ACME.inc: The Ethical Calls a Pen Tester Makes Mid-Engagement
Day three of a pen test, you find a flaw that could give an attacker root. Do you keep going? A simulated engagement and the ethical calls a penetration tester makes along the way.
Heartbleed and the Vulnerability Management Lifecycle
Heartbleed scores a 7.5 on CVSS, High and not Critical, yet it set off a global scramble. Here's how it moves through the vulnerability management lifecycle, from triage to verification.
How to Lock Down SSH on a Public Server (and Waste a Bot's Time Doing It)
Keys, Fail2Ban, geo-filtering, and an SSH tarpit: how to harden a public-facing SSH server, and how to waste a brute-forcer's time while you're at it.
Ransomware Comes for VMware: Why Attackers Go After the Hypervisor
Ransomware isn't just after file servers anymore. Why attackers target VMware ESXi, what gets encrypted, how the encryption works, and two real campaigns that hit hundreds or thousands of hosts.
How Packet Sniffing Works on a Switched Network (and How to Shut It Down)
Switches stopped sniffing from being trivial, but they didn't end it. How passive and active sniffing work, how ARP spoofing and MAC flooding get around a switch, and what actually stops them.
I Wrote an Incident Response Plan for My Own Living Room
Most incident response plans are written for companies. Mine covers a house: virus, power failure, fire, flood, ISP outage, and the scenario most home plans skip, what happens if I'm not around.
The APT Lifecycle: How Attackers Lived Inside a Network for a Year (or Nearly Five)
One APT group sat inside victim networks for 356 days on average, and once for nearly five years. The six phases of the APT lifecycle, and where defenders get their best chance.
Social Engineering With Real Teeth: Twitter 2020 and Target 2013
Twitter 2020 and Target 2013 both started with a person, not a zero-day: a phone call from fake IT, and a phished HVAC vendor. What the two breaches show about why social engineering works.
Cracking a Password-Protected Zip File Taught Me Patience
Two failed wordlists, a power outage mid-crack, and a lab file that wouldn't give up its password. My John the Ripper saga, and what it says about how long (and how weak) passwords can be.
What I (Unfortunately) Found When I Pointed Shodan at the Internet's Webcams
What Shodan's Webcam category reveals about unsecured internet-connected cameras, and the simple fixes that keep your own devices off a stranger's search results.