"SecureBrowsing"

My latest column explores the "Firefox" addon called "SecureBrowsing". Here is the excerpt.
"The Internet is a dangerous place to venture because it is rife with websites hosting malware and malicious code deployed o compromise your systems. How do you thwart hackers from fulfilling their insidious objectives?"

"Tamper Data"

My latest column explores the "Firefox" addon called "Tamper Data". Here is the excerpt.
"HTTP Proxies are a necessary tool in the arsenal of a penetration tester. Common HTTP Proxies harnessed for testing web applications for vulnerabilities include Paros, Burp and Webscarab. My personal favourite is Paros, which is written in Java and thus, platform independent. However, I recently discovered a comparable tool called Tamper Data."

"jhead"

My latest column explores a tool called "jhead". Here is the excerpt.
"Smartphones are feature packed and owned by nearly everyone in developed countries. We cannot get by with our daily lifes without them. They provide us with a pocket sized gadget to surf the World Wide Web, direct us to where we want to go via the built-in Global Positioning System (GPS)and even permit us to take videos as well as photographs on the go. The caveat of this device is that it records a lot of sensitive data about its owner by default."

"WebHTTrack"

My latest column on the "Linux" version of "HTTrack". Here is the excerpt.
"HTTrack Website Copier is aopen source tool to download an entire website from the Internet locally onto your desktop for offline browsing. It is a Windowssoftware that spawned WebHTTrack, its Linux/Unix/BSDrelease. The tool dumps and mirrors the complete contents of the source website you specify to a local directory by replicating the exact directory structure, files and links.
This is beneficial for a security practitioner who wants to perform offline security testing against a website without impacting the server hosting it ."

The latest issue of "Hakin9" also features an article by my friend, Remus Ho.

"Hb4most"

My latest column on a front-end GUI for "Foremost" and "Scalpel". Here is the excerpt.
"Scalpel and Foremost are the De facto tools harnessed to recover deleted files as evidence during Digital Forensic investigations."

"Secure Deletion"

My latest column on ensuring endpoint privacy using secure deletion. Here is the excerpt.
"The Internet has empowered us to do more with our electronic devices. We do everything from our taxes to shopping and sending private messages. Our devices become a hotbed of personal data that is of interest to malicious parties. Deletion of files and caching is insufficient in preventing harvesting of your information that resides on your devices. The solution is secure deletion or wiping to overwrite those files with random data to eliminate the chances of data recovery."

"Digital Forensics Platform"

My latest column on the DEFT 7 forensics environment. Here is the excerpt.
"Digital Forensics is a niche domain within Information Security. It can be further divided into System and Network Forensics. System Forensics requires an indepth knowledge of Operating Systems (OS) and file systems whilst Network Forensics requires an extensive understanding of network protocols and discernment of application behaviour."

"Secure Your DNS"

My latest and first column of the year is out. Here is the excerpt.
"Do you trust your ISP’s DNS setup? I don’t! DNS is susceptible to attack by malicious entities to target innocent victims just like any other protocol. The solution is to engage OpenDNS as your trusted DNS service which is harnessed by home and enterprise networks globally."

"Wireshark: The Secrets of the Shark"

Rushed out 2 columns drafts ahead of schedule and Hakin9 decided to use them in consecutive issues. Here is the excerpt of the latest one.
"This column was inspired by the international screening of the Tintin movie by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Just like Tintin, Wireshark is an international icon too. It is primarily harnessed for network troubleshooting and packet analysis but did you know that there are other applications of this powerful tool?"

"HTTPS Everywhere"

Finished this column months ahead of schedule and it was finally published in this month's issue of "Hakin9".
An excerpt of it below.
"HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension that was developed and is maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). It was first released in June 2010 and is not available from Mozilla but can be downloaded from EFF’s site (https://www.eff.org/files/https-everywhere-latest.xpi)."
I should really get started on my next column draft.

"Prey: From Praying to Preying"

My new column is out in Hakin9 magazine. It was 2 months overdue so it is a relief that it is finally published.
An excerpt of it in the "Tool Time" column this month.
"Since the issue 7/2010 article Prey: A new hope, there have been developments in the device tracking tool. It has been enhanced to now be able to monitor lost Android smartphones and tablets when activated. There was a reported case in May 2011 where a Californian harnessed evidence collected from a similar tool, Hidden, to recover his stolen Macbook."

My first column

Hakin9 asked me to be a bimonthly contributor to their new column entitled "Tool Time" and here is an excerpt of it.
"Hispasec Sistemas has managed the service, VirusTotal, since 1st June 2004. The website (http://www.virustotal.com) offers the public access to multiple Antivirus (AV) engines hosted by them to provision online scanning of individual files to uncover malware by harnessing a combination of signature-based and heuristic detection."

"Firestarter: Starter for your Firewall"

My new article is out this month in Hakin9 magazine. It is for paid subscribers only and here is an excerpt of it.
"The firewall is the first line of defense on the network perimeter and end points. Firewalls are susceptible to targeted attacks (eg. social engineering, application vulnerabilities) but they are still the foundation upon which access control is built upon."

"Prey: A new hope"

A combination of inspiration from reading about the tool, Prey, and an email from Hakin9 mag's editor prompted me to write a new article.
An excerpt from my new article.
"Misplaced your laptop or had it stolen? You are not alone. Dell and the
Ponemon Institute collaborated on a study with 106 United States airports
as well as over 800 business travelers to ascertain the frequency with which
laptops are lost in airports."

Network Forensics: more than looking for cleartext passwords

My next article will be published in Hakin9 magazine issue 6/2009 available at a good bookstore near you in November. I finished writing it last month but the magazine has a backlog of article contributions.
An excerpt of my soon-to-be available print article.
"Logs and alerts from varied network devices (eg. Firewalls, IPS, routers) report what was blocked. They do not offer Security Analysts with sufficient data to ascertain what had taken place because activities that were malicious or suspicious but successful were not logged. This makes an analyst’s job challenging when requested to determine if a breach had occurred and that is where digital forensics plays a crucial role... The evidence that can be acquired from corporate traffic is limitless but is only restricted by the knowledge and imagination of the canvasser as well as the resources made available."

HTTPS is bad?

This article is 6 months in the making. I finished writing this article in November 2008. It took me 4 months to find an editor who would publish it and it was another 2 months before the article appears in print.
An excerpt from my published article on page 106.
"Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer (HTTPS) is a protocol that promises integrity of data transmitted over this channel and prevents prying parties from spying on the communication between two entities. Information security professionals constantly advocate the implementation of HTTPS within the enterprise to secure sensitive data and critical transactions... The employment of HTTPS is now universal and has created an illusion that HTTPS is trustworthy thus resulting in a blind eye turned to what traffic traverses over this “secure" protocol."