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What’s the difference between a proxy and a VPN, and why is one security stronger than the other? Which security feature is stronger and why?
When it comes to online security, there are a number of different factors to consider. Two of the most popular methods for protecting your identity and data are proxy servers and VPNs. Both proxy servers and VPNs can help to mask your IP address and encrypt your traffic, but there are some key differences between the two. One major difference is that proxy servers only encrypt traffic going through the server, while VPNs encrypt all traffic from your device. This means that proxy servers are only effective if you’re using specific apps or visiting specific websites. VPNs, on the other hand, provide a more comprehensive solution as they can encrypt all traffic from your device, no matter where you’re accessing the internet from. Another key difference is that proxy servers tend to be less expensive than VPNs, but they also offer less privacy and security. When it comes to online security, proxy servers and VPNs both have their pros and cons. It’s important to weigh these factors carefully before decide which option is right for you.
VPN is virtual private network connects your incoming traffic and outgoing traffic to another network.
A proxy just relays your internet traffic. To websites you visit, your IP appears to be that of the proxy server.
A VPN is a type of proxy for which all the communication between your computer and the proxy server is encrypted. With a VPN, no one snooping your internet connection (e.g., your ISP) can see what websites you are visiting or what you are doing there. Security is much better.
VPN PROS:
What is a Proxy Server?
A proxy server is a computer system that performs as an intermediary in the request made by users. This type of server helps prevent an attacker from attacking the network and serves as a tool used to create a firewall.
The etymology of the word proxy means “a figure that can be used to represent the value of something”, this means that a proxy server represents or acts on behalf of the user. The fundamental purpose of proxy servers is to safeguard the direct connection of internet users and resources.
All requests made by the users from the internet go to the proxy server. The responses of the request return back to the proxy server for evaluation and then to the user. Proxy servers serve as an intermediary between the local network and the world wide web. Proxy servers are used for several reasons, such as to filter web content, to avert restrictions like parental blocks, to screen downloads and uploads, and to provide privacy when browsing the internet. The proxy server also prevents and protects the identity of the users.
There are different types of proxy servers used according to the different purposes of a request made by the clients and users. Proxies provide a valuable layer of security for your network and computers. It can be set up as web filters or firewalls which can protect computers from threats such as malware or ransomware. This extra security is also significant when linked with a secured gateway or attached security products. This way, network administrators can filter traffic according to its level of safety or traffic consumption of the network.
Proxies are not the same as VPNs. The only similarity between Proxies and VPNs is that they both connect you to the internet via an intermediary server. An online proxy forwards your traffic to its destination, while a VPN, on the other hand, encrypts all traffic between the VPN server and your device. Here are some more differences between proxies and VPNs:
VPNs help you encrypt your traffic while proxy servers don’t do that.
Proxies don’t protect you from government surveillance, ISP tracking, and hackers, which is why they are never used to handle sensitive information. VPN protects you from the same.
VPNs function on the operating system level while proxies work on the application level.
Proxies only reroute the traffic of a specific app or browser while VPNs reroute it through a VPN server.
Since VPNs need to encrypt your sensitive data, they can be slower than proxies.
Most proxy servers are free while most VPNs are paid. Don’t trust free VPN services as they can compromise your data.
A VPN connection is found to be more reliable than proxy server connections that can drop more frequently.
Why Is a VPN Considered to be More Secure Than a Proxy Server?
By now, you might have already noticed the reason since we have discussed it. The question is: Is a VPN better than a proxy? The simple answer is “Yes.”
How? A VPN provides privacy and security by routing your traffic through a secure VPN server and encrypting your traffic while a proxy, on the other hand, simply passes that traffic through a mediating server. It doesn’t necessarily offer any extra protection unless you use some extra features.
Proxy PROS:
However, when the motivation is to avoid geo-blocking, a proxy is more likely to be successful. Websites that need to do geo-blocking can normally tell that your IP is that of a VPN server. They don’t account for all the possible proxy servers.
