Author Archives: mike

Apache: Blocking “Bad Robots”

In some cases, robots can go berserk and cause performance issues with an Apache server. To some extent, robots can be helpful as they are used by search engines to index a world-visible site. But “bad robots” can be blocked. … Continue reading

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Security and Using Artificial Intelligence

Over the past year or so, we have had a bit of an upsurge in the use of “artificial intelligence” with things like ChatGPT, etc. An interesting development – particularly amusing when I started my career with a summer job … Continue reading

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Does That Suspicious Email Contain A QR Code?

In some cases, suspicious emails might contain QR codes to take you to a web site for further action :- For example :- In general, QR codes can contain web site addresses, but because they are encoded, it makes it … Continue reading

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Do You Know How Many Cyber Attacks We See?

One of the things that most people are probably not aware of is just how many attacks the university sees on a daily basis. For example, yesterday (a middling day in September) the firewall identified and blocked 100,839 attacks. Now … Continue reading

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Locating Java Installs

In some cases vulnerability scanners will tell you that there is a vulnerable version of Java installed but not tell you where it is. This is a short post on solving that problem – for Linux machines. Run the following … Continue reading

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Phishing Attacks Against Academics with an Interest in Russia/Ukraine

We have been alerted to the activities of a politically-motivated phishing “crew” targeting (amongst others) the Higher Education sector with particular reference to academics with interests in Russia and Ukraine. The attacks look to be targeted to specific individuals with … Continue reading

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Detecting Suspicious Emails

This blog post is going to be somewhat longer and more technical than usual. It is intended as documentation for the use of IS staff, but may be more widely useful (at least in parts). To start with emails come … Continue reading

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An Email With An Encrypted ZIP Attachment?

That’s suspicious! At least it is if the password to decrypt the ZIP file is contained within the email – when you’re sending something secret you would send an encrypted ZIP file as an email and then send the password … Continue reading

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On Receiving USB Memory Sticks In The Post

A warning has been made about US businesses receiving “bad” USB memory sticks in the post. Although not a new form of attack, what is new is that the USB sticks may contain mass ransomware malware. If you receive items … Continue reading

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The “Secret” BCC Email Header

You want to send an email to a long list of people; perhaps that list should remain private, or perhaps you just want to avoid the inconvenience of people seeing a huge “To” field with tons of other addresses in. … Continue reading

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