How to hide your important data from other users?

Normally when you need to secure your important data from other users, then your first choice is to burn it on CD or put it to removable drive instead of hard drive. But imagine if your data size is more than 100 GB then it is not easy to burn it on CD. No worry, you can save your full drive from other users access using this trick. Check out InfoSec Institute for IT courses including computer forensics boot camp training

Perform the given steps to hide your system data partition:

• To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

• First click on Start button to open "Run" and type "CMD" (without the quotes) then press Ok button to open Command Prompt.

Now type diskpart on the blinking cursor and wait for 5 seconds to appear diskpart> utility.

To show the list of volume, type list volume command after the diskpart> prompt, this command will show you all system drives detail.

Now first select the volume that you want to hide, for example,

if you need to hide F drive then first type select volume 2 (in this case) and press enter button.

After loading volume, type remove letter F (in this case) to hide F drive.

Now exit from command prompt and open My Computer to verify drives.

But next time, when you want to unhide the D drive, just run assign drive F command after loading volume 2.

Set a permanent formatting style for composing messages in Gmail

Gmail gives a lot of formatting options for formatting emails. You can change the color of text, change font size, color and more. Some are pretty comfortable with the default formatting in plain style but some may want to change the formatting of text with text colors, font etc. But if you prefer a certain formatting style and want it to use the same style for every email you compose, changing the formatting style every time can be a bit nagging. But with Gmail, you can easily set a default formatting style using a Labs feature.

To set a permanent formatting style for your emails, go to Mail settings on Gmail from the settings button at the top right corner in Gmail. Now click on the Labs tab and Enable the Default Text Styling feature. Now save the settings.

Now go back to the General Tab and you will see the Default Text Style section. You will see the text “This is what your body text will look like.” in the box. Using the buttons for Bold, Itailc, Underline, Text Color, Font, Text Size you can set a formatting for the text. Now save the changes.
Now click on the Compose button and type in something; you will see the formatting by default. You can revert back to the default formatting style by clicking on the Remove Formatting button on the toolbar while creating a new email message.

 

 

 

How to tag a friend or a page on Facebook on mobile devices or with Javascript turned off

Its been long since Facebook let users tag their friends or like pages in status updates or comments. The feature first came to status updates and later on to comments as well. You can simply type the @ symbol and start typing the name of your friend and select one from the autocomplete. But this feature won’t work if you are using Facebook from a mobile browser that doesn’t support Javascript or if Javascript is turned off on your browser. But still, you can tag your friends using an alternate method.


You can tag your friends on browsers that don’t support Javascript as well. But to do this, you need to remember the profile ID of your Facebook friend. On the status update text box type the following:
@ [138558659573745:0]

Replace the number before “:0” with the profile ID of your friend. You can find the profile id of any of your friend by  copying it off their Facebook profile page. The Facebook profile page URL looks something like this:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1742756183

But this trick doesn’t work for those who have already set their Facebook usernames. You can also use this trick for tagging Facebook fan pages.

Mobile Devices, Virtualization Are Biggest Security Challenges

Credit: Wayan Vota (Flickr)

Increased use of mobile devices, especially smartphones, in addition to the transition to virtualization, are key factors weighing on enterprises trying to sort out security strategy and budgets, according to a survey of 688 information and security managers.

According to the Ponemon Institute's "State of the Endpoint" study released this week, there are serious signs that IT operations and IT security often fail to work as a team. Forty percent say collaboration is "poor or non-existent" and 48% call it "adequate, but can be improved." Virtualization, mainly VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, are increasingly the software platforms their organizations support, and 55% say virtualization does require "additional security measures," with most turning for help with that to the virtualization vendor or vendors with specialized virtualization security components.

But a surprising 41% indicated responsibility for virtualization security isn't clearly defined by department or function. Additionally, 21% said IT security was responsible, 15% said IT operations was and 11% said it was the job for IT compliance. Mobile devices - especially the use of employee-owned devices for work purposes - are also putting new stress on the IT department, according to the survey, which was sponsored by Lumension. The survey shows that mobile devices, especially smartphones, are counted as among "the greatest rise of potential IT security risk."

Source: 

PC World

 

Why do companies backup infrequently?

