Tag Archives: Security

A little while ago Ars Technica published an interesting article on how password crackers build their lists of trial passwords. The TL;DR is that they scan Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, news websites, song lyrics, IRC logs, Twitter, and other sources of … Continue reading →

Stavros Korokithakis has a nice post on choosing and securing passwords. Although his recommendations won’t come as news to Irreal readers, the post is still worthwhile because he explains the reasons behind his recommendations. Even more useful—especially for your Aunt … Continue reading →

Nick Selby tweets a pro tip: what to do if your site delivers the error message “Password contains invalid characters”. It’s funny, of course, but like most things we find funny, it contains the germ of truth. Now, can we … Continue reading →

I have written several times about the absolute necessity to properly hash passwords. The tricky part is that properly. It’s a bit subtle to get it right. Happily the folks over at Defuse Security have an excellent guide that Tells … Continue reading →

One of the recently released Snowden documents mentions the NSA’s success at weakening a 2006 NIST encryption standard and getting it accepted as an international ISO standard. While the standard isn’t named, it is widely assumed to be NIST Special … Continue reading →

If the NSA scandals are making you paranoid—and they should—one of the first steps you should take is to install email encryption software. Every time you read an article recommending the use of encryption software, the author inevitably remarks that … Continue reading →

As I’ve written many many many times before, if you’re using Dropbox to store sensitive data you absolutely must encrypt it before committing it to Dropbox. I use Dropbox solely to sync my 1Password keychain between devices so the file … Continue reading →

Mavituna Security has a nice post up on SQL Injection. They give a brief history of SQL injection and the three common mistakes that enable it. They have some astounding facts. Here’s a small sampling: In 2012, 97% of all … Continue reading →

The invaluable Troy Hunt has an excellent post on SQL injection attacks. We all know the basic ideas behind SQL injection but Hunt shows how attackers actually mount the attacks and why they work. It’s extraordinary that these attacks still … Continue reading →