Archive for the 'Security' Category
I have been working at our DR site most of the week preparing hardware and configs for a DR test we are performing this weekend. As I was sitting here in frustration this afternoon waiting for a server to boot up, I decided to browse through the bash.org quotes and see what was going on. When I stumbled upon quote #742386 I started laughing out loud. On a day like today, when things are extremely stressful, this really brightened my spirits. Below is the quote:
<HaX.1337> U're all lame as hell here!!!!! I can hack u all in no time! just tell me your ip and u're dead!
<Maler.home> try mine
<Maler.home> 127.0.0.1
*** Signoff: HaX.1337 (Connection reset by peer)
<Damz|dispute> wow. never thought such a retard nick can get his hands on something actually working xD
I think this is hilarious because this “super 1337 hacker”, better known as a “script kiddie”, found a script that would supposedly bring a remote host down some how. How?! It really doesn’t matter. The funny thing is that he really wasn’t that smart. When he asked for an IP address from the others in the room, “Maler.home” gave him 127.0.0.1. This is the address that every operating system (that I’ve seen anyway… there may be exceptions) assigns to itself, also known as a local loopback address. When the script kiddie ran his nifty hacktool against 127.0.0.1, guess what?! He owned himself, crashed his machine, and was disconnected from the IRC channel. That is too good! I just thought I would share!
On another note, if you don’t check out bash.org, I suggest you take a look at the site and the many different IRC quotes on their. Most of them are extremely hilarious!
Until next time…
Did you know that if your iPod battery is extremely low you can’t even turn it off? Wouldn’t that be the best time to turn it off?
My 30GB Video iPod’s battery indicator was way in the red earlier today (well, yesterday… It is now February 7th and this happened on the 6th) and I tried to turn it off so I could preserve a little battery life for the ride home from work. Wrong! All that happened when I held down the Pause/Play button on the click-wheel was the screen dimmed. Once I released the click-wheel the screen brightened up, so it could use even more battery life, and just kept playing or would pause the music. Hmmm…
I caught wind of this about 20 minutes ago but wanted to upgrade my blog before I posted about it. So, now my WordPress blog is running version 2.1.2 and I should be safe.
From reading the official post about this on the WordPress site, it appears that someone gaines user level access to the wordpress.org server and modified the 2.1.1 release of WordPress. The post states that some PHP code was added to some core WordPress files that would allow remote PHP execution about 3-4 days ago. Not good! However, I am glad that WordPress has made this public and has already corrected the issue and made an uncompromised version of the code available for WordPress users to download and upgrade.
If you’re running WordPress version 2.1.1, UPGRADE NOW!!!
Until next time…
This evening I decided to install some applications I used on FreeBSD before I got my Apple MacBook. I used to thoroughly enjoy the FreeBSD ports system for maintaining 3rd-party applications like Wireshark (formerly known as Ethereal) and Nmap. Since moving to Mac I have found a similar ports system named MacPorts, formerly known as DarwinPorts.
I have used the MacPorts system in the past to install the above mentioned applications, Wireshark and Nmap, as well as screen (great tutorial on TechSays, previously posted at averageadmins.com) and Ettercap. I got crazy with the MacPorts tonight and started installing some of the software that I used to use on my FreeBSD laptop as well as some newer applications I wanted to try out. I installed:
dsniff- John the Ripper
wget- Metasploit
- Nikto
tcpdumphping2fping- THC-Hydra
- Scapy
- Ophcrack
p0fngrep- Nemesis
I like messing around with security and network monitoring software, especially when Chris gets involved and we mess around with different tools trying to figure out how they work and how we can use them. I am sure I will think of more applications to install in the near future.
I want to get my MacBook ready for when Chris and I have to go do some network monitoring at a remote branch or something like we did back in the day with his Debian laptop and my FreeBSD laptop. I just need to remember that the MacPorts port system is there for me and always willing to help me install and maintain 3rd-party applications.
Until next time…
2007-02-13 - Correction: I didn’t install Nikto using the MacPorts repository as stated above. I installed it from source. It’s a Perl script with functionality that I already get from Nessus so I removed it from my system and will continue to use Nessus for web site vulnerability testing.
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