Credit: Brian J. Matis (Flickr)

Businesses are on average backing up to tape once a month, with one rather alarming statistic from the same survey showing 10 percent were only backing up to tape once per year, according to a survey by Vanson Bourne.
Although cloud backup solutions are becoming more common, still the majority of companies will do their backups in-house. Sometimes they will have dedicated IT staff to run them, but usually it's done in-house because they have always done it like that, and they have confidence in their own security and safekeeping of data.
Given this fact that IT personal are perhaps creatures of habit, and wouldn't risk a cloud based back-up solution - due to security and/or data integrity - it then seems a little odd that backups are done as infrequently as the survey reveals or even that they are only done once per year by some companies. The likely reason for this infrequency is due to the time factor involved. Many companies would run their backups on Friday evenings, in the hope for it to be completed by Monday business start. But with such large data pools, these backups might not complete in time, and are therefore often postponed for larger time frame windows.

 

Source: 

Help Net Security

Two top Indian mobile companies under investigation

Credit: Najeeb Khan (Flickr)

India's top investigation agency has registered a case against two major Indian mobile operators and former government officials in connection with alleged irregularities in the allocation of additional 2G spectrum in January 2002, widening the scope of its investigations into alleged scams in India's telecom sector.

The offices of the two mobile operators, Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile operator, and Vodafone India, were also raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday, according to sources.
Vodafone confirmed in a statement that CBI officials had visited the company's offices in Mumbai and Delhi "seeking information related to the spectrum allocation to operators during 2001-02." Airtel was not immediately available for comment. The CBI has been investigating the alleged irregular allocation of spectrum and licenses by the government in 2008, which has led to the arrest of a former communications minister A. Raja, a member of Parliament, business executives, and government officials.

Source: 

Network World

How to Secure a Wireless Network from Hackers?

The reason we secure a wireless network is to stop people from using the services of our network who don't have permission to utilize them. It is harder to secure a wireless network from hackers as compared to a classic wired network. This is due to the fact that a wireless network can be accessed anywhere inside the range of its antenna.

In order to secure a wireless network from hackers, we should take proper steps to save ourselves against security issues. If you don't secure a wireless network from hackers, you might end up without its service. The consequence might also include the utilization of our network to attack further networks. To secure a wireless network from hackers, you should follow these simple wireless networking tips:

1. Strategic antenna placement:

The first thing you have to do is to position the access point's antenna in a place which restricts the range of its signal to go further than the required area. You should not put the antenna close to a window because glass can't obstruct its signals. Place it in a central location of the building.

2.Use WEP:

WEP stands for Wireless encryption protocol. It's a customary technique for encrypting traffic on a wireless network. You should never skip it as that will allow hackers to get instant access to the traffic over a wireless network.

3. Change the SSID, disable the broadcast of SSID:

SSID stands for service set identifier. It is the recognition thread utilized by the wireless access point due to which the customers are capable of starting connections. For every wireless access point arranged, select an exclusive as well as unique SSID. Also, if it's attainable, hold back the broadcast of the SSID out over the antenna. It won\t appear in the listing of offered networks, while being able to provide services as usual.

4. Disable DHCP:

By doing this, the hackers will have to decode the TCP/IP parameters, subnet mask as well as the IP address in order to hack your wireless network.

5. Disable or modify SNMP settings:

Change the private as well as public community settings of SNMP. You can also just disable it. Otherwise the hackers will be able to utilize SNMP to get significant info regarding your wireless network.

6. Utilize access lists:

For additional security of your wireless network, and if your access point support this feature, employ an access list. An access list lets us determine precisely which machinery is permitted to attach to an access point. The access points which include the access list can employ trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) now and then in order to download modernized lists to steer clear of hackers.

Siri hacked to work on iPhone 3GS

Credit: Cult of Mac

We recently told you about the hidden panorama mode in the iOS 5 Camera app that could be enabled by editing a .plist file. Since then, a jailbreak tweak called “Firebreak” has been released that automatically enables the feature on any jailbroken iOS 5 device.

Panorama mode in the iOS Camera actually works, and you can get it on your own device right now without jailbreaking.

A simple hack has surfaced that enables the hidden panorama mode on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPod touch, and iPad 2 running iOS 5. To enable the feature, you’ll need to perform a modified backup of your iOS device in iTunes. You will also need to restore from a new backup, so keep that in mind before continuing.

Source: 

Cult of Mac

Malaysian hacker gets 10 years in US prison

Credit: Casey Serin (Flickr)

A US District judge sentenced a Malaysian to 10 years in prison for hacking into the US Federal Reserve and other banks.

