fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
New Tech Secures Medical Devices By Using Your Body as a Conduit for Communication
By: Cameron Coward
Tags: Security, Technology, Wearables, Information Security, Medical Devices

New Tech Secures Medical Devices By Using Your Body as a Conduit for Communication Cameron Coward Mar 18, 2019·2 min read

Implantable and wearable devices are exploding in popularity, particularly for medical and health-monitoring technology. But, as with all technology, there will always be some people that try to hack it for illicit means. That’s especially dangerous for medical devices like insulin pumps, which could potentially be used to kill a person if they’re compromised. That hasn’t happened yet, and to protect against that threat before it does, researchers from Purdue University have created a novel new means of securing the “internet of body.”

The human body carries electrical signals well. Now these signals can be contained within close proximity of the body, thanks to new technology developed by Purdue engineers. (📷: Purdue/Erin Easterling)

Virtually all wearable devices today communicate wirelessly through either Bluetooth, WiFi, or simple RF (Radio Frequency) signals. While we could try to make those more secure, there is always the possibility that they could be intercepted or spoofed. This new technology avoids the problem altogether by allowing devices to communicate across the body without utilizing wireless methods at all. Without wireless communication, a black hat hacker would have to actually physically touch you in order to compromise a device.

The technology works by utilizing your body’s natural conductivity to send signals from one device to another. For example, your smart watch could communicate with your pacemaker by sending an electrical signal through your body. Those signals are completely safe and can reach across the entire body, and require much less power than traditional wireless transmission. The result is communication that is both more secure and more energy efficient. While it’s still early in development, the actual technology involved would be easy to integrate into today’s wearable devices.
Using Google Translate Can Mean Breach of Confidentiality
By: Seongji Kim
Tags: Machine Translation, Google Translate, Information Security, Localization, Translation

Google Translate is probably one of the most widely used — and most made-fun-of — online services in the world. Quite frankly, I as a translator used to not care a hoot about it, but now I must admit that I am constantly impressed by the quality of the translation and how the technology has quickly improved by leaps and bounds over the years.

Google Translate is one of the most popular consumer machine translation engines.

An increasingly popular usage of machine translation (MT) engines like Google Translate is gisting, the use of MT to quickly translate to get an understanding of a document. Today, I was also trying to help colleagues to gist-translate internal documents using Google Translate, and I suddenly felt compelled to check out Google’s privacy and terms of service. Here is what I found:

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. [Source: Terms of Service]

I am surprised at how broadly and inclusively the language is defined. If you are someone who values data security, broad terms like “worldwide” and “those we work with,” — which can mean a million things — should be enough to make you think twice about using Google Translate.

As translators, contractors, and employees of companies that require non-disclosure agreements, keeping confidentiality and honoring the agreement is a fact of life. However, what use would it be to carefully follow all those security protocols if it only takes a simple copy and paste to undo all of them? Do take heed of what you’re pasting into that input box.

If you’re involved with Google Translate or similar free machine translation engines, I’d love to hear from you about how inputs into Google Translate are treated.
Configuration audit and cloud security assessment
By: H-X Technologies
Tags: Information Security, Security Audit, Cybersecurity

Checking that your infrastructure uses modern security best practices

We support Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud infrastructures.

Let’s take an AWS audit as a popular example. During the audit, we analyze AWS accounts, network configurations, data encryption, security incident response, and more. We use top-ranked sources such as CIS AWS Foundations, security policies based on HIPAA, the FedRAMP, etc.

AWS Audit Plan

Identifying assets in AWS. AWS account analysis. Governance audit. Understand what AWS services and resources are in use and ensure that the Customer’s security or risk management program has taken into account the use of the public cloud environment. Network configuration management audit. Verifying missing or inappropriately configured security controls related to external access and network security, which could result in a security exposure. Asset configuration and management audit. The management of the Customer’s operating systems and security applications is verified to protect the security, stability, and integrity of the assets. Logical access control audit. Focuses on identifying how users and permissions are set up for the services in AWS, ensuring that the Customer securely manages the credentials associated with all AWS accounts. Data encryption audit. Understand where the data resides, and validate the methods that are used for protecting the data at rest and in transit (also referred to as “data in flight”). Security logging and monitoring audit. Validating if audit logging is performed on the guest OS and critical applications installed on Amazon EC2 instances and that the implementation is in alignment with your policies and procedures. Special attention is paid to the log storage, security, and analysis. Disaster recovery audit. Disaster recovery controls are checked for operational effectiveness. Security incident response audit. Incident management controls are checked for operational effectiveness.

