Tag Archives: Security

What’s in a Logo?

Troy Hunt is the world’s greatest lover and he’s got the t-shirt to prove it. That’s his way of making a serious point about those badges you see on many sites certifying that the site is safe and not infected … Continue reading

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Why Sites Have Bad Password Policies

Ars Technica has an excellent article on why many sites have security limiting password policies. I’ve written about this before on my old blog, but the Ars Technica article is particularly infuriating. So much so that this is my second … Continue reading

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Tips on Securing a WordPress Site

After the recent WordPress Administration Page attack, my hosting provider sent its customers a link to the WordPress page on securing WordPress sites. It’s an excellent resource if you’re running WordPress and some of the ideas are general enough that … Continue reading

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The Worst Password Tips

Mark Burnnet has an interesting post on The Worst Password Tips. His main thesis is that much—or even most—of the advice you hear about choosing passwords is no longer good advice. It used to be that passwords like p@r013 gave … Continue reading

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A Simple Explanation of One-Way Functions and Their Application to Passwords

John Graham-Cumming has a very nice 4-part series on one-way functions and their application to passwords. The explanation is completely non-mathematical and should be understandable by anyone. By the end of the third post, Graham-Cumming has explained how a simple … Continue reading

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Yet Another Reason to Encrypt Files in Dropbox

As I’ve written many many times, if you’re storing anything in Dropbox that you wouldn’t want to see published in the New York Times then you better encrypt it. Here’s yet another reason to do so.

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Hashing Passwords: An Object Lesson

Irreal regulars know that I periodically go off an a rant about the proper hashing of passwords and the dire consequences of failing to do it correctly. Not even I, however, could have imagined that Cisco would get it wrong. … Continue reading

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Analysis of the Gauss Malware

Over at Ars Technica Dan Goodin has a nice article analyzing the Gauss malware. Gauss appears to be related to Stuxnet and internal code signatures suggest that its provenance is the same1. Although Gauss was discovered last year, very little … Continue reading

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Secure Communications Apps

Over at A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering, Matthew Green has a useful review of some secure communications apps. He looks at Cryptocat Silent Circle RedPhone Wickr from the standpoint of code quality, encryption protocols, and ease of use. Interestingly, … Continue reading

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Reflections on Trusting Trust Redux

Way back in 1984, Ken Thompson wrote what I consider one of the greatest papers on computer security. I wrote about this in my The Greatest Hack of all Time post. If you haven’t read this paper your education is … Continue reading

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