Whale Phishing

Friday, April 18th, 2008

One of the things I love about cutting-edge technology is the way we get to invent fun, new terminology. It seems to have been around before, but I just came across my first reference to "whale phishing." It describes a phish where the target is a very important person, such ...

Supercharge Windows Vista’s Startup Time

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Windows Vista boots up quickly—but seeing the desktop is hardly a sign that the OS is ready for use. When your familiar wallpaper and icons appear, you better not start clicking, because in the background the OS is still finishing up its startup process. Sometimes it seems like you have ...

Hacker releases working GDI-bug attack code

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Security researchers on Monday spotted malicious code that triggers a critical vulnerability in the Chinese version of Windows 2000, and warned users of other editions to expect attacks. Symantec confirmed that the proof-of-concept code publicly posted to the milw0rm.com site earlier in the day successfully attacks Chinese editions of Windows 2000 ...

Why Small and Medium Enterprises don’t use 802.1x

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

With JJ blogging about 802.1x, I thought it would be timely to talk about why I think small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) do not and probably never will deploy 802.1x for wired networks. I make a point of meeting with customers whenever I can. Amongst the small and medium ...

Researchers uncover undetectable chip hack

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

For years, hackers have focused on finding bugs in computer software that give them unauthorised access to computer systems, but now there's another way to break in: hack the microprocessor. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign demonstrated how they altered a computer chip to grant attackers back-door access to ...