“There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have lost critical data, and those who will.”
How to Build a Bulletproof Cloud Backup System Without Spending a Dime.
(Shared – CIO)
Category Archives: Networking
Unseen, All-Out Cyber War on the U.S. has Begun
“There’s a war going on, and it’s raging here at home — not in the streets or the fields, but on the Internet. You can think of it as a war on the digital homeland. If you work for a power company, bank, defense contractor, transportation provider, or other critical infrastructure type of operation, your organization might be in the direct line of fire. And everyone can become collateral damage”
Unseen, All-Out Cyber War on the U.S. has Begun.
(Shared from CIO)
A Search Engine that shows devices on the web
Secure your devices. Bottom-line, there are malicious users on the web that can find your device (webcams, IP cameras, routers, SCADA and other devices). Change the default passwords and update software/firmware when it is available. Disable UPNP and look for vulnerabilities that may affect your device.
CNN’s Money on “Hacking anything connected to the internet“
Windows System Control Center – An all in one tool for IT professionals
The Windows System Control Center is an all in one tool that offers a ton (hundreds) of features. These features are compatible with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
The installation can be made to a portable drive or installed on a computer. During the installation, new software can be installed allowing features to be added or updated.
During this installation process, you may get virus alerts but the software is safe. These alerts are false positives (the software accesses key areas that control Windows).
Click Allow or Safe in your anti-virus control panel.
Initially you will have 264 software installs.
Once the features are installed (This can initially take a few minutes), The control center opens to dozens of categories and hundreds of features allowing you to tweak Windows or to correct problems.
Windows 8 won’t shut down
After I upgraded my laptop to Windows 8, it would not shut down.
I would click on the power button icon and the screen would go black but as soon as I moved the mouse, I was back at the login screen. Restart worked fine. So I would click restart, wait till it got to the BIOS screen and then hold the power button down until my laptop shut off.
I’ve been looking for a solution to the problem. I’ve tried a registry setting to change (I didn’t have to change it – the value was already set as recommended in the change), tweaking different things and finally today I found this simple fix!
~D. Babian
How long will it take to crack your password?
Mickey found a great site that gives the approximate time it will take to break your password. The site, howsecureismypassword.net gives the approximate time and a background color that indicates how secure your password is. There are other things to worry about. One of the things people don’t realize is that the code in your website may reveal even the most complex passwords. It is up to the webmaster of your site to keep you secure.
2013 Middle Tennessee Cyber Summit: Building Partnerships and Understanding the Threat
2013 Middle Tennessee Cyber Summit:
Building Partnerships and Understanding the Threat
Middle Tennessee Cyber Summit: Building Partnerships and Understanding the Threat will be held on the MTSU campus May 7 and 8. This event will address criminal, intelligence, disruptive, and information cyber threats and be of particular interest to city/state/federal governments, healthcare, education, transportation, financial, utilities, and business industries.
Presentations from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, TN Department of Safety and Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Secret Service and private sector cyber security.
2013 Middle Tennessee Cyber Summit: Building Partnerships and Understanding the Threat
When: Tuesday, May 7 – Wednesday, May 8
Where: MTSU campus, Student Union Ballroom
Cost: $30 per attendee
Attendees: state/local/federal govt. agencies, utilities, private sector, education, healthcare, transportation, financial
Credits/Certifications: CEUs available
Middle Tennessee Cyber Summit: Building Partnerships and Understanding the Threat will be held on the MTSU campus May 7-8. This event will address criminal, intelligence, disruptive, and information cyber threats and is scheduled to include presentations from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, TN Department of Safety and Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Secret Service, and private sector cyber security organizations.