Lin Mun Poo, a Malaysian citizen, had admitted earlier this year to hacking into the US central bank, various private financial institutions and possessing stolen bank card and credit card numbers, officials said.
According to AFP, he also admitted to hacking into a Fed computer server and installing a malicious software code there. Lin, who is from Ipoh, travelled to the United States in October last year “for the purpose of selling stolen credit card and bank card numbers” but a purchaser was in fact an undercover US agent, according to prosecutors. When he was arrested, Lin held over 122,000 stolen bank card and credit card numbers.
 

Source: 

The Star (Malaysia)

'Hacked server' claims another certificate authority casualty - KPN

Credit: ZDNet

Dutch certificate authority KPN has issued a statement, confirming that it will cease issuing operations after a security breach was discovered.

KPN, formerly known as Getronics, which issues SSL-certificates to validate the authenticity of secure websites, will cease issuing certificates after one of its servers had been hacked, thought to be as far back as four years ago.

It’s another major blow to the integrity of the web, only a month since Dutch certificate authority Diginotar was hacked, potentially compromising the security of websites belonging to the Dutch government, Google, Facebook and even state intelligence services. In the statement, while “existing certificates already issued remain valid”, it cannot rule out that the production of certificates — including pre-existing certificates — have not been compromised.

Source: 

ZDNet (Blog)

Computer Pranks | Fake Facebook Virus

In this tutorial I will show you how to make a  Facebook virus using simple commands on notepad. .This will make the victim think they have got a virus when they click on an icon such as Internet Explorer .

1) Open notepad
2) Type this in :

@echo off
msg * WARNING VIRUS DETECTED!!!!! AFTER 5 MINUTES YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED !!!!TO REMOVE THE  VIRUS CLICK OK OR CLOSE THIS BOX!
PAUSE
shutdown -r -t 300 -c " SORRY!!! YOUR  FACEBOOK  ACCOUNT  ARE NOW BEING DELETED !!! PLEASE WAIT ..........."


3)Save as Internet Explorer .bat

4)Right click on Internet Explorer .bat and click Create Shortcut

5)Right click on shorcut and click Properties.

6)Click Change Icon

7) Choose Internet Explorer icon or similar , click OK , then click Apply

8)Delete real shortcut and replace it with fake . When victim click on it , he will get warning messages that looks like this:


After five minutes windows will restart , that is all. This is totally harmless and will give you a laugh. Enjoy !

Poor wi-fi? Cook up a better signal with a baking tray

Credit: silicon.com

No matter how well prepared you are, there are times when you don't quite have to hand all the technology you really need.

Today, I find myself on a boat in just that situation and unable to get online with wi-fi or 2.5G for want of a better antenna. My mobile phone is showing one bar of 2.5G and one bar of wi-fi. My laptop isn't doing any better, and a data connection is proving impossible.

There are some buildings behind the trees on the other side of the river, and my scanner is showing a number of open access wi-fi opportunities. But all I have is what I carry, and that does not include a high-gain antenna. Time to improvise. A visit to the galley turns up a much-used baking tray. A few simple experiments later and I'm able to locate the direction of the 2.5G base station and the strongest wi-fi signal.

Source: 

Silicon.com

How To Play PS2 Games On PC

Wanna play PS2 games on your PC? Here is step by step tutorial with images that explains in details how to play PS2 games on your PC.
STEP 1
First create New Folder, you can name folder what ever you want .In this example it’s PS2 folder.
Go to the this LINK and download setup file for your PS2 emulator. Save it to PS2 folder.
STEP 2
Go to the LINK and download required documents to run your PS2 emulator. Save it to PS2 folder and extract it .

STEP 3
Click on PCSX2_0.9.6_setup application and follow installation process.


Go to the folder where you installed PCSX2_0.9.6_setup application , in my example it’s C:\Program Files\Pcsx2\
Copy Pcsx2 folder to PS2 folder.


Open Pcsx2 folder and click on pspcsx2 0.9.6 application .

STEP 4
After clicking pspcsx2 0.9.6 application will pop up window as below, press ok .

Click on Configure under Graphics.

And depending on your own computer choose the best settings.

STEP 5
Click on Configure under First Controller.

Select Pad 1 tab and click on each button to configure the controls for your emulator. After you’re done for every button press Apply.

