Computer Security & Technology

The Great Zero Challenge: A challenge to confirm whether or not a professional data recovery firm or any individual(s) or organization(s) can recover data from a hard drive that has been overwritten with zeros once. All they used is the Unix dd command using /dev/zero as input to overwrite the drive.

They are doing this because many people believe that in order to permanently delete data from a modern hard drive that multiple overwrites with random data, mechanical grinding, degaussing and incinerating must be used and even physically destroy them just to be extra safe.

As far as challenges go, this is one that many will pass, because no data recovery firm claims to be able to do zero recovery other than those with access to electron microscopy tools.

Many professional recovery firms for most part use tools that scan through the partition and file table area and perhaps even the entire disk to locate data that has either been marked erased or had references removed (for a full disk scan) and then restoring it. Perhaps they’ll also move the spindle from a dead drive into a new case to complete the operation, but I doubt there are many companies that will actually do electron force microscopy for you and even fewer that will do it at anything other than an astronomical fee.

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Google claims that its browser Google Chrome is able to isolate events that may crash a browser, isolated within those individual tabs. However, an issue exists with how Google Chrome handles undefined handlers in chrome.dll version 0.2.149.27 which is the latest version of the browser. A crash can result without any user interaction.

When a user visits a malicious link which has an undefined handler and followed by a special character, the browser crashes. You can also crash the browser by typing the characters :% in the Chrome URL bar. Google Chrome crashes with a message ” Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now?”

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Comparison of the different Internet Browsers and their users.

Click here for a bigger picture : http://www.flickr.com/photos/21904710@N00/2754981251/sizes/o/

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Defense-in-depth is fundamental to the design of a secure system. It stems from the idea that software can have flaws; people can make configuration mistakes; and hardware devices can fail. To compensate for events like these, we do not want to rely on a single mechanism to defend our resources. Instead, we deploy multiple layers of protection to account for the possibility that one of them may fail.

Let us apply this concept of defense in depth for securing your home network.

1. Router: You probably have a router(maybe wireless) connected to your cable or DSL modem. The router acts as a firewall protecting you from direct malicious attacks originating from the internet.

2. Anti-virus: Now, while the router acting as a firewall can help you against internet attacks, it cannot protect you against say an email based computer virus or a worm that got downloaded when you visited a malicious web site. An Anti-virus software with the latest signature updates, can protect you from such an attack.

3. Fully patched operating system: A virus probably needs access to some Windows service or a port. A fully patched operating system can add an additional layer of security.

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Protecting yourself is very challenging in the hostile environment of the internet. Imagine a global environment where an unscrupulous person from the other side of the planet can probe your computer for weaknesses, and exploit them to gain access to your most sensitive secrets.

They can even use your computer to store data like stolen credit-card numbers or child pornography, or to attack another innocent home user or business from your system.

Here’s Kevin Mitnick’s Top 10 list of steps you should take to protect your information and your computing resources from the bad boys and girls of cyberspace.

#1. Back up everything! You are not invulnerable. Catastrophic data loss can happen to you — one worm or Trojan is all it takes.

#2. Choose passwords that are reasonably hard to guess — don’t just append a few numbers to a no-brainer. Always change default passwords.

#3. Use an antivirus product like AVG or Norton, and set it to update daily.

#4. Update your OS religiously and be vigilant in applying all security patches released by the software manufacturer.

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