Category Archives: Technical

Category for technical content.

Apache: Disabling TRACK and TRACE Methods

Posted on 2018-03-29 by mike

By default Apache supports a number of HTTP methods in addition to the ones we normally use – GET (to get objects) and PUSH (to push form data although you can send form data with GET too). These additional methods … Continue reading →

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Apache: Blocking “Dangerous” Files

Posted on 2018-03-27 by mike

There are all sorts of “dangerous” files that can appear within a web server’s document root; some are merely potentially dangerous but some can be genuinely dangerous. For example, if someone uses an editor to change a .php file, it is … Continue reading →

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Processor Bugs: Meltdown and Spectre

Posted on 2018-01-05 by mike

There has been lots of stories relating to two new severe security vulnerabilities (one of which is in every Intel processor for over a decade); the trail of stories starts here. The details of the vulnerability are very highly technical … Continue reading →

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The New Mirai

Posted on 2017-11-30 by mike

According to one news report, a new version of Mirai has recently been released causing an increase in the number of scans against port 2323 and port 23. According to our firewall logs, the number of scans against tcp/2323 has … Continue reading →

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KRACKing Wireless

Posted on 2017-10-23 by mike

The latest big security exploit is a mechanism by which WPA2 secured wireless networks can be compromised to disclose previously encrypted traffic in the clear, and to insert malicious traffic. The original web site announcing the vulnerability can be found … Continue reading →

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Patching Your Mouse? Yes, Really!

Posted on 2017-08-29 by mike

Strange as it may seem, if you have a certain type of wireless mouse you may be vulnerable to an attacker being able to inject keyboard keystrokes into your computer; with this they are able to do just about anything … Continue reading →

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Updating Windows Servers

Posted on 2017-08-18 by mike

You might think it is easy to update Windows servers, but apparently that is not always the case. It is easy to simply “check for updates” when you first install a server, and then forget about it. Which is the wrong … Continue reading →

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How SHA-1 Is Broken

Posted on 2017-02-24 by mike

(This gets very esoteric very quickly) Those of you paying attention may have realised that very recently (January this year), browsers started complaining about security when connecting to sites whose SSL certificates used the SHA-1 hashing algorithm within the certificate. … Continue reading →

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Friday’s DDoS Attack And The Mirai IoT Worm

Posted on 2016-10-25 by mike

It may have reached your attention that there was a significant denial of service attack against a widely used DNS provider – the service provider for organisations such as Twitter, Github, and Amazon. The effect was to make certain services … Continue reading →

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TeamViewer: People Being Hacked

Posted on 2016-06-03 by mike

There are many reports that those using the TeamViewer application are being subjected to hacks with their bank accounts being emptied and similar problems. The details of how the attackers are breaking in are not available, but it seems likely that … Continue reading →

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