STEP 6
Click On Set Bios Directory .

Select the Documents\PS2\Extras\bios and click OK

STEP 7
Click on Config and go to Speed Hacks

On the left panel choose the third option Use “x2 Cycle Rate” and on the right panel choose
first “INTC sync Hack” and second option “Enable IOP x2 Cycle Rate”
On the bottom select “Escape Hack – Use Esc key to fully exit PCSX2″.

You’re PS2 has been configured so let’s go download some PS2 games.

STEP 8
Let’s go back to the PS2 folder and Create new folder called Games

Go to the website where you’ll be able to download PS2 games. Try this website ps3iso.com . Download your games to folder Games and Extract it in Games folder.


STEP 8
Go back to the PS2 emulator . Click on Config -> Configure

Under CDVD Rom click on Linuz Iso CDVD 0.8.0

Click on Configure and Select ISO file, your downloaded PS2 games .


STEP 9
Click on File -> Run CD/DVD



After this you’ll be able to play PS2 games on your PC.
If the playstation2 emulator doesn’t work after you have carefully followed all the steps in this post , your problems may be due to your computer . Make sure your drivers are all up to date. You may need an upgraded graphics card as well. Do not expect the same performance from the computer emulation of the playstation 2, that of which you would get from the console. This tutorial is for education purposes only. I’m in no way affiliated with sony playstation 2 or any other copywrited material related to sony .

How to Detect Anonymous IP Addresses

As the fraudsters are now becoming more sophisticated in bypassing the Geo-location controls by using proxies (Anonymous IPs) to spoof their IP address, it has become very much necessary to come up with a means for detecting the proxies so that the authenticity of the users can be verified. Using a proxy (web proxy) is the simplest and easiest way to conceal the IP address of an Internet user and maintain the online privacy. However proxies are more widely used by online fraudsters to engage in cyber crimes since it is the easiest way to hide their actual Geo-location such as city/country through a spoofed IP address. Following are some of the examples where fraudsters use the proxies to hide their actual IP.

 

1. Credit Card Frauds

For example, say a Nigerian fraudster tries to purchase goods online with a stolen credit card for which the billing address is associated with New York. Most credit card merchants use Geo-location to block orders from countries like Nigeria and other high risk countries. So in order to bypass this restriction the credit card fraudster uses a proxy to spoof his IP address so that it appears to have come from New York. The IP address location appears to be legitimate since it is in the same city as the billing address. A proxy check would be needed to flag this order.

 

2. Bypass Website Country Restrictions

Some website services are restricted to users form only a selected list of countries. For example, a paid survey may be restricted only to countries like United States and Canada. So a user from say China may use a proxy so as to make his IP appear to have come from U.S. so that he can earn from participating in the paid survey.

 

Proxy Detection Services

 

So in order to stop such online frauds, Proxy Detection has become a critical component. Today most companies, credit card merchants and websites that deal with e-commerce transactions make use of Proxy Detection Services like MaxMind and FraudLabs to detect the usage of proxy or spoofed IP from users participating online.

Proxy Detection web services allow instant detection of anonymous IP addresses. Even though the use of proxy address by users is not a direct indication of fraudulent behaviour, it can often indicate the intention of the user to hide his or her real IP. In fact, some of the most used ISPs like AOL and MSN are forms of proxies and are used by both good and bad consumers.

 

How Proxy Detection Works?

Proxy detection services often rely on IP addresses to determine whether or not the IP is a proxy. Merchants can obtain the IP address of the users from the HTTP header on the order that comes into their website. This IP address is sent to the proxy detecting service in real time to confirm it’s authenticity.

The proxy detection services on the other hand compare this IP against a known list of flagged IPs that belong to proxy services. If the IP is not on the list then it is authenticated and the confirmation is sent back to the merchant. Otherwise it is reported to be a suspected proxy. These proxy detection services work continuously to grab a list or range of IPs that are commonly used for proxy services. With this it is possible to tell whether or not a given IP address is a proxy or spoofed IP.

 

How to Tell Whether a given IP is Real or a Proxy?

There are a few free sites that help you determine whether or not a given IP is a proxy. You can use free services like WhatisMyIPAddress to detect proxy IPs. Just enter the suspected IP in the field and click on “Lookup IP Address” button to check the IP address. If it is a suspected proxy then you will see the results something as follows.

So for all those who think that they can escape by using a spoofed IP, this post is the answer. I hope this information helps. Pass your comments.