But the problem here is they use datacenter IP (the server IP),
In the other hand, there are many types of proxy: datacenter proxy (worst one), Residential proxy, Mobile proxy 4G, and Mobile Proxy 5G.
If you use residential proxy or mobile proxy it might be much better and safer for many reasons:
Residential IP means that the Proxy use a regular ISP like comcast, Charter, Sprint, etc.
They don’t save logs.
The connection is not even direct, it goes to their server first and then to a a real device in another place.
Websites like facebook and shopping sites won’t block you, because you use residential or mobile proxy, so they won’t know that you use a proxy to hide your real IP, while VPN will be easily detected.
Now people would say that the problem with socks5 residential and mobile proxy is the cost, because most of websites sells it on very expensive price.
I use a good cheap and very high quality socks5 residential proxy costs only 3 USD a month per dedicated residential proxy, and the traffic is unlimited.
And it is very fast because it is dedicated and also virgin with fraud score 0.
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How to Protect Yourself from Man-in-the-Middle Attacks: Tips for Safer Communication
Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks are a type of cyberattack where a malicious actor intercepts communications between two parties in order to secretly access sensitive data or inject false information. While MITM attacks can be difficult to detect, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself.
For example, always verifying the identity of the person you’re communicating with and using encrypted communication tools whenever possible. Additionally, it’s important to be aware of common signs that an attack may be happening, such as unexpected messages or requests for sensitive information.
Man-in-the-middle attacks are one of the most common types of cyberattacks. MITM attacks can allow the attacker to gain access to sensitive information, such as passwords or financial data. Man-in-the-middle attacks can be very difficult to detect, but there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. First, be aware of the warning signs of a man-in-the-middle attack. These include:
– unexpected changes in login pages,
– unexpected requests for personal information,
– and unusual account activity.
If you see any of these warning signs, do not enter any sensitive information and contact the company or individual involved immediately. Second, use strong security measures, such as two-factor authentication, to protect your accounts. This will make it more difficult for attackers to gain access to your information. Finally, keep your software and operating system up to date with the latest security patches. This will help to close any potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.
Man-in-the-middle attacks can be devastating for individuals and businesses alike. By intercepting communications between two parties, attackers can gain access to sensitive information or even impersonate one of the parties involved. Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take to protect yourself from man-in-the-middle attacks.
First, avoid using public Wi-Fi networks for sensitive transactions. Attackers can easily set up their own rogue networks, and it can be difficult to tell the difference between a legitimate network and a malicious one. If you must use public Wi-Fi, be sure to use a VPN to encrypt your traffic.
Second, be cautious about the links you click on. When in doubt, hover over a link to see where it will actually take you. And always be suspicious of links that come from untrustworthy sources.
Finally, keep your software and security tools up to date. Man-in-the-middle attacks are constantly evolving, so it’s important to have the latest defenses in place.
By following these simple tips, you can help keep yourself safe from man-in-the-middle attacks.
Web browsers validate that both the certificate presented by the server is labeled correctly with the website’s domain name and that it has a chain of trust back to a well-known certificate authority. Under normal circumstances, this is enough to prevent anyone from impersonating the website.
As the question points out, you can thwart this by somehow acquiring the secret key for the existing website’s certificate.
You can also launch a MITM attack by getting one of the well-known certificate authorities to issue you a certificate with the domain name of the website you wish to impersonate. This can be (and has been) accomplished by social engineering and hacking into the registrars.
Outside of those two main methods, you would have to rely upon bugs in the SSL protocol or its implementations (of which a few have been discovered over the years).
For the web, we use a similar principle. A certificate is a specific document issued by a third party that validate the identity of a website. Your PC can ask the third party if the certificate is correct, and only if it is allow the traffic. This is what HTTPs does.
2- Simple…encryption!
Man In The Middle attacks are carried out because an attacker is in between both communicators (let’s say two clients or a client and a server). If he is able to see the communication in clear text, he can do a whole lot ranging from stealing login credentials to snooping on conversations. If encryption is implemented, the attacker would see gibberish and “un-understandable” text instead.
In terms of web communication, digital certificates would do a great job of encrypting communication stream (any website using HTTPS encrypts communication stream by default). For social media apps like whats app and Skype, it is the responsibility of the vendor to implement encryption.
MitM Attack Techniques and Types
ARP Cache Poisoning. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a low-level process that translates the machine address (MAC) to the IP address on the local network. …
DNS Cache Poisoning. …
Wi-Fi Eavesdropping. …
Session Hijacking.
IP Spoofing
DNS Spoofing
HTTPS Spoofing
SSL Hijacking
Email Hijacking
Wifi Eavesdropping
Cookie Stealing and so on.
Can MITM attacks steal credit card information?
When you enter your sensitive information on an HTTP website and press that “Send” button, all your private details travel in plain text from your web browser to the destination server.
A cyber-attacker can employ a man-in-the-middle attack and intercept your information. Since it’s not encrypted, the hacker can see everything: your name, physical address, card numbers, and anything else you entered.
To avoid MITM attacks, don’t share your info on HTTP sites. More on SSL certificates and man-in-the-middle attacks in this detailed medium article
How common are MITM attacks in public places with free WIFI?
Not common by people, but common by malware and other software that are designed to do that.
How do you ensure your RDP is secure from MITM attacks?
Make sure all of your workstations and remote servers are patched.
On highly sensitive devices, use two-factor authentication.
Reduce the number of remote account users with elevated privileges on the server.
Make a safe password.
Your credentials should not be saved in your RDP register.
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CyberSecurity 101 and Top 25 AWS Certified Security Specialty Questions and Answers Dumps
Almost 4.57 billion people were active internet users as of July 2020, encompassing 59 percent of the global population. 94% of enterprises use cloud. 77% of organizations worldwide have at least one application running on the cloud. This results in an exponential growth of cyber attacks. Therefore, CyberSecurity is one the biggest challenge to individuals and organizations worldwide: 158,727 cyber attacks per hour, 2,645 per minute and 44 every second of every day.
I- The AWS Certified Security – Specialty (SCS-C01) examination is intended for individuals who perform a security role. This exam validates an examinee’s ability to effectively demonstrate knowledge about securing the AWS platform.
It validates an examinee’s ability to demonstrate:
An understanding of specialized data classifications and AWS data protection mechanisms.
An understanding of data-encryption methods and AWS mechanisms to implement them.
An understanding of secure Internet protocols and AWS mechanisms to implement them.
A working knowledge of AWS security services and features of services to provide a secure production environment.
Competency gained from two or more years of production deployment experience using AWS security services and features.
The ability to make tradeoff decisions with regard to cost, security, and deployment complexity given a set of application requirements.
Question 2: A company has AWS workloads in multiple geographical locations. A Developer has created an Amazon Aurora database in the us-west-1 Region. The database is encrypted using a customer-managed AWS KMS key. Now the Developer wants to create the same encrypted database in the us-east-1 Region. Which approach should the Developer take to accomplish this task?
A) Create a snapshot of the database in the us-west-1 Region. Copy the snapshot to the us-east-1 Region and specify a KMS key in the us-east-1 Region. Restore the database from the copied snapshot.
B) Create an unencrypted snapshot of the database in the us-west-1 Region. Copy the snapshot to the useast-1 Region. Restore the database from the copied snapshot and enable encryption using the KMS key from the us-east-1 Region
C) Disable encryption on the database. Create a snapshot of the database in the us-west-1 Region. Copy the snapshot to the us-east-1 Region. Restore the database from the copied snapshot.
D) In the us-east-1 Region, choose to restore the latest automated backup of the database from the us-west1 Region. Enable encryption using a KMS key in the us-east-1 Region
ANSWER2:
A
Notes/Hint2:
If a user copies an encrypted snapshot, the copy of the snapshot must also be encrypted. If a user copies an encrypted snapshot across Regions, users cannot use the same AWS KMS encryption key for the copy as used for the source snapshot, because KMS keys are Region specific. Instead, users must specify a KMS key that is valid in the destination Region
Question 3: A corporate cloud security policy states that communication between the company’s VPC and KMS must travel entirely within the AWS network and not use public service endpoints. Which combination of the following actions MOST satisfies this requirement? (Select TWO.)
A) Add the aws:sourceVpce condition to the AWS KMS key policy referencing the company’s VPC endpoint ID.
B) Remove the VPC internet gateway from the VPC and add a virtual private gateway to the VPC to prevent direct, public internet connectivity.
C) Create a VPC endpoint for AWS KMS with private DNS enabled.
D) Use the KMS Import Key feature to securely transfer the AWS KMS key over a VPN. E) Add the following condition to the AWS KMS key policy: “aws:SourceIp”: “10.0.0.0/16“.
ANSWER3:
A and C
Notes/Hint3:
An IAM policy can deny access to AWS KMS except through your VPC endpoint with the following condition statement:
“Condition”: {
“StringNotEquals”: {
“aws:sourceVpce”: “vpce-0295a3caf8414c94a”
}
}
If you select the Enable Private DNS Name option, the standard AWS KMS DNS hostname resolves to your VPC endpoint.
Question 4: An application team is designing a solution with two applications. The security team wants the applications’ logs to be captured in two different places, because one of the applications produces logs with sensitive data. Which solution meets the requirement with the LEAST risk and effort?
A) Use Amazon CloudWatch Logs to capture all logs, write an AWS Lambda function that parses the log file, and move sensitive data to a different log.
B) Use Amazon CloudWatch Logs with two log groups, with one for each application, and use an AWS IAM policy to control access to the log groups, as required.
C) Aggregate logs into one file, then use Amazon CloudWatch Logs, and then design two CloudWatch metric filters to filter sensitive data from the logs.
D) Add logic to the application that saves sensitive data logs on the Amazon EC2 instances’ local storage, and write a batch script that logs into the Amazon EC2 instances and moves sensitive logs to a secure location.
In an n-tier architecture, each tier’s security group allows traffic from the security group sending it traffic only. The presentation tier opens traffic for HTTP and HTTPS from the internet. Since security groups are stateful, only inbound rules are required.
Question 6: A security engineer is working with a product team building a web application on AWS. The application uses Amazon S3 to host the static content, Amazon API Gateway to provide RESTful services, and Amazon DynamoDB as the backend data store. The users already exist in a directory that is exposed through a SAML identity provider. Which combination of the following actions should the engineer take to enable users to be authenticated into the web application and call APIs? (Select THREE).
A) Create a custom authorization service using AWS Lambda.
B) Configure a SAML identity provider in Amazon Cognito to map attributes to the Amazon Cognito user pool attributes.
C) Configure the SAML identity provider to add the Amazon Cognito user pool as a relying party.
D) Configure an Amazon Cognito identity pool to integrate with social login providers.
E) Update DynamoDB to store the user email addresses and passwords.
F) Update API Gateway to use an Amazon Cognito user pool authorizer.
ANSWER6:
B, C and F
Notes/Hint6:
When Amazon Cognito receives a SAML assertion, it needs to be able to map SAML attributes to user pool attributes. When configuring Amazon Cognito to receive SAML assertions from an identity provider, you need ensure that the identity provider is configured to have Amazon Cognito as a relying party.Amazon API Gateway will need to be able to understand the authorization being passed from Amazon Cognito, which is a configuration step.
Question 7: A company is hosting a web application on AWS and is using an Amazon S3 bucket to store images. Users should have the ability to read objects in the bucket. A security engineer has written the following bucket policy to grant public read access:
Attempts to read an object, however, receive the error: “Action does not apply to any resource(s) in statement.” What should the engineer do to fix the error?
A) Change the IAM permissions by applying PutBucketPolicy permissions.
B) Verify that the policy has the same name as the bucket name. If not, make it the same.
C) Change the resource section to “arn:aws:s3:::appbucket/*”.
D) Add an s3:ListBucket action.
ANSWER7:
C
Notes/Hint7:
The resource section should match with the type of operation. Change the ARN to include /* at the end, as it is an object operation.
Question 8: A company decides to place database hosts in its own VPC, and to set up VPC peering to different VPCs containing the application and web tiers. The application servers are unable to connect to the database. Which network troubleshooting steps should be taken to resolve the issue? (Select TWO.)
A) Check to see if the application servers are in a private subnet or public subnet.
B) Check the route tables for the application server subnets for routes to the VPC peering connection.
C) Check the NACLs for the database subnets for rules that allow traffic from the internet.
D) Check the database security groups for rules that allow traffic from the application servers.
E) Check to see if the database VPC has an internet gateway.
Question 9: A company is building a data lake on Amazon S3. The data consists of millions of small files containing sensitive information. The security team has the following requirements for the architecture:
Data must be encrypted in transit.
Data must be encrypted at rest.
The bucket must be private, but if the bucket is accidentally made public, the data must remain confidential.
Which combination of steps would meet the requirements? (Select TWO.)
A) Enable AES-256 encryption using server-side encryption with Amazon S3-managed encryption keys (SSE-S3) on the S3 bucket.
B) Enable default encryption with server-side encryption with AWS KMS-managed keys (SSE-KMS) on the S3 bucket.
C) Add a bucket policy that includes a deny if a PutObject request does not include aws:SecureTransport.
D) Add a bucket policy with aws:SourceIp to allow uploads and downloads from the corporate intranet only.
E) Enable Amazon Macie to monitor and act on changes to the data lake’s S3 bucket.
Question 10: A security engineer must ensure that all API calls are collected across all company accounts, and that they are preserved online and are instantly available for analysis for 90 days. For compliance reasons, this data must be restorable for 7 years. Which steps must be taken to meet the retention needs in a scalable, cost-effective way?
A) Enable AWS CloudTrail logging across all accounts to a centralized Amazon S3 bucket with versioning enabled. Set a lifecycle policy to move the data to Amazon Glacier daily, and expire the data after 90 days.
B) Enable AWS CloudTrail logging across all accounts to S3 buckets. Set a lifecycle policy to expire the data in each bucket after 7 years.
C) Enable AWS CloudTrail logging across all accounts to Amazon Glacier. Set a lifecycle policy to expire the data after 7 years.
D) Enable AWS CloudTrail logging across all accounts to a centralized Amazon S3 bucket. Set a lifecycle policy to move the data to Amazon Glacier after 90 days, and expire the data after 7 years.
ANSWER10:
D
Notes/Hint10:
Meets all requirements and is cost effective by using lifecycle policies to transition to Amazon Glacier.
Question 11: A security engineer has been informed that a user’s access key has been found on GitHub. The engineer must ensure that this access key cannot continue to be used, and must assess whether the access key was used to perform any unauthorized activities. Which steps must be taken to perform these tasks?
A) Review the user’s IAM permissions and delete any unrecognized or unauthorized resources.
B) Delete the user, review Amazon CloudWatch Logs in all regions, and report the abuse.
C) Delete or rotate the user’s key, review the AWS CloudTrail logs in all regions, and delete any unrecognized or unauthorized resources.
D) Instruct the user to remove the key from the GitHub submission, rotate keys, and re-deploy any instances that were launched.
Question 12: You have a CloudFront distribution configured with the following path patterns: When users request objects that start with ‘static2/’, they are receiving 404 response codes. What might be the problem?
A) CloudFront distributions cannot have multiple different origin types
B) The ‘*’ path pattern must appear after the ‘static2/*’ path
C) CloudFront distributions cannot have origins in different AWS regions
D) The ‘*’ path pattern must appear before ‘static1/*’ path
ANSWER12:
C
Notes/Hint12:
CloudFront distributions cannot have origins in different AWS regions
Question 13: An application running on EC2 instances processes sensitive information stored on Amazon S3. The information is accessed over the Internet. The security team is concerned that the Internet connectivity to Amazon S3 is a security risk. Which solution will resolve the security concern?
A) Access the data through an Internet Gateway.”,
B) Access the data through a VPN connection.”,
C) Access the data through a NAT Gateway.”,
D) Access the data through a VPC endpoint for Amazon S3″,
ANSWER13:
D
Notes/Hint13:
VPC endpoints for Amazon S3 provide secure connections to S3 buckets that do not require a gateway or NAT instances. NAT Gateways and Internet Gateways still route traffic over the Internet to the public endpoint for Amazon S3. There is no way to connect to Amazon S3 via VPN.
Question 14: An organization is building an Amazon Redshift cluster in their shared services VPC. The cluster will host sensitive data. How can the organization control which networks can access the cluster?
A) Run the cluster in a different VPC and connect through VPC peering
B) Create a database user inside the Amazon Redshift cluster only for users on the network
C) Define a cluster security group for the cluster that allows access from the allowed networks
D) Only allow access to networks that connect with the shared services network via VPN
ANSWER14:
C
Notes/Hint14:
A security group can grant access to traffic from the allowed networks via the CIDR range for each network. VPC peering and VPN are connectivity services and cannot control traffic for security. Amazon Redshift user accounts address authentication and authorization at the user level and have no control over network traffic
Question 15: From a security perspective, what is a principal?
A) An identity
B) An anonymous user
C) An authenticated user
D) A resource
ANSWER15:
B and C
Notes/Hint15:
An anonymous user falls under the definition of a principal. A principal can be an anonymous user acting on a system. An authenticated user falls under the definition of a principal. A principal can be an authenticated user acting on a system
Question 16: A company is storing an access key (access key ID and secret access key) in a text file on a custom AMI. The company uses the access key to access DynamoDB tables from instances created from the AMI. The security team has mandated a more secure solution. Which solution will meet the security team’s mandate?
A) Put the access key in an S3 bucket, and retrieve the access key on boot from the instance.
B) Pass the access key to the instances through instance user data.
C) Obtain the access key from a key server launched in a private subnet
D) Create an IAM role with permissions to access the table, and launch all instances with the new role
ANSWER16:
D
Notes/Hint16:
IAM roles for EC2 instances allow applications running on the instance to access AWS resources without having to create and store any access keys. Any solution involving the creation of an access key then introduces the complexity of managing that secret
Question 17: While signing in REST/ Query requests, for additional security, you should transmit your requests using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) by using ____.”,
Question 18: You are using AWS Envelope Encryption for encrypting all sensitive data. Which of the followings is True with regards to Envelope Encryption?
A) Data is encrypted be encrypting Data key which is further encrypted using encrypted Master Key.
B) Data is encrypted by plaintext Data key which is further encrypted using encrypted Master Key.
C) Data is encrypted by encrypted Data key which is further encrypted using plaintext Master Key.
D) Data is encrypted by plaintext Data key which is further encrypted using plaintext Master Key.”,
ANSWER18:
D
Notes/Hint18:
With Envelope Encryption, unencrypted data is encrypted using plaintext Data key. This Data is further encrypted using plaintext Master key. This plaintext Master key is securely stored in AWS KMS & known as Customer Master Keys.
Question 19: Your company has developed a web application and is hosting it in an Amazon S3 bucket configured for static website hosting. The users can log in to this app using their Google/Facebook login accounts. The application is using the AWS SDK for JavaScript in the browser to access data stored in an Amazon DynamoDB table. How can you ensure that API keys for access to your data in DynamoDB are kept secure?
A) Create an Amazon S3 role in IAM with access to the specific DynamoDB tables, and assign it to the bucket hosting your website
B) Configure S3 bucket tags with your AWS access keys for your bucket hosting your website so that the application can query them for access.
C) Configure a web identity federation role within IAM to enable access to the correct DynamoDB resources and retrieve temporary credentials
D) Store AWS keys in global variables within your application and configure the application to use these credentials when making requests.
ANSWER2:
C
Notes/Hint19:
With web identity federation, you don’t need to create custom sign-in code or manage your own user identities. Instead, users of your app can sign in using a well-known identity provider (IdP) —such as Login with Amazon, Facebook, Google, or any other OpenID Connect (OIDC)-compatible IdP, receive an authentication token, and then exchange that token for temporary security credentials in AWS that map to an IAM role with permissions to use the resources in your AWS account. Using an IdP helps you keep your AWS account secure, because you don’t have to embed and distribute long-term security credentials with your application. Option A is invalid since Roles cannot be assigned to S3 buckets Options B and D are invalid since the AWS Access keys should not be used
Question 20: Your application currently makes use of AWS Cognito for managing user identities. You want to analyze the information that is stored in AWS Cognito for your application. Which of the following features of AWS Cognito should you use for this purpose?
A) Cognito Data
B) Cognito Events
C) Cognito Streams
D) Cognito Callbacks
ANSWER20:
C
Notes/Hint20:
Amazon Cognito Streams gives developers control and insight into their data stored in Amazon Cognito. Developers can now configure a Kinesis stream to receive events as data is updated and synchronized. Amazon Cognito can push each dataset change to a Kinesis stream you own in real time. All other options are invalid since you should use Cognito Streams
Question 22:Which of the following statements are correct? (Choose 2)
A) The Customer Master Key is used to encrypt and decrypt the Envelope Key or Data Key
B) The Envelope Key or Data Key is used to encrypt and decrypt plain text files.
C) The envelope Key or Data Key is used to encrypt and decrypt the Customer Master Key.
D) The Customer MasterKey is used to encrypt and decrypt plain text files.
ANSWER22:
A and B
Notes/Hint22:
AWS Key Management Service Concepts: The Customer Master Key is used to encrypt and decrypt the Envelope Key or Data Key, The Envelope Key or Data Key is used to encrypt and decrypt plain text files.
Question 23:Which of the following is an encrypted key used by KMS to encrypt your data
A) Customer Managed Key
B) Encryption Key
C) Envelope Key
D) Customer Master Key
ANSWER23:
C
Notes/Hint23:
Your Data key also known as the Enveloppe key is encrypted using the master key. This approach is known as Envelope encryption. Envelope encryption is the practice of encrypting plaintext data with a data key, and then encrypting the data key under another key
Question 26: A Security engineer must develop an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy for a company’s organization in AWS Organizations. The company needs to give developers autonomy to develop and test their applications on AWS, but the company also needs to implement security guardrails to help protect itself. The company creates and distributes applications with different levels of data classification and types. The solution must maximize scalability.
Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to meet these requirements? (Choose three.)
A) Create an SCP to restrict access to highly privileged or unauthorized actions to specific AM principals. Assign the SCP to the appropriate AWS accounts.
B) Create an IAM permissions boundary to allow access to specific actions and IAM principals. Assign the IAM permissions boundary to all AM principals within the organization
C) Create a delegated IAM role that has capabilities to create other IAM roles. Use the delegated IAM role to provision IAM principals by following the principle of least privilege.
D) Create OUs based on data classification and type. Add the AWS accounts to the appropriate OU. Provide developers access to the AWS accounts based on business need.
E) Create IAM groups based on data classification and type. Add only the required developers’ IAM role to the IAM groups within each AWS account.
F) Create IAM policies based on data classification and type. Add the minimum required IAM policies to the developers’ IAM role within each AWS account.
Answer: A B and C
Notes:
If you look at the choices, there are three related to SCP, which controls services, and three related to IAM and permissions boundaries.
Limiting services doesn’t help with data classification – using boundaries, policies and roles give you the scalability and can solve the problem.
Question 27: A Network Load Balancer (NLB) target instance is not entering the InService state. A security engineer determines that health checks are failing,
Which factors could cause the health check failures? (Choose three.)
A) The target instance’s security group does not allow traffic from the NLB.
B) The target instance’s security group is not attached to the NLB
C) The NLB’s security group is not attached to the target instance.
D) The target instance’s subnet network ACL does not allow traffic from the NLB.
E) The target instance’s security group is not using IP addresses to allow traffic from the NLB.
F) The target network ACL is not attached to the NLB.
B D and E I believe. You have a one to many relationship based on L3 NLB, and it’s unreachable – well architected would put them in same security group, the traffic would have to be allowed on the port that’s sending and receiving. The host points back to NLB as default gateway. Don’t think other ones fit. Plus BDE is a preferred combo for their tests. I remember it with the acronym big dice envy.
Cryptography: Practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries.
Hacking: catch-all term for any type of misuse of a computer to break the security of another computing system to steal data, corrupt systems or files, commandeer the environment or disrupt data-related activities in any way.
Cyberwarfare: Uuse of technology to attack a nation, causing comparable harm to actual warfare. There is significant debate among experts regarding the definition of cyberwarfare, and even if such a thing exists
Penetration testing: Colloquially known as a pen test, pentest or ethical hacking, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system. Not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment.
Malwares: Any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network. A wide variety of malware types exist, including computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, rogue software, and scareware.
Malware Analysis Tool: Any .Run Malware hunting with live access to the heart of an incident https://any.run/Malware Analysis Total: VirusTotal – Analyze suspicious files and URLs to detect types of malware, automatically share them with the security community https://www.virustotal.com/gui/
VPN: A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. Applications running across a VPN may therefore benefit from the functionality, security, and management of the private network. Encryption is a common, although not an inherent, part of a VPN connection.
Antivirus: Antivirus software, or anti-virus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware.
DDos: A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is one of the most powerful weapons on the internet. When you hear about a website being “brought down by hackers,” it generally means it has become a victim of a DDoS attack.
Fraud Detection: Set of activities undertaken to prevent money or property from being obtained through false pretenses. Fraud detection is applied to many industries such as banking or insurance. In banking, fraud may include forging checks or using stolen credit cards.
Spywares: Spyware describes software with malicious behavior that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send such information to another entity in a way that harms the user; for example by violating their privacy or endangering their device’s security.
Spoofing: Disguising a communication from an unknown source as being from a known, trusted source
Pharming: Malicious websites that look legitimate and are used to gather usernames and passwords.
Catfishing: Creating a fake profile for fraudulent or deceptive purposes
SSL: Stands for secure sockets layer. Protocol for web browsers and servers that allows for the authentication, encryption and decryption of data sent over the Internet.
Phishing emails: Disguised as trustworthy entity to lure someone into providing sensitive information
Intrusion detection System: Device or software application that monitors a network or systems for malicious activity or policy violations. Any intrusion activity or violation is typically reported either to an administrator or collected centrally using a security information and event management system.
Encryption: Encryption is the method by which information is converted into secret code that hides the information’s true meaning. The science of encrypting and decrypting information is called cryptography. In computing, unencrypted data is also known as plaintext, and encrypted data is called ciphertext.
MFA: Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is defined as a security mechanism that requires an individual to provide two or more credentials in order to authenticate their identity. In IT, these credentials take the form of passwords, hardware tokens, numerical codