s mission is defending civil liberties in a digital world, recently released an online browser privacy test tool called Panopticlick. The premise of this tool is that you can still be tracked by websites even if you limit or completely disable cookies. Every browser session transfers some client information that is read more..

Malware writers get a little HLP from you

Published on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:40:57

I was roving around today on the McAfee TrustedSource Research Blog website and came across a very interesting entry about malware writers using Help files to mask infection sources. This is not a new technique but a recent variant known as Muster.e has some characteristics that are interesting. Muster.e infects the “imepaden.hlp” help file. This help read more..

Weekend fun for Geeks, Techies, Nerds - Techland!

Published on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:27:30

Time magazine, one of the busiest marketing engines on the planet (if you don’t believe me…. what about all of those Time-Life infomercials for music and video collections?), has a new website that may appeal to ITKE readers. It is called Techland.com. If you are into Gadgets, Gaming, Tech Culture, Tech News and Videos about Gadgets, read more..

Identify malware infection using Internet Explorer history

Published on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:26:37

A user on my network recently reported their computer was displaying virus detection warnings. Investigation showed that the virus detection warnings were bogus and looked something like the screen below. One thing to note about notifications like this is the computer displaying this message is now infected by some malware. The next thing that must happen read more..

Nmap 5.20 released - 150+ improvements

Published on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:28:37

In July 2009, Fyodor released Nmap 5.0 with over 600 changes.This was the first major release since 1997. On January 20, 2010, Nmap 5.20 was released with an additional 150+ improvements. Some of these improvements include: 30+ new Nmap Scripting Engine scripts enhanced performance and reduced memory consumption protocol-specific payloads for more effectie UDP scanning a completely rewritten traceroute read more..

Check this out - 4 Steps for Trimming Patch Management Time

Published on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:12:41

Hopefully you have heard of and are testing and/or applying the recent Microsoft out-of-cycle patch for the Internet Explorer vulnerability that was exploited and the cause of recent attacks on Google and other companies. If not, you need to consider how your organization and users are protected from this threat and others. One main way of read more..

Sure you can use my security context - exploit me!

Published on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:34:47

I recently blogged about the fact that the initial reports of the Google Aurora attack focused on Internet Explorer version 6. Some comments on the Information Security Community Group on LinkedIn got me thinking about another part of the successful exploit that could have reduced the impact, if not completely prevented it. The Microsoft security bulletin read more..

Google Aurora attack focused on IE6 - does anybody do autoupdates anymore?

Published on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:57:42

Maybe you have heard about the recent news of the attacks against Google known as Aurora. If you haven’t take a look at the stories returned in the Google news search in the previous link. What strikes me as interesting about this attack is that the focus is on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 6 read more..

How small is your netbook? How about a PC on a stick?

Published on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:23:14

I know that there are ways to run ISO’s from a USB memory stick using the QEMU processor emulator open source software. It’s pretty cool if you haven’t tried it. Now, according to Dark Reading, Ironkey and Lockheed Martin have an entire virtual desktop on a secure USB stick. According to the article an entire read more..

Recipe for malware infection - 10 steps

Published on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:33:11

For certain malware infection follow these steps: 1. Do not apply operating system patches. 2. Do not apply application patches. 3. Do open emails from unknown sources. 4. Do open attachments on emails from unknown sources. 5. Do open unexpected attachments appearing to be from known sources. “I’m sure this person meant to send me this PDF file.” 6. Do purchase read more..