What is CAPTCHA and How it Works?

CAPTCHA or Captcha (pronounced as cap-ch-uh) which stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” is a type of challenge-response test to ensure that the response is only generated by humans and not by a computer. In simple words, CAPTCHA is the word verification test that you will come across the end of a sign-up form while signing up for Gmail or Yahoo account. The following image shows the typical samples of CAPTCHA.

 

 

Almost every Internet user will have an experience of CAPTCHA in their daily Internet usage, but only a few are aware of what it is and why they are used. So in this post you will find a detailed information on how CAPTCHA works and why they are used.

 

What Purpose does CAPTCHA Exactly Serve?

CAPTCPA is mainly used to prevent automated software (bots) from performing actions on behalf of actual humans. For example while signing up for a new email account, you will come across a CAPTCHA at the end of the sign-up form so as to ensure that the form is filled out only by a legitimate human and not by any of the automated software or a computer bot. The main goal of CAPTCHA is to put forth a test which is simple and straight forward for any human to answer but for a computer, it is almost impossible to solve.

 

What is the Need to Create a Test that Can Tell Computers and Humans Apart?

For many the CAPTCHA may seem to be silly and annoying, but in fact it has the ability to protect systems from malicious attacks where people try to game the system. Attackers can make use of automated softwares to generate a huge quantity of requests thereby causing a high load on the target server which would degrade the quality of service of a given system, whether due to abuse or resource expenditure. This can affect millions of legitimate users and their requests. CAPTCHAs can be deployed to protect systems that are vulnerable to email spam, such as the services from Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.

 

Who Uses CAPTCHA?

CAPTCHAs are mainly used by websites that offer services like online polls and registration forms. For example, Web-based email services like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail offer free email accounts for their users. However upon each sign-up process, CAPTCHAs are used to prevent spammers from using a bot to generate hundreds of spam mail accounts.

 

Designing a CAPTCHA System

CAPTCHAs are designed on the fact that computers lack the ability that human beings have when it comes to processing visual data. It is more easily possible for humans to look at an image and pick out the patterns than a computer. This is because computers lack the real intelligence that humans have by default. CAPTCHAs are implemented by presenting users with an image which contains distorted or randomly stretched characters which only humans should be able to identify. Sometimes characters are striked out or presented with a noisy background to make it even more harder for computers to figure out the patterns.

Most, but not all, CAPTCHAs rely on a visual test. Some Websites implement a totally different CAPTCHA system to tell humans and computers apart. For example, a user is presented with 4 images in which 3 contains picture of animals and one contain a flower. The user is asked to select only those images which contain animals in them. This Turing test can easily be solved by any human, but almost impossible for a computer. 

 

Breaking the CAPTCHA

The challenge in breaking the CAPTCHA lies in real hard task of teaching a computer how to process information in a way similar to how humans think. Algorithms with artificial intelligence (AI) will have to be designed in order to make the computer think like humans when it comes to recognizing the patterns in images. However there is no universal algorithm that could pass through and break any CAPTCHA system and hence each CAPTCHA algorithm must have to be tackled individually. It might not work 100 percent of the time, but it can work often enough to be worthwhile to spammers.

How to Download YouTube Videos: Easiest Way

YouTube is undoubtedly the most preferred website to share and watch favorite videos. Most users prefer to watch the videos online, while a few others like me, would like to download them so that, they can be saved and retained. Well, if you are one among those few who would like to download the videos from YouTube, then here is a way to do that.

In fact, there are many ways to download videos from YouTube, but here in this post, I would like to share with you one of the easiest way to do that. This can be done as follows:

1. Download and install the latest version of Internet Download Manager.

Internet Download Manager is a great add-on for your web browser which increases the download speed by 5 times. It also helps you to pause/resume and schedule your downloads. It has got a great interface and is user friendly. It works with most of the browsers including IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.

2. After you complete the installation, just open your browser and start searching for your favorite video on YouTube. You will see the download button on top of the video using which you can download it instantly.

 3. Click on the “Download this Video” button to save the video onto your computer. The downloaded video will be in the flash video format (.flv).

4. You can use VLC Player to play the downloaded video or use SUPER to convert it to your desired format.

By using this trick, you can download almost all the buffering content on the Internet including videos from MySpace and Google. I hope you like this small post. Don’t forget to pass your comments. Enjoy