Tuesday, May 7
7:30 – 8:00 Registration and Networking
8:00 – 8:30 Welcome and Introduction
MTSU Representative
TN Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons and Assistant Commissioner David Purkey
8:30 – 9:15 Emerging Threats in Cyber Security
Speaker TBA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
9:15 – 10:45 China, Cyber, and U.S. Energy: Who, What, Why, and What’s Next
Betsy Woudenberg, Chief Cyber Officer, Intelligence Arts
A discussion of China as our cyber adversary, using cyber attacks on U.S. and global energy companies to illustrate how the Communist Party’s domestic objectives drive its cyber espionage campaigns
10:45 – 11:30 Vendor tables and break
11:30 – 12:30 Lunch
12:30 – 1:15 Keynote
Scott Augenbaum, Supervisory Special Agent, Cyber Crime Squad, Federal Bureau of Investigation
1:15 – 2:30 TBA
Speaker TBA, Federal Bureau of Investigation
2:30 – 2:45 Break
2:45 – 4:30 Secret Service – Cyber Crime Investigations
Todd Hudson, Special Agent in Charge, United States Secret Service
Wednesday, May 8
8:00 – 9:00 Social Engineering
Sese Bennett, Information Officer, State of Tennessee
9:00 – 10:00 SCADA
Speaker TBA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
10:00 – 11:15 Intrusion Case Studies
Steve Mallard, IT Director, Tennessee Technology Center at Shelbyville
11:15 – 11:30 Break (vendor tables close at 12)
11:30 – 12:30 Lunch
12:30 – 2:00 Keynote:SCADA for Spies
Betsy Woudenberg, Chief Cyber Officer, Intelligence Arts
An introduction to SCADA – the technology that automates critical infrastructure – and how adversaries can penetrate these systems using humans and technology
2:00 – 2:15 Break
2:15 – 4:30 Cloud/Mobility Security
Speaker TBA
Event Sponsored by:
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs
Forensic Institute for Research and Education
Middle Tennessee State University
MTSU Information Technology Division
Enterasys Inc.
Mandiant
Registration information:
Date: Tuesday, May 7 – Wednesday May 8
Location: MTSU New Student Union Building
Cost: $30 per attendee (No Federal funds are expended to cover any catering or food)
Attendees: state/local/federal government agencies, utilities, private sector, education, healthcare, transportation, and financial, and law enforcement
Credits/Certifications: CEUs available ($10 MTSU fee)
For more information, please contact: Karen Austin at karen.austin@mtsu.edu or 615-494-7971
Free library for IT Professionals and the everyday user
I’ve featured Microsoft’s Technet before; but now Microsoft has even more to offer at their TechNet site. And 99% of it is free. The how-tos and downloads are unreal. You can’t possibly read all of the material but it is the best resource for Microsoft products.
With thousands of articles, Technet is broken into categories where you can narrow down your search for what you need.
Articles are added daily along with scripting and every operating system you can imagine. Visit the gallery here or visit on-line learning, virtual labs and the learning center and certification information.
Can’t get enough information? Here’s the Microsoft Wiki which has an unbelievable amount of resources and links. Need drivers, service packs or other downloads including evaluations? Visit there download center.
Below is a tiny portion of their resources.
Do you know about decimal formats and websites?
Over the years, you have learned that you can go to a website by simply typing the name of the website. Such as -
Did you know if you ping it, it will return the webserver’s address and you can use it to surf the web?
You can use this to troubleshoot your ISP. How? If your internet appears to be down, simple ping one of you favorite sites and then put the IP address into a browser. If you can get to the website by doing this, more than likely your ISP’s DNS is down.
Now, did you know you can convert it to a decimal format and go to the website by typing the decimal value?
HTTP://1279983224
As mysterious as this may seem, networking gets even more complex. DNS entries determine the name resolution to IP address. Webservers can be clustered and have different entries for the hundreds or even thousands of variations of naming conventions.
The network command NSLookup can be used to see these servers. Example: Go to a command prompt – type
NSLookup http://www.wordpress.com and you’ll see multiple servers.
C:\Users\raven>nslookup http://www.wordpress.com
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: lb.wordpress.com
Addresses: 76.74.254.123
72.233.69.6
66.155.11.238
66.155.9.238
76.74.254.120
72.233.2.58
Aliases: http://www.wordpress.com
If you ever get a decimal format in an email header and you wish to report the address as spam or as an abusive email, you can decoded it here.
To convert an IP address to a decimal format, use this site.
Here’s another small lesson using NSLookup. Did you know you can find the email server’s information for more troubleshooting? How?
First type nslookup and hit enter, then set the type by typing set type=mx and enter again. Next type the website address and hit enter.
C:\Users\itisme>nslookup
Default Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8
> set type=mx
> ttcshelbyville.edu
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8
Non-authoritative answer:
ttcshelbyville.edu MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.ttcshelbyvill.edu
>
For more information on set type, visit Microsoft’s TechNet Library.
Router Emulators
Test your ISP’s Quality
Almost everyone is familiar with testing their internet for speed. With sites such as Testmy.net, a true internet speed test and Speedtest.net, you can see how fast your internet is (download and upload speeds) performing.
But what about quality? Here’s a site that will test your ping response time and jitter. Pingtest.net
Five Ways To Better Hunt The Zebras In Your Network – Dark Reading
“For the cybercriminal lions out on the Internet, your company is full of zebras. Defenders should not just protect the herd, but pay attention to those who stray, experts argue”
Five Ways To Better Hunt The Zebras In Your Network – Dark Reading.
