Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks are easy, cheap, and often very effective. This high Return on Investment makes BEC an extremely popular with attackers of any skill level—from low-level scammers to state-sponsored groups. BEC occurs when an attacker is able to access an email inbox within a business. From there, an attacker examine sensitive emails, insert themselves into email threads, and spread phishing emails from the trusted email account. While BEC can be devastating to the finances, reputation, and operations of any business, small businesses are particularly vulnerable. Fortunately. the defenses against BEC such as multi-factor authentication and user training are also simple, cheap and effective.
SEIMs and Other Forensic Tools Vulnerable to Log4j Exploits
This article was last updated on 2022-01-03.
After several Log4j vulnerabilities (known as Log4shell or LogJam in the tech press) were publicly exposed, IT teams around the globe have been rushing to patch all of their applications against the flaws. Log4j is an very popular open source software library for implementing logging in Java applications. The first discovered flaw, tracked as CVE-2021-44228, allows logged data to include remote lookup that would then download and execute arbitrary code from a remote server, which is known as a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability. Many security tools such as Splunk, Graylog, Autopsy, and Ghidra use Log4j to generate usage and diagnostic logs.
Tools commonly used by information security professionals to investigate breaches could be leveraged to cause a security breach.
How to update the firmware on a Samsung monitor
Almost every device you can buy nowadays has upgradable firmware. New firmware versions can fix bugs, patch security vulnerability, improve features, or add features. As computer monitors get more complex and feature-packed, it becomes more important to use the latest firmware. Samsung doesn’t provide instructions on performing a firmware update in user guides on on download pages. This guide explains the exact steps for updating the firmware on Samsung monitor, and will hopefully save you a lot of searching.
How to Install Volatility 2 and Volatility 3 on Debian, Ubuntu, or Kali Linux
Volatility is a powerful memory forensics tool. This guide will show you how to install Volatility 2 and Volatility 3 on Debian and Debian-based Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and Kali Linux.
How to use Farsight Security’s DNSDB to harness the power of passive DNS
DNS describes the structure of resources on the internet. It can provide lots of valuable information about (attacker or target) infrastructure. However, in order to query DNS records, you must already know the exact domains or subdomains to query. When examining unknown infrastructure, this is not practical. On top of that, DNS records can change often, so historical information is lost. Passive DNS databases help solve both of these problems. Farsight Security DNSDB is the largest passive DNS database in the world. With DNSDB, you can answer questions like “How has this network infrastructure changed over time?”, “What other domains and subdomain point (or have pointed to) this IP address?”, “What are the subdomains and resource records for this domain?”
An introduction to DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) is best known as the way domain names are converted into IP addresses that clients connect to, but there are many other uses for DNS. Read on to learn more.
How to examine a credential harvesting page using Microsoft Edge
Recently I analyzed a credential harvesting page with some interesting characteristics that made a great teaching moment. In this post, I’ll go over how I used the developer tools built into Microsoft Edge to examine the credential harvesting page.
How to configure a nginx reverse proxy with Let’s Encrypt certificates
The certbot utility by the Electronic Fronter Foundation (EFF) can use DNS authentication to obtain, install, and renew free trusted SSL certificates on a variety of webserver configurations, including a nginx reverse proxy.
This configuration can be used on internal and external websites. It is particularly useful in situations where you want to have a trusted certificate for an internal web application without the time, effort, and risks of creating and maintaining your own internal Certificate Authority (CA).
As an example, this guide will explain how to configure nginx with a trusted certificate to act as a reverse proxy in front of a Unifi Controller.
How the Parler data was legally acquired by activists
Based on published source code and conversations with the woman behind the Parler dump (donk_enby on Twitter), I can completely explain how the Parler data was acquired, and why it was legal. The story making the rounds on Reddit claiming that she somehow hacked Parler and got admin access is third-hand bad techno-madlibs fiction. What she actually did was reverse-engineer the protocol (API) used by the Parler iOS app to communicate with the website backend.
Ohio’s absentee ballot system disenfranchises disabled voters. Let’s fix that before November.
I was born with cerebral palsy — neurological damage from a lack of oxygen to the brain at birth. Each person with this condition is affected differently, and to varying degrees. Some may have balance issues; others may have mental impairments. For me and many others, cerebral palsy causes muscle spasticity. In my case, my muscles are so tight that my range of motion is very limited. Practically, the biggest impacts for me are not being able to walk without assistance, drive, or write legibly at all.
Despite these challenges, I have a high-paying, stable job in information security for one of the largest medical and pharmaceutical distributors in the world. I am acutely aware of two things: how critical our role is in ensuring that hospitals get the supplies they need during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how privileged I am to still be working during a time when most businesses have been required to close, leading to historic levels of unemployment.
I have lived in Ohio all my life. I have voted in person for nearly every election since I turned 18. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed lives around the world, and has caused many states to conduct voting almost entirely by mail, including Ohio. I have found that Ohio’s process for absentee voting is needlessly difficult or impossible for voters like me. Ohio’s Secretary of State has made exceptions so that people with disabilities are permitted to vote in person at their local county Board of Elections on voting day. However, they risk catching or spreading the virus that way. Some changes are needed to make Ohio’s elections better for everyone, regardless of ability or party affiliation.