If you’re interested in online security, you’ve probably heard about HBGary. If you haven’t, here’s a brief rundown with a few links: A security firm, HBGary (or, more accurately, HBGary’s subsidiary HBGary Federal) announced that they had discovered the names of some of the supposed ringleaders of the “hacktivist” organization Anonymous. This “angered the hive” and – rather than the generally low-risk and unsophisticated DDOS attacks for which Anonymous is better known – Anonymous used a combination of social engineering, SQL Exploits, and password cracking to compromise one of HBGary’s servers. They leveraged that to get into multiple servers, ultimately gaining access to HBGary’s email and no few internal documents – including business plans and proposals to potential clients. Anonymous[…]
Author: Benjamin Hartley
Your own users, with no malice, regularly compromise security every day. Odds are, they train new hires to do the same thing. Why are they undermining your work?
Unless you work for a network or internet service provider, there’s only so much you can do about the IPcalypse. But you can be ready for the IPv6 transition, and you really should be. We’ve seen this day coming for years now.
My name isn’t common, but there’s at least one other person with that name. And he’s not at all careful about email addresses. I’ve had email from him in the past – or, rather, from organizations to whom he’s given my email address. I feel as if I know him. I know where he went to school; I know who he works for. I know who he donates money to. I think I even saw his birthday in one of the emails. And now I know he lost his passport.
For a while, it looked like the crypto wars had been won. The victory in the crypto wars didn’t last long. Today, there are a slew of laws in place in various countries controlling the use of strong encryption.
We know that an 8-character password with upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters is definitely stronger than a 6-character password with only letters and numbers. But how much stronger is it?