Check out our additional services and business cases. Send the form below to request a cloud configuration audit. Get a free consultation.

https://www.h-x.technology/services/cloud-configuration-security-audit
What’s The Difference Between Cybersecurity And Information Security?
Tags: Cybercriminals, Cyber, Information Security, Phishing Attacks, Cybersecurity

Information security and cybersecurity are often used interchangeably. But they really should not be. They are two different forms of security and hugely interconnected. It is important to know the difference and to understand how applying both to your organization can help protect the business long-term.

What Is Information Security?

Information security is the overarching way that organizations (or individuals) protect valuable data. This data may be in the form of personal information or business records, and it can be stored in an analog way or digitally. (For analog think physical file folders or a safe.)

What Is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a component of information security, and it focuses on the ways in which organizations protect their digital information. Digital information may be devices, databases, servers, networks, and other digital assets.

Wait, what? Yep, that one word, digital, is what starts to cause all the confusion — understandably so. Think of information security as the foundation — it protects all data. Then think of cybersecurity as a pillar holding up the information security foundation — it focuses on protecting digital information. They work together but are also distinct.

The Role of Information Security

Information security is focused on three objectives: provide confidentiality, ensure integrity, and allow access to data (all kinds of data). More specifically, its role is to ensure the process of transferring data is confidential, regardless of the method. In addition, the integrity of the data must be maintained in the correct order. And lastly, the data must be accessible to authorized users when they need it.

Examples of information security include:

· Procedural processes and policies (ex: work from home policies, or using personal devices for work policies)

· Access control and documentation

· Operations plans

· Password policies

· Compliance controls

· Technical controls (ex: firewalls, multi-factor authentication)

A lot of information security focuses on policies and procedures because its job is to protect data.

The Role of Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is focused on defending digital tools and preventing breaches. And, let’s be honest, with the amount of ransomware, phishing attacks, and cybercriminals out there trying to gain access to our digital data, this is a big job.

Examples of cybersecurity include:

· Network security

· Cloud security

· Endpoint security

· Server and database security

· Mobile device security

Which Do I Need?

To successfully protect data and prevent cyber-criminal activity, you need both. Information security will help you put the essential procedures in place, and cybersecurity will protect your data if a hacker sneaks through.

Not sure where to start? We can help — we have been focused on supporting information and cybersecurity needs for organizations for years.
Run an Enigma Machine Visual Simulator on an Arduino
By: Cameron Coward
Tags: History, Technology, Arduino, Encryption, Information Security

Enigma machines are likely the most famous cryptographic tools ever developed. While they were originally designed in the early 20th century and were used for commercial purposes, they’re most well known for their use by Nazi Germany in World War II. Through spying and brilliant mathematical work, they were cracked by the Allies time and time again throughout the war, which makes them a very interesting part of history. Now you can run your very own Enigma machine visual simulator on an Arduino.

An Enigma machine is a very complicated electro-mechanical cipher that relies on a series of rotors to take a input letter and convert it into an output letter. Each rotor can be turned to different positions, and the combination of rotor positions and plug wire positions— the encryption key — results in unique ciphers. Those rotors create complex and irregular electric pathways for each letter typed, which is why Enigma machines were so difficult to crack. They don’t simply produce an offset cipher, which is trivial to break, but rather a very robust series of ciphers for each letter. They were really only defeated through spying, and because of a lack of operator diligence.

Thanks to Mark J Culross, you can now use an Arduino to experience for yourself how an Enigma machine is operated. To do that, all you’ll need is an Arduino Uno and a 2.8" TFT touchscreen LCD shield from Adafruit. All you have to do is flash Culross’s code to the Arduino, plug in the LCD shield, and get started. The display will show a graphical representation of an Enigma machine, and you can choose from various specific models with different numbers of rotors. You can even configure the electrical pathways of each rotor. Then you simply set your rotors, and start generating encrypted messages — and then decrypt them!
Close Your Ports — Implicit Deny. There are 65,535 ports on your computer…
By: Alex Ortiz
Tags: Hacking, Security, Ports, Information Security, Cybersecurity

Photo by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash

There are 65,535 ports on your computer assuming you are only connected to one network at a time. That’s a lot of ports and this article is going to be a little more advanced than the previous articles. Your computer and router depend on ports to appropriately flow data from your devices, through the internet, and to their intended target and purpose. The Security+ exam focuses on a couple dozen ports that are the most common and most critical to know. While there are thousands of ports on your computer, you only need a few to do the most common things you do on the internet. The most common ports are 80 and 443. These two ports allow for most of the internet traffic to pass through. 80 allows for all HTTP traffic, which is basically any website and 443 allows for HTTPS traffic which is secure websites. So, if most of what you do on your computer can be handled via those two ports, why do we need the other 65,333 ports? That’s a lot of ports that are just open. Since I haven’t mentioned it here yet, some, but not all of the other ports can sometimes be exploited and give access to a bad actor to your network and data.

