InfoSecPodcast.com

Its that time of year. The Computer Security Institute is holding its 2007 Annual conference in Alexandria, VA. The dates are November 3rd to November 9th.  For those of you going you can get $100 of the full conference fee by using the code CSI2007.  Conference details and registration can be found at www.csiannual.com. It looks like a great agenda.

The good folks at CSI were kind enough to give me a press pass and 2 conference passes for zilch, as they seem to have done with several of my fellow security bloggers. Sorry, I have already given the 2 passes to a couple of security geeks who really wanted to go.

I hope to see you there.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: CSI 2007, security conference, Alexandria

Ok…not security related but I thought it was interesting. A German company is producing a backpack mounted Laser system apparently designed for cleaning thinks. Think of the uses…..

Is it me or are we just missing Harold Ramis wearing a white jumpsuit?

–Chris

Technorati Tags: laser, backpack

Over the last few days I have come across some rather useful (to me anyway) Windows apps. Feel free to post anything you have found recently as well.

PC Decrapifier
This little utility does a great job of removing software that comes bundled with a new PC like AOL, Dell URL Assistant, trial version of AV products.

MediaInfo
This one is for the media geeks out there. An open source project that helps you work with those media files that will not play. MediaInfo will identify the file and what codec or encoding used and provide a link to download the proper player and / or codec. This is a much safer way to download codecs than just pulling down a random pack off the web. There are so many trojans and other nasties out there pretending to be video codecs.

OpenProj
I love this one. An open source, cross-platform version of Microsoft Project. It even opens your existing .mpp project files.

Easy Duplicate Finder
The name pretty much describes it. If you need to free up some drive space this tool will find the duplicate files on your drive.

There is also a great list of replacements for Windows applications (like Notepad, Explorer, Paint) over at Lifehacker

–Chris

Technorati Tags: OpenProj, MediaInfo, Lifehacker, PC Decrapifier

I was poking around IronGeek’s site tonight and came across the Hacking Illustrated section. In it there are dozens of videos (in both avi and swf format) on subjects such as:

• Remote Password Auditing Using THC-Hydra
• Setting up a simple web proxy with CGIProxy
• Using Cain and the AirPcap USB adapter to crack WPA/WPA2
• Using SysInternals’ Process Monitor to Analyze Apps and Malware
• Using TrueCrypt With NTFS Alternate Data Streams
• SSH Dynamic Port Forwarding

Check it out….there is a wide variety of content here.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: hacking videos, IronGeek

In their never ending quest to evade our filters the spammers have now started using FDF attachments to spread their message. I’ll admit I had to look up what an FDF file was. It stands for Forms Document Format. This file format can be viewed using Acrobat reader the way a PDF file would.

Apparently the spammers must have not got the traction with PDF spam they had hoped. It is possible that the countermeasures are working well for PDF spam. I saw a post recently talking about a Spam Assassin solution that works with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to read PDF’s and score them as a normal text email.

There must still be money out there for the spammers to make.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: spam, fdf, pdf

My friend Mike Smith from MikeTechShow.com will be live on ComputerAmerica tonight at 10:00 PM. Mike has has been podcasting for over 2 years now. I think Mike has an excellent technology podcast where he covers material for both the novice and experienced PC user. Recently he started streaming live video of his podcast on Ustream.

Please stop by and check it out.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: MiketechShow, podcast, ustream, ComputerAmerica

There have been a couple of security vendor press releases recently talking about how they solve the issue of anonymous web proxies. These proxies are web servers that allow users to circumvent URL / content filtering systems to access sites that may be prohibited at work. There are a ton of proxies for MySpace, for example. The first release I saw was from 8e6 Technologies. Typical vendor marketing in action here talking about the dangers of proxies and how they solve the problem. There was a similar release from Aladdin Knowledge Systems. However this release bordered on sensationalism in my book. They claim to be able to stop 100% of anonymous proxies, even encrypted connections.

I don’t know how that is possible. Granted they are not trying to keep track of Proxy URL’s, but still. Even encrypted? How would their software know the difference between me logging into my bank with SSL and logging into a proxy with SSL. I am certainly no expert when it comes to proxies but I do know a bit about them.

Is it realistic to think that any security technology can block 100% of a security threat?

–Chris

Technorati Tags: 8e6, Aladdin Knowledge, anonymous proxies

A bad network card in a PC is blamed for a network outage that stranded more than 17,000 people at Los Angeles International Airport last weekend. Here is the story.

Ouch…

–Chris

Technorati Tags: LAX, NIC, network outage