Iranian Nuclear File, a Technical Point of View...

As Wikipedia defines Cyberwarfare as "actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption."

This definition is pretty reasonable and holds a lot of logic behind. You may already heard about "cold war" which is a political war that uses propaganda in media in a try to weaken the "enemy". Now, a new player has already been added to the cold war game, the Cyberwarefare. 

Even if Iran and the US reached agreement on the Iranian Nuclear File, the US and Israel will follow the new war technique, and invest billions and billions to take nuclear system down, with thousands of Stuxnet worms.

I believe we will see a dozens of systems down along with mutual accusations between superpowers, and the map.norsecorp.com will blow red.

FTP"S" vs "S"FTP

Both, SFTP and FTPS share the "FTP" part, which stands for File Transfer Protocol, the  protocol which is designed to transfer large files within a network. But as it lacks security, a newer version is released and called FTPS, which is FTP over SSL.

As you may know, everything comes with SSL, means a "secure" thing. FTPS uses certificates to secure the data on the way, when downloading or uploading.
FTPS uses couple of port numbers. The default port 21  is used for authentication and passing commands.  However, every time a file transfer request (get or put) another port number needs to be opened (990 is the default).

So how FTPS differs from SFTP?
Not to mentions, the two protocols confuse us, because they look like the same when we think the letter "S" stands for "Secure".
To clear things up, as mentioned the "S" in the FTPS refers to SSL. However the one in the SFTP, refers to SSH ;)

Still confused? if you can remember, SSH is the protocol that we use when connecting remotely (and securely) to a remote system, such as Linux box or a Cisco router. SFTP stands for FTP in SSH, and refers to the ability of SSH protocol to transfer data when already connected to a remote box.
In this case FTP is under the umbrella of SSH and uses whatever protocol SSH uses (default is 22).

Good Article About Data at Rest (DAR)

 

What Is Data At Rest Encryption?

Data at rest encryption basically means protecting data that's not moving through networks.  The protection in this case is offered via encryption. The easiest way to answer this question is to explain what "data at rest" means.
Data at rest refers to data that is not "moving."  For example, information on your laptop is considered data at rest.  Sure, your laptop is a mobile device, so it's natural that the laptop and its content will be moving at some point.  However, as long as the data is not moving off the laptop's hard disk drive, it's considered data at rest.
If you copy the data to a USB memory stick, then you've got two sets of data at rest: one on the laptop's hard disk, one on the USB memory stick. 
Conversely, data moving through networks are not considered to be data at rest.  For example, if you send an e-mail, that's not data at rest.  If the e-mail is received and archived, then it's data at rest.
As you can see from the above example, whether data is at rest or not depends on what that data is doing.

Why the classification?

It may be because, depending on what type of encryption you use, your data may not be adequately protected.
Take full disk encryption as an example.  Full disk encryption encrypts the hard drive completely: Anything saved on an encrypted hard drive will be protected automatically...as long as it resides on the drive.
To clarify that last point, if you copy a file off the encrypted hard drive or e-mail it to someone, that information will not be encrypted anymore.  A copy of the file left behind will still be protected, since it's still on the hard drive; however, the new file that was copied over will not be.
If you will, it's like paper documents: a classified report placed in a locked vault is protected.  Take it out and it's not so much.
If you'd like encryption that moves with the file, you need to use file encryption software.
So, depending on whether your data is at rest or not, you'll need to invest in the right type of encryption software.

Article source: alertboot.com

So what is GAK? and who is U.S government?

So what is GAK?
GAK is an acronym and stands for Government Access to Keys, and it's simply the concept of providing the "encryption" keys to government from any software company in case they're "really needed".

Who is U.S government, then?
It's the today's EMPIRE that thinks that it has the right to track people and see their staff to protect its security (this is GAK in action)! U.S tentacles are everywhere.

ProxyHAM, the Revolutionary Hardware Proxy

Seems being anonymous when surfing the internet is almost impossible. This is true since security has no measures. Whatever we try you do to protect our privacy, like using proxy applications such as Tor project, cannot really save you. Security agents have all the required tools to ping and traceroute the real "you".

The only one true in the security realm is that "smarter is faster, and the faster will get the worm", the zero-day attacks is one example. Another example is "ProxyHAM", that is designed and manufactured by Benjamin Caudill, the founder of Rhino Security Labs.

ProxyHAM is a hardware proxy that can be installed by connecting it to any available internet in any open place, like a library or internet Cafe (of course without anyone see you install it). You can then go about 2.5 miles far, and still be able to connect to it. You may ask me, how does that really work?! here is my small description:

ProxyHAM consists of a Raspberry Pi small computer along with 3 antennas (900MHz each) and on your laptop that's far away you should install a 900MHz antenna as well, which will connect back with two of ProxyHAM's antennas, where the last antenna in the set is connected to the internet.
Do you see the point here?
Now let's say anyone could log your activity on the internet, all she will see is the ProxyHAM's IP address, and since you are 2 miles away nobody can catch you!

Caudill will give it a shot in the Defcon conference next month.

No more IPv4 Jumping on the Bed!

I think you have heard about the phenomenon of Vinus and Jupiter. The both planets collide and shape a one big start called the "Star of Bethlehem". I have saw it myself ;) 
What is intersting is that this only happens one time every 2000 years. Oh my GOD! do you imagine?

In the same sense there is another super phenomenon that's happening, and I don't want you to miss, IPv4 exhaustion is offecially announced!
ARIN (or the American Registery for Internet Numbers), which is the IP addresses distributer, stated that ISPs only have three options now:
1- To get smaller IP blocks (no more than 512)
2- To Purchase their need from other companies that have more addresses
3- To register in the ARIN's waitlist in the hope that the desired amount of IPs can be available in the future

Granted, seems it's time to migrate to IPv6, even if we hate it because, "Internet of things" philosophy will need the 340 Trillion Trillion Trillion addresses, the IPv6 offers.

Why Antivirus Creators Allow for Free Versions

I have asked myself many times, what can antivirus companies benefit from allowing us to use free versions of their products? And, what also we benefit from them?

Direct answer is nothing.... and everything!!

Just think of today's threats, and what really puts you in danger. Today's viruses becoming too smart, very fast and very flexible in nature. We don't even call them viruses, better, we call them "Malwares". Sure, I don't care about the naming here, you can call anything that harms your system, a "Virus". I really care about how those harmful things put damage into our business and valuable staff.

Old-days viruses are pretty duff in today's terms, and I can say, any 3MB-sized tool can protect against them. All free antivirus products fall into this category, no specific one is better than the other in defending against this outdated type of viruses.
Preventing ourselves from smart malwares, session-hijacking, DDoS, Man-in-the-Browser, etc (you fill in the blank), is the key point here. This kind of real prevention will not be possible using free antivirus programs, rather, you have to pay for it!

Also think of it from a Marketing standpoint, companies such as Avera, AVG, want you to know about their products, so they let you download and use them for free. Here you start play with them, interact with the friendly GUIs in a hope you like it and pay for the full non-free version.

But put in mind that installing free antivirus is better than nothing.