With so many ports and so many different ways to be exposed, you may be wondering what you can do to protect yourself. If you are a Windows user, you’ve probably heard of a firewall already. A firewall helps you stay protected because it helps you control the traffic that enters your computer or network. Firewalls can exist on your individual computers or on your network router. Configuring a firewall is easy but I’d encourage you to do your own research or hire someone that is skilled in setting up firewalls. What I’ll be explaining in the next section assumes that you are comfortable with setting up firewalls.

The first thing you want to do when configuring your firewall is to deny all. This will literally close all your ports and prevent traffic from entering your network or computer. This is a little too extreme as you literally cannot get on the internet anymore if you leave only this permission enabled. The next thing you want to do is open port 80 and 443. Since these are the most used ports, these should be allowed to transmit data. From there, it’s up to you what ports you need. There are ports dedicated to SSH, SMTP, FTP, and dozens others that are common and frequently used. If you use one of those other ports and you don’t re-enable them, then some services will fail to work properly since the deny all is preventing any traffic from transmitting on that port. If you’ve never configured your firewall, it can be a bit overwhelming. But this is an effective way of protecting your network and devices. Maybe to start out you don’t deny all, but at least close some of the ports that are obviously not in use.
Modernization Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
By: Pwv Consultants
Tags: Security, Modernization, Information Technology, Information Security, Fragility

When it’s time for your business to go through the modernization process, there are some common mistakes that you need to avoid. These mistakes will not only provide setbacks, but will make your systems more fragile. In turn the mistakes tally up extra expenses to fix the problems, and can result in lost revenue and potentially lost customers.

One of the biggest mistakes in modernization is not giving the process proper attention and focus. The person or people you’ve hired to do the job but don’t finish it, or they decide to do one system at a time and piece meal, maybe it’s even a side project. Not focusing resources an modernizing one system at a time will result in your business being in a constant state of modernization because once you finish with the last system, the first system that was modernized is no longer current and needs to be modernized again. The result is a never-ending cycle of constantly upgrading systems, which ends up being costly and adds fragility. Ensuring that modernization occurs across all systems simultaneously or in a dedicated amount of time, and that the job is completed, is a big factor in the success of the modernization process.

Another mistake is approaching modernization with a lack of expertise around the new and old systems. A non-expert might try to adjust the code base in one place, but lack understanding and actually end up making the system more fragile in another. It’s common for coding languages to be updated and certain functions be deprecated for security, which in turn means the code base needs to be updated to work. But if the person doing the modernization doesn’t know or understand why the changes are necessary, then anything they do to adjust the code could make the system more fragile. They could even reopen the same security issues by using the same methods while side stepping the security fix using different functions, which is worse because now you are vulnerable and don’t know it.

***Click here for full text***
Coinplug launched a DID-based authentication service for South Korean unstaffed convenient stores
Tags: Data Protection, Mykeepin, Information Security, Coinplug, Identity Management

Greetings,

We are happy to share the launch of our latest service: a DID-based authentication for unstaffed convenient stores in South Korea.

Following our partnership agreement with HP Retail, an unstaffed convenience store chain, and CUBOX, a biometric and access security company, we started providing authentication and entrance access to those convenient stores with a service based on MYKEEPiN.

In the past, unstaffed convenience stores required customers to sign up for a customer verification where they needed to provide personal information including credit cards, and store owners had to rely on CCTVs to check the security of their business. With MYKEEPiN app, customers can access the stores without information leakage and owners benefit from a reduced risk of accidents and losses as well as labor costs.

MYKEPPiN is Coinplug’s DID-based non-face-to-face digital signature service that allows users to manage their personal information while keeping it protected against the risks associated with online services.
What’s scarier? Digital Forensics or Dating Taylor Swift?
By: Akati Sekurity
Tags: Computer Forensics, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Digital Forensics

How do investigators get hold of digital evidence?

With every aspect of life taking a digital form, we have to expect to see crime, abuse, harassment or even revenge, taking place in a new way. Then again, to prove all this, digital evidence is required, investigations have to be carried out and these need to be either taken to a court of law or presented to authorities of an organisation.

