Hacked PC : I Don't Care attitude!!!!

If you feel that you are safe even with a hacked PC at home or office... because you think you don't have any thing to loose from your PC...or you feel that u simply share unclassified info on your PC..so even if it is lost there is nothing to worry.....please see this brief presentation....

  Hacked PC : I don't care by Anupam Tiwari

Striking the balance : Privacy & Security

1.   Over the decade, Security and Privacy issues have been striking the key notes often at high decibels and the trend is only increasing in the webosphere.I was just thinking if there will be a day when there will be 100% Privacy as well as 100% IT Security...if privacy becomes 100% ensured then how will anyone's data be monitored or will it be all algorithm based that will have a standing as well as active encryption method.

2.  At a health care event in San Jose, California some time in June 2013, President Obama had said "It's important to recognize that you can't have 100 per cent security and also then have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience."(Source here)

3.  Is it actually possible in lives of the present generation ? I have my doubts!!!!!Our generation is likely to be a turning era of a new kind of civilization ie the digital age.We are part of just the beginning of the IT revolution but it will take another good time to realize a stable IT architecture.

4.  Its a mad race if we see it from top...mad race about leading from the front without realizing that to do so first the need is to plan and move.Short term gains and achievements in such a scenario of unstable internet(i mean unable to handle security and privacy) is not worth a pie.From aka India we have CMS ie the Central Monitoring System that claims to monitor each and every byte(I wonder how would it be done without any known info of set data centers in India......)....then we have PRISM...and actually each country would claim to have a sole application project on similar lines!!!

5.   Confidentiality,Integrity and Availability,the three key corner stones of a security framework....how will these fit in maintaining the privacy issues.The road map is long and lots needs to be done...

Windows 8 and Live USBs & CDs at logger Heads!!

1.  One feature of Windows 8 launched recently has been disabling the option to boot from a Live CD/DVD or a USB right at the beginning.....recently got hold of a Windows 8 laptop of a friend and being in the habit of recommending opensource software's I tried showing him a live DVD of Ubuntu 13.04 but was surprised that every time it booted I could never see the option of selecting option of where to boot from?...that was it...i had no option but to Google and got the answer....the option to boot any windows PC with a live DVD is passe with Windows 8....now the user has to be specific of selection of boot device only once he is inside the OS interface.Bad...Bad...Bad......that's SECURE BOOT by terminology of Microsoft

2.   Dedicated Linux users and communities are the once who immediately start getting irritating owing to this feature that has no choice as on date.The purpose of Secure Boot is to put an end to computer viruses that sneak between the hardware and the operating system. These bootkits work by getting themselves before the OS is loadde, then they make changes to the operating system while it lies defenseless on disk, and then they load the now defenseless operating system and have their way with it. Secure Boot counters the bootkit by ensuring the hardware verifies the identity and authenticity of the software that sits between the hardware and the operating system - the bootloader, and also the software embedded in hardware devices like network and graphics adapters.Although going by the past threats Secure Boot sounds like a smart solution to the bootkit problem but this would be a problem for the majority of users in long run who rely solely on pirated copies of Windows OS.!!!!

3.  This is because today most of the vendors dealing in piracy or the users using pirated DVDs of OS have a option of formatting the PC and then reloading a new OS if the present OS has some issues....and this was possible since he/she would simply choos the BOOT FROM DVD option in the beginning...but now what?If some thing goes awry with your Windows 8 OS,there is no way to access your windows or at the best you need to run to your MS maintenance site.....so there is one good aspect that it is certainly going to curb piracy....but what about the security professionals ???

4. No denying the fact that a LIVE DVD is one of the prized possession of every IT security professional that has a plethora of advantages...so does windows 8 mean an end to all those advantages!!!!its a land lock situation for windows users.I am sure this is not going to last long...may be by windows 8.1 they do something about it!!!!

Big Data & Security Challenges : Geo-Intelligence India 2013

The Audio in the video cast is pretty aghast so I am planning to place Subtitles for understanding the content....Will be placed shortly....thanks

Spying your friend at WhatsApp : Cause of concern

1.   In my last post here,I discussed about the growing lure of using WhatsApp and the basic security concerns that comes with it from point of a naive user.Now will take you one step higher to the level of a script kiddie....

