Information is the lifeline of an organization. Think about what blood does to a human being. That is actually how the data and information that flow through our network is importance for our organization. Data and information are essential in our private lives as we monitor our homes using remote cameras. We want to know where our kids are, what they are doing, or where they are hanging out. We want to know where our vehicles are parked and the things happening around them. So, the information we are tracking must be secure because it can be compromised if it is not secure. And if it is compromised, it would not serve the purpose for which we need the data or information.

As you can see in today's world, so many devices are now classified as a computer. In the past, people think that the computer is the big bulky device you see on tables in many offices and organizations. You are right. Those devices are still considered computers. However, many other devices are now behaving and acting the same way those computers act. There are several devices that make up the Information Technology infrastructure for a business or an organization, even for individuals. In today's world, people store their files and their digital assets in the cloud, and some use data centers. Some companies manage data in the cloud. IT infrastructure could be your computers, your tablet, your PC, or even your smartphone. Then there are the servers which are used as storage facilities. You think about the various devices you use for communication as computing infrastructure. Also, information technology is what we used to carry out or perform job tasks...More

It is essential to understand what could go wrong in a system and to use mitigation action to protect the system from potential threats. In recent weeks you may have heard of an incident that explained why there is a need to take a defensive approach to protect your digital assets and infrastructures. The incident is that of Kaseya. Wired.com reported that the Kaseya was warned by the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure that there was a potential vulnerability in its system. In this case, Kaseya did not ignore the warning, but Kaseya did not move first to patch up the exposure...More

Kaspersky Lab conducted a study to determine what role employees play in a business's fight against cybercrime. The study used over 5,000 businesses around the globe and found out that (52%) of the businesses surveyed believed they are at risk from within and that their employees either intentionally put the businesses at risk or are put the businesses at risk through carelessness or lack of knowledge.

The question that comes to mind after reading that report is why employees are responsible for so many security breaches? Is it fair or proper to say that employees are lazy? Or that they do they just not care what risk they expose their employer?

What do you think of the result of that report?

Ransomware is a type of malware that creeps into a network, scans the network to identify targets, and then uses encryption to seize all or some parts of the network. Thus, the victim's information is held at a ransom. After encrypting the files, the attacker becomes the only one with the decrypting key. In a network that experienced a ransomware attack, the system owner will not be able to have access to the files, databases, or applications. The attacker then resumes operation by demanding ransom.

Ransomware works by spreading across a network with the aim of paralyzing the network. In a ransomware attack, the attacker uses asymmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption is a type of cryptography that uses a pair of keys to encrypt and decrypt a file. The pair of keys are a private and a public key, and the attacker uniquely generates both keys. The private key will be required to decrypt the files, and it may be nearly impossible to decrypt the files without the private key. Imagine a situation where someone creeps into your house, changes the locks on the doors, and sends you a message to pay some ransom before you get a key to unlock your home. Often, the attacker will contact the victim on how to pay a ransom to receive the private key with which to decrypt the files or seized assets.

Network configuration refers to the process of setting a network's controls, flow, and operation to support the network infrastructure of an organization or for an individual owner.

Components of a computing network include Internet/network protocols, software or application, firewall, routers, and others that perform related tasks. Most network configurations are designed to meet communication objectives. For example, the router is configured with the correct IP addresses and route settings to enable network connection and communication. Software is configured to monitor network-based activities and to detect intrusions to the network.

Network configuration can be manual or automated, but the primary importance is maintaining a network and making changes when required. Other aspects of network configuration include the ability to launch and relaunch devices, track and report data. An automated network manager can make the task of configuration management easier to perform...More

Web application frameworks provide a structure for building and developing applications through the provision of predefined classes, modules, and functions. The predefined classes and modules help to manage system hardware, software and to manage the streamlining of the application development process. The framework in this discussion includes application frameworks such as Angular.js or Django and content management system frameworks such as WordPress.

Most web application frameworks use the model view control design pattern abbreviated as MVC pattern to provide structure to application development. The MVC pattern helps to ensure separate concerns for data, user interface, and input control...More

The head section of web pages contains troves of information that can be used to ensure that the site is efficiently crawled or positioned for search engine optimization. There is information about the name of the author, the description of the page, and the language used on the web page.

Some sites have information about the Twitter account, the URL address where the images are hosted, about other relevant URL addresses that are connected to the website.

I have viewed some source files that contained information about the forms and the input section of the form. For sites that use Google Analytics, you will see information about the Google Analytics account. Other types of information you may find by investigating the source file may include the name and type of third-party framework. All these types of information that I mentioned can provide a lead for a malicious hacker. If your web page reveals some of the types of information I mentioned here, you may need to take remediated action to ensure that no vulnerable information is exposed...More

In the head section of web documents, there is meta-information used to describe the page, including helping search engines categorize the page. The meta-information that is of utmost importance to the discussion is the meta information for robots that refers to the robots.txt file.

The roborts.txt is a file that website owners use to inform web crawlers about their website, including information on what page to crawl and what page to ignore. According to Google, a good objective for a robots.txt file is to limit the number of requests made by robots to a website and reduce the server load. The importance of the robots.txt file to a pen tester is that the file is capable of providing information that can be used to identify vulnerabilities in the webserver. When such vulnerabilities are identified, the website owner can use the information to repair or patch up the vulnerability...More

Using a search engine discovery is another great option for gathering intelligence about a penetration testing target. A search engine query can be direct or indirect. The direct method is where the search engine can be sued to dig into the indexes and contents from caches. The indirect method is where sensitive information such as the design and configuration of the website could be assessed by searching about the target in forums or social media sites.

To proceed with trying to understand how to find out of there is a sensitive design and configuration vulnerability in an application or a website, try to use some of the search engines such as Chrome, Baidu, Bing, Duck Duck Go, and Punkspider.

I advise that you try many search engines so that you can compare the information from each of them. The number of search engines that you decide to try will be determined by the amount of time that you have for the project...More