Photo by David von Diemar on Unsplash

Although it is similar to other forms of legal forensics, digital forensics process requires a vast knowledge of computer hardware and software in order to avoid the accidental invalidation or destruction of evidence and to preserve evidence for later analysis.

An experienced forensic investigator would know to identify all related evidence. It is seldom that Investigators get unobstructed access to all evidence. Before collecting evidence, they need to be sure they have obtained the right to either search or seize the evidence in question. This might require court orders, search warrants and other related documentation. While collecting evidence, single-evidence forms need to be completed. This is a part of the ‘chain of custody’ where the steps taken in the collection process are recorded. This determines whether the evidence will be useful to you once the investigation is complete. Also, investigators must ensure the evidence was acquired properly and is in a pristine state.
Do you feel Insecurity in jobs
By: Manish Solanki
Tags: Information Technology, Information Security, Hacker, Infosec, Careers

Everyone feels insecure at different points in their career. When I first started my job, for example, I was nervous about doing well. When I began to take on more responsibilities, I feel if I want to save my career or job than I have to develop my skills continually.

In many IT Security Corporate environment, I see no one care about you & your career. If you try to left jobs they will not ask you why you are leaving a company. That time behave like you are unknown to her.

The reason behind the Insecurity of Jobs

Self Thought, I know everything because I have experience

In a competitive industry or market everything is temporary, not permanent so if you are thinking you are good in your area, you are right but you have to focus on other small to a large area. If you focus on career growth according to timeline than It will beneficial to you for future’s problems.

still, you are thinking you are good then you are doing hard work for your company and now how much money company is paying you for that work. Imagine suddenly company will fired you from your job then what you will do?

Are your Skills are limited

Your skills are very important for career and also it is completely responsible for your career growth. First time when you join any company at that time you are working skills and you are spending more time on developing skills. But after joining you do not focus on skills development.

If you are Information Security Industry Please Visit our company page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehacktivists

If you like my articles please like and also suggest me something new contents Thanks, Readers :)
Various approaches are involved in the vulnerability assessment solutions and how to choose…
By: Prasan Singh
Tags: Hacking, Information Security, Infosec, Cybersecurity, Bug Bounty

Various approaches are involved in the vulnerability assessment solutions and how to choose appropriate vulnerability assessment tools.

· A Vulnerability Assessment is a process of identifying Vulnerabilities in the network. The issues discovered are then compiled and analyzed according to the risk levels.

· Vulnerability Assessment does not mean the exploitation of vulnerabilities. As threats and vulnerabilities are increasing day by day, one should perform vulnerability scans regularly.

· Vulnerability Assessment tools are used to secure and protect the organization’s networks and systems.

The following steps perform vulnerability Assessment:

1. Identifying the system’s resources, including all the hardware as rootkits (a vulnerability), can be hidden entirely in the system process or any software.

2. Assigning values to the resources according to the risk factors.

3. Identifying the vulnerabilities or threats to each resource.

4. Eliminating or finding a patch of most serious vulnerability for most valuable resources.

· Network Vulnerability scanners analyze and identify vulnerabilities in the target network or network resources using vulnerability assessment and network auditing.

· A scanner categorizes the vulnerabilities as critical, major, or minor. While choosing a vulnerability scanner, one should know the scanner’s accuracy rate. If a wrong scanner is selected, it may give false information to report the vulnerabilities that don’t exist.

Some tools for performing vulnerability assessment are:

1. OpenVAS- This tool serves many functions/ tests like unauthenticated testing, authenticated testing, various high level and low-level Internet and industrial protocols, performance tuning for large-scale scans, and a powerful internal programming language to implement any vulnerability.

2. Nessus- Nessus is an assessment solution tool for identifying vulnerabilities, configuration issues, and malware. This tool also supports various systems like OSes, network devices, hypervisors, databases, tablets/phones, web servers, and critical infrastructure.

3. GFI LanGuard- GFI LanGuard can perform scans, detects, assesses, and rectifies security vulnerabilities in your network and connected devices. It scans the network and ports to detect, evaluate, and correct security vulnerabilities with minimal administrative effort.

4.Nikto- Nikto is an Open Source web server scanner, performs tests against web servers for multiple items. It also checks for outdated versions of servers. It also checks for server configuration items such as the presence of multiple index files and HTTP server options.
Cheap Fakes beat Deep Fakes
By: Thaddeus T. Grugq
Tags: Deepfakes, Information Security, Information Warfare, Infosec, Cybersecurity

Cheap Fakes beat Deep Fakes

Chocolate covered Brussel Sprouts

I’ve always been sceptical of deepfakes. What are they good for? I’ve never understood the excitement over the perceived utility of deep fakes for disinformation in information warfare. Information warfare does not need deepfakes, cheapfakes are more than enough. Finally, someone has found a use for deepfakes as offensive cyber tools, so let’s deep dive deep fakes!

