To torrent or not to torrent, Are Torrents Safe?
Are torrents safe?
I've been getting asked a lot about torrents lately. Is it safe? I thought I'd write an ethics aside article about torrents. I'm not interested in giving my opinion on the legal side of torrents, and whether I think it is right or wrong. That is for you to...
Passwords: Brute Force Attack on You
We've previously discussed guess attacks and dictionary attacks on your passwords. And we've determined now that password security is of the utmost importance. Just today I repaired a machine for a customer and their Vista login password was an old phone number of theirs. Seven digits that could easily be found with...
Passwords: Dictionary Attacks
dictionary attack password hack guess passwordHackers may already know your password. In a previous post, I wrote about guess attacks by hackers on your password. In this brief post I'm going to write about another method that an attacker could use to get your password. So by now, you've already made the...
Hackers may already know your password
Could you imagine, hackers may already know your password. Are you the type of person that uses the same password on facebook as you do for your online banking? Password security is very important. More important than most people seem to realize. How might a hacker know my password you ask? ...
Zeus botnet analysis: Past, present and future threats
The Zeus botnet has become one of the most dangerous botnets in history because of the targeted crimes that have been committed using the malware it propagates and the ease with which attackers commit the crimes. In this tip, we'll review what makes Zeus such a unique problem for enterprises and how best to defend...
What is a DDOS attack?
A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an...
Passwords are a pain
It happened because people don’t like to remember a lot of passwords. I can’t say I blame them, I think we’re all guilty of using the same password all over the place sometimes for years. Unbeknownst to me, everyone in this company new the boss’ password. It’s the same password he used...
What is a zero day vulnerability?
The term zero day vulnerability (zero day attack or even zero day exploit) gets thrown around a lot in security circles. We often hear it in reports from security vendors regarding recently discovered threats. But what is a zero day vulnerability anyway? Perhaps a lot of ‘average’ computer users hear this term, but would like...
Not all antivirus software is created equal
If you think all antivirus software is created equal think again. I'm consistently surprised by how many people I meet and talk with that just use whatever antivirus software comes their way. This morning I was talking with an individual and as I do, I asked him what product he was using. ...
Short history on hacking [infographic]
A short history on hacking. Hacking has been around as long as computers as a way to reconfigure or reprogram a system. [infographic].
Panda Cloud Antivirus test against malware
Panda has released version 1.1 of their free cloud anti-virus and Matt Rizos of remove-malware.com puts it to the test in this video.