2.  How does WhatApp identify you in billions?The answer is the unique MAC address that each digital device on this earth holds. If any one changes his/her device,then automatically the MAC address also changes and the user is requested to re-verify their WhatsApp account. Means he/she cannot access same WhatsApp account from two devices. But is MACSPOOFING not existing ?So,if the Mac is spoofed,then who stops from seeing your friends traffic that includes his/her chats,downloads etc!!!although for a naive user this may be look of some technical nature but for the young gen which has lots of techno enthusiasts there should be no stopping....that would include rooting your phone and installing Busybox. How to get your friends MAC address,here it goes :

For Android phone users simply go to settings—> About phone—> Status—> Wi-Fi MAC address.

For iPhone users go to Settings—> General—> About—> Wi-Fi address.

For Windows Phone users go to Settings—> About—> More info—> MAC address.

and for BlackBerry users go to options—> Device—> Device and Status info—> WLAN MAC.

3.   And the best part is that your Andorid can be anyone starting from 1.6 on wards till date.

Security Issues : Whats App !!!!

1.   WhatsApp had set a new record with 27 billion messages in a day on 13th Jun 2013...now that's hell of a lot!!!!!a huge success by any means in terms of revenue generation and collection of info...as I really wonder if all these naive users most of them who are actually not aware of the kind of critical information they have allowed to be passed on...such applications are currently enjoying huge success banking on the naive users....who don't actually realize the repercussions owing to this valuable personal info loss.....just read these few eye raising conditions before any one installs this app :

- Prevent Phone from sleeping

- Change Wifi state

- write sync settings

- Modify/delete SD card contents

- read phone state

- Read contact data

- Write contact data

- Record audio

- Read my location

- Read my other accounts credentials

2.  If one goes through the deeper insights of all these aspects that the user has to invariably accept for enjoying the application thinking its free(when he has given invaluable personal info to a stranger) from point of view of security...it starts getting scary...!!!!going through the above terms it is invariably understood that all your contacts info is already gone....now how much is that info depends on how much have you stored...if you have stored the residential address,his email,his other phone numbers etc...that's all gone the moment you install!!!!..and add to this location and hardware details....from a hacker point of view the attack surface is already prepared vide one shot of installation only.....

3.  If Whatsapp says that they respect user privacy and would not submit all the info to any advertising agency or any third party...then y are they collecting all this ?Whats their security architecture?How reliable is that?Do they guarantee a NO-HACK situation?......

E-Governance and Security Challenges

Copy of the presentation that I gave at the Mini Seminar held under the aegis of IETE at AVCC,NOIDA on the subject : E-Governance and Security Challenges.

  E-Governance and Security

Big Spatial Data and Security Challenges

The presentation copy that i gave at the Geo intelligence meet on 13-14 June 2013 as I mentioned here at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2013/05/geointelligence-2013-13-14-june-2013taj.html

  Big Data and Security Aspects

FEDORA 19 BETA INSTALLATION

The screen cord shows the guide to Fedora 19 " Schrödinger's Cat " Beta Installation on a Virtual Box.

Your passwords can be cracked easily if less then 16 Characters now!!!!

1.    When the IT security big bang of Do's and Don'ts started some years back it was widely advertised to the Cyber masses to keep their respective passwords any thing more then 8 characters with a mix and match of capitals and smalls with special characters...then this was increased to 10 and last heard it was 15...and was told that 15 character password which is not dictionary based will take years and is actually uncrackable...

2.  As recent as 4 days back,a team of 3(your read it rite it's three) hackers has been able to crack more than 14,800 supposedly random passwords from a list of 16,449 by simply brute forcing!!!!

Image courtesy : http://www.buzzquake.com/tag/brute-force-attacks/

3.   In December it was unveiled by Jeremi Gosney, the founder and CEO of Stricture Consulting Group, that a 25-computer cluster can cracks passwords by making 350 billion guesses per second. It can try every possible word in less than six hours to get plain text passwords from lists of hashed passwords...the word of significance is that you do not need high end machines and east-west architecture to build this kind of IT infra...it is simply a cluster of machines processing power...

4.   The general user in the cyber space like you and me have actually no control over which hashing process websites use and therefore remain at the mercy of an algorithm all would invariably be clueless about...so if you are concerned about security and your email id and password which is the key for so many transactions in your routine life.long passwords are the best defense....and not simply long it has to be a mix match of numerics,capitals,smalls and special characters!!!.

5.  All the best to all of us...keep surfing but avoid drowning!!!! :-)Thanks http://thehackernews.com