That time I totally met a famous person

[Support more content like this.]

The Deepfake Hype Train: Disinformation

Usually the threat of deepfakes is presented as an information warfare challenge, one that will make disinformation much harder to combat. This assessment is on display everywhere. Here is one recent example: Congress grapples with how to regulate deepfakes.

The threat of deepfakes for information operations is minimal. Generally speaking people do not engage in rhetoric to change their own ideas, but to build coalitions with other people. When presenting data to support their arguments they are looking only for examples that appear to discredit counter arguments, or that seem to support their own. There is no reason why deepfakes would be more effective at this than existing cheapfake techniques, such as manipulation of audiovisual media, miscontextualized and decontextualized audiovisual media, etc.

Deepfakes are a threat to information warfare because they can be easily exposed as false, a lie. One of the fundamental rules of information warfare is that you never lie (except when necessary.) Deepfakes are detectable as artificial content, which reveals the lie. This discredits the source of the information and the rest of their argument. For an information warfare campaign, using deepfakes is a high risk proposition.

Deepfake Scepticism
Open sources of information are causing trouble for dictatorial governments
Tags: Information Security, Open Source, Information Technology

Open sources of information are causing trouble for dictatorial governments Dgvaghela Aug 17·1 min read

In the 1990s and 2000s, it was hoped that the Internet would be the greatest force for liberalism and freedom. However, this did not happen. Dictatorships have strengthened their hold on technology. The war of information was used as a weapon. In the midst of this despair the age of open source of information has awakened new hope.

New sensors, cameras and satellites are monitoring the corners of the earth. Media like intellectuals, activist online community and Slack have presented a wealth of information against amateurs and experts. Private organizations and people have exposed China’s stockpile of nuclear missiles. The atrocities against the Uyghurs have also been exposed through this system. This intelligence has also revealed the secret of the downing of a Malaysian passenger plane by Russia. Researchers have discovered the secret missile program of many countries in their own way.

if like this article…please share….
Information Security — The Art!. The reason why I state Information…
Tags: Cyber Security, Information Security

The reason why I state Information Security as art is, I see it’s part of my life whether I work in IT or not, Infosec lies in each and everything I do,

It’s almost part of our daily life it lies in how we handle our day to day digital and non digital information and dispose it properly.

In the movie Karate Kid, Mr.Jackie Chan make an statement “Kung fu lies in everything we do” that applies to Information Security as well.

Image credits: The Karate Kid

It’s moreover like a discipline to be followed in the real world, the amount of information we share in the online world is directly proportional to the chances of getting hacked.

We cannot completely averse from internet and go back to stone age, but we can learn how to use it in a effective manner because Information is wealth

Let’s take IT profession as an example irrespective of the role you are working you are directly or indirectly involved in information security, Even the evolution of programming language/frameworks/hardware devices information security plays a vital role.

Let’s take developer as an case study , who put their minds to create a new feature which adds functional value to the application, what if he thinks in a reverse manner, how the feature/functionality can be abused where he is implicitly pen-testing without actually knowing it. I saw lot of dev’s/testers or whatever X role who contribute to security without even realizing it. I love to see people entering information security from different skill set, that gives a different angle and change of perspective apart from the way usually things are, At the end of the day protecting internet is a shared responsibility.

At last it’s not a one time activity and getting labled/certified as secured, it’s a habit that need to be taken up.

I would suggest everyone to taste the so called fruit called Information security once in their lifetime.
Why Does Cyber Security Seem As Headache?
By: Gökay Pekşen
Tags: Hacking, Management Consultancies, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Digital Transformation

Why Does Cyber Security Seem As Headache?

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

No it is not. It is different than usual. Like you are learning new language or skill. At the beginning, everyone can struggle. That is just the way it is.

What Is The Deal With Cyber Security?

When we are talking about it, there are a lot topics to cover. I won’t elaborate them here but it is not like “selling anything”. It is not concentrated on one major thing. Selling is like selling one thing or another in any case but in cyber security there are different dynamics. When you deal with it you will get confused.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Business Dynamics vs Cyber Security Dynamics

Let’s examine (Totally amateur and biased review) two business dynamics n an organization and compare them with cyber security dynamics:

Sales

Focusing on selling products or services. Most highlighted ve famous part of a company. All eyes on you! You create the money, you create the income, so you are important to your company, right? Because money is everything, and selling equals to money. Deals with money and income.

Marketing

Keeps you in the business world. Drags against bankruptcy or losing market share. It makes the company as it is. Creates a brand and story then convince people to follow them or buy their products/services. Branding is important so marketing is important. Deals with brand and market

Cyber Security

Focusing on physical and digital assets. Anything in the company is involved. Employees, servers, data, physical documents, etc. Cyber security keeps you alive and sustainable in digital world, also it protects your reputation. Others make you grow, cyber security protects and help you grow, not make you grow. But here is the deal. What does cyber security deal with? Black Hat Hackers and cyber criminals! That is the way you should understand how cyber security works. Others focus money, branding, market, cyber security focuses on criminals, CRIMINALS! This is crazy :)

Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

Conclusion

Companies need to improve their awareness and competence level beyond digital literacy to build a bridge among teams. Best thing you can do to yourself is listening to experts and ask them or a consultant to translate it in English :) You probably won’t need a translator but consultants can help you gladly :) Don’t forget, you can’t secure a company with a bunch of security experts. It is organizational matter!

P.s: I will give the tips of understanding and managing the cyber security and IT in an organization later. Thank you.
IMINT/GEOINT: Image and Geospatial Intelligence
By: Jacob Stickney
Tags: Information Security, Cybersecurity, Osint, Tryhackme

TryHackMe has a great room called Searchlight, which introduces IMINT (Image Intelligence) and GEOINT (Geospatial Intelligence) to one’s OSINT research tools. The objective is to answer questions pertaining to the exact location of an image, just by going off the clues given in the image.

One of the TryHackMe challenges in particular is called Coffee and a light lunch. Two images are provided, as well as a brief description of the scenario:

“A friend of mine contacted me asking if I could help them locate a coffee shop that is supposed to serve the best lunch there is. They told me the coffee shop is somewhere in Scotland, and he sent me these two pictures. Do you think you could locate it and answer the questions below for me?”

Based the images and the information provided above, we do have enough to go on. Is it a serious situation? Not really. But the focus is on the process.

Analyzing the first image, I take note of a couple of characteristics:

In the background, the storefront sign reads The Edinburgh Woolen Mill (you may need to zoom in to see it more clearly). The store is on the corner of the block, across the street from the coffee shop. I also take note of the steps leading up to the storefront, and the blue sign with the white arrow.

Being a geographical search, one of the most obvious resources to utilize is a map. So I open up GoogleMaps. Two key pieces of information we are provided is the store that’s across the street from the coffee shop (The Edinburgh Woolen Mill), and it’s general location (Scotland).

Searching for The Edinburgh Woolen Mill in Scotland, a handful of results turn up. It is clearly a chain business, but there aren’t enough store locations to justify taking a more efficient approach.

In this case, there are only so many possibilities, so I zoom in on each location, and click on the Street View (small yellow figure in bottom right hand corner of map) icon, to get a better idea of what is around the store. One by one, I check off each location by process of elimination, until I find the correct location.

This looks identical to the photo provided:

I move around the street in Street View, and I see a coffee shop across the street from the store. I look towards the store from the perspective of the coffee shop. This is clearly it.

GoogleMaps, by default, provides some of the coffee shop’s business information. From this, I’m able to answer a couple of questions:

Which city is this coffee shop located in? Blairgowrie

Which street is this coffee shop located in? Allan Street

What is their phone number? +447878 839128

A visit to their Facebook page (via GoogleMaps) reveals their email address:

What is their email address? theweecoffeeshop@aol.com

And a quick Google search reveals the owners’ surname:

What is the surname of the owners? Cochrane
HackTheBox Write-Up: Access
Tags: Information Security, Security, Hacking, Microsoft Access

Summary

Access is a Medium difficulty box that emphasises leaving anonymous login on FTP servers enabled, as well as Windows’ savecred functionality

Enumeration

On port 80, we get a mysterious code & a picture of a server

On port 23, there’s a login prompt. I assume that once we get user, this will come in handy.

Anonymous login is enabled on FTP and there’s a couple interesting files, backup.mdb and Access Control.zip.

By running strings on backup.mdb, I found a possible password, access4u@security

Providing this password to unzip our Access Control.zip gave us a file called Access Control.pst, an Outlook email folder.

I found a tool called readpst to handle the data of this file.

This gives us both a username and a password.

security:4Cc3ssC0ntr0ller

Now that we have credentials, we can log in to the telnet service.

Privilege Escalation

Upon my initial searches, I found that there were stored credentials, so you can run commands as Administrator.

I opened up a handler to listen for the connection we’ll be receiving when we execute our code Now to generate a stub

We need to transfer the file to the windows box so that we can run it, so we’ll use python’s http.server module.

We then can pull the file to the vulnerable box with the certutil tool.

Now that we have meterpreter as Admin, we can spawn a shell for ourselves
Danger ahead? Probably
By: John P. Gormally
Tags: Hacking For Defense, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Secops

Danger ahead for Cybersecurity? Of course!

Ransomware, Password cracking, DDOS, brute force, social engineering, employee theft, supply chain attacks, all still the favor of the moment. Even with policy, process, and procedures, cyber attacks will continue to happen and probably get to be more impactful.

A bit of history, in 1940’s during World War II, the German’s placed several spies near the docks in New York harbor. They reported back all ship movements and cargo. After losing several ships, the US Navy and the OSS came up with a interesting ideal, “partner with someone that knows how to stop the problem”.

Hence, Naval Intelligence as the story goes, “partnered with the New York mafia and asked for their help to stop the ships from me sunk.”. In the end“Lucky Luciano and his associates were moved to much friendly place to live while serving time”.

Meaning in the modern day? “Partnerships”. Yes, partnership make the problem less of an issue over time. Not just partnerships between vendors. True partnership goes beyond a technology and capability. The partnership has been seen as a “joint benefit” to all partners in order to seek a end solution gain. Companies invest in technology that should align with their overall strategy, yet companies lose sight of the bigger problem; operations and accountability.

Outsourcing is one partnership that helps bring scale to the equation of security operations. Managed Services should be partnering with outsourced providers instead of doing everything themselves is a formula for success. Outsourced provider own the responsibility of training, recruiting, and supporting the actually security personal and process, while the service provider owns the management, upkeep, and overall strategy platform direction. Both keep each other in check and accountable for their side of the cyber operations equation. One, in sense could not live without the other. (Similar to Naval intelligence and the Mafia).

Two rival companies partnering instead of competing could be a better way forward for clients to get ahead of the hacking problems.
What is Social Engineering?
Tags: Social Engineering, Phishing, Privacy, Information Security, Risk

Those who unfairly obtain private or confidential information, money or other valuable commodities that do not belong to them by psychologically influencing and deceiving people by using the means provided by technology are considered social engineers.

The so-called social engineers are essentially no different from classic thieves because they acquire what they do not deserve through mind games.

The thief who enters the house uses a lockpick to open the door, a flashlight to find your gold, gloves to avoid fingerprints or a mask to not be recognized. Social engineers, on the other hand, use the facilities and capabilities provided by technology to sneak into computing devices and at least not to be noticed during their activities. While we invite thieves by not attaching a solid lock to our door, to our window, we invite social engineers with insufficient security measures and emotional weaknesses in our information systems.

Social engineering is nothing more than an up-to-date version of theft or fraud. As a result of the update made according to the requirements of the age, fake e-mails, mobile phones, SMS, social media, malicious software, infiltrated or fake websites designed in accordance with the original are used instead of monkeys, flashlights and masks.

When we start to examine the tools, tactics and techniques used within the scope of social engineering in a little more detail, the following definitions appear;

Phishing,

Spear phishing,

Pharming,

Tabnabbing,

Whaling/CEO Fraud,

Smishing/SMS phishing,

Phone phishing-Vishing,

Social media phishing,

Impersonating,

Fake scenarios pretexting,

Spoofing,

Scareware,

Tailgating

Social engineering attacks, which we call technological fraud or modern theft, are carried out by using one or more of the tools, tactics and techniques listed above.

For example, in the “phishing” technique where an e-mail is sent from a fake address (spoofing), a malicious software (malware) is added to the e-mail in the form of an MS Office file and the user is expected to open or a phone number is imitated. In the call (spoofing), someone with authority takes the place of someone else (impersonating) and fake scenarios (pretexting) and phone fraud (Vishing) is made.

In our future articles, you will find more content in order to take measures for social engineering in corporate and individual.
Cyber Security For Beginners: Part 2
By: Arjun Suresh
Tags: Data Security, Cyber, Information Security, Infosec, Cybersecurity

Hey guys, welcome back to Part 2 of Cyber Security For Beginners blog series.

In the previous blog, we only discussed about the mere basics of cyber security and its importance. We defined cyber security and the importance of data in the modern digital world.

In this blog, we are going to cover 3 important concepts in Cyber Security. These concepts are together known as the CIA triad.

CIA Triad

No, we are not talking about the intelligence agency. CIA, in Cyber Security, stands for Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. We cannot move forward without explaining these core terms and their importance.

Before we begin, we are just going to cover how these concepts came to be and how they are associated with data security. These concepts are related to how data is handled, stored and transmitted. Wherever information security is implemented, these concepts need to be ensured for the proper protection and use of any kind of data. To explain these concepts, we are employing one of the most common examples you will find over the internet. We are going to use three persons, namely Alice, Bob and the “Attacker”.
There are stories you hear and you’re inspired!
Tags: Mentorship, Women In Tech, Information Security, Woman Empowerment, Wentors

There are stories you hear and you’re inspired, there are stories that you hear that gets you up on your feet screaming, “No way, shut up!” Not because they are not true, but because against all odds, the end isn’t what you’d expect.

One of such stories is that of Tracy Maleeff, a librarian turned information security expert.

No, it is not normal.

You don’t just up and switch from a non-technical role to one, making full transition into the tech industry by reading a lot of books and practicing. But I guess you do, a proof of that is Tracy.

Tracy is an information security expert working with the NY TIMES, the full details of her work are undisclosed because of security reasons, (you get it right?). She is also a wentor with Wentors and has been an active member of our community.

She easily stands out because of he dedication to work, football and food, hey, I write what I see. But above all she has a passion to see more women in technology, this she has shown countless times across her many conversations in the industry and in also choosing to mentor two amazing ladies in our recently concluded mentorship cohort; we-Discover.

I wanted to do a compilation of all the comments made about Tracy, but I’d just highlight a few, especially those made by her wentees. Because you can’t hear Tracy speak and not be fired up to do better and break out of the box.

At the end of the cohort, Joy Kathure, one of Tracy’s mentee described her as a fairy godmother.

“Tracy has made me challenge my self on how i think and guided me on how to better my knowledge, no words can truly explain my gratitude for she is indeed a fairy godmother.”

If you know the Cinderella story, you get a picture of how a fairy godmother is.

That’s even not the all.

Doreen Koome described her experience with Tracy in two words, eye opening and impactful.

Shot from our Deep Dive Session

I got to hear Tracy share her story is our deep dive session. A webinar dedicated to answering industry related question. The breakout room where she spoke really broke out when she mentioned she was a librarian for this long before deciding to move into tech. I was immediately drawn in and I reached out to her to ask if we could share her story.

You can guess her reply.

Hint: You are reading this now.

Again, you don’t just wake up and read books and become an #infosec expert, but here is Tracy, showing us it’s possible.

And you know, that’s what we are about at Wentors. We want to see more women occupy roles in technology irrespective of your background and how we’ve chosen to do that is providing a platform where they can be mentored by women in the industry.

Stories like Tracy’s make us aware that, we only need to want to, all the resources are available and what even makes it super better, you have Wentors, a community that would nurture you as a woman in technology.

Read more about Tracy’s transition here:
What you can learn by solving OSINT challenges?
Tags: Hacking, Osint, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Hackthebox

Shodan

What can you learn from solving OSINT challenges?

Reconnaissance is everything

Reconnaissance is an important part of OSINT. You start approaching your target by doing manual reconnaissance work on it. You gather as much information about the target from the online and offline resources. Your search about the target on Google, Social media sites, News coverage, and Shodan among others.

As you do this work, you start to appreciate how much information you can find out about a target easily. You would also know the importance of reconnaissance work. If you do the reconnaissance work properly, half your problem will be solved automatically.

A Powerful OSINT tool

Everything is available online

You would be surprised to know how much information is available online with free access. You just have to know your way to get that information to your use. All the OSINT challenges that I completed on HTB required me to search for different sites effectively. It was a bit difficult at first but I started to love it after completing a few challenges.

There are many tools available like Amass, Shodan, Sublist3r, and many to get the information that you require. Use your tools effectively and know how to Google information. This will help you to have personal gain from the already available free resources.

Social Media has wealth of useful info

Social Media is a trove of useful data

Almost all of the HTB OSINT challenges involved perusing social media accounts, comments, images, and metadata to find some hidden information. Not only in the challenge but in real life too there is much useful information available in social media that you can use. You can learn about your competitor, your competitive or own business, a person of interest, and more with social media data.

Use the data available on social media sites properly for your gain. You can even use tools such as Lookup ID and Namechk or different search parameters to get more info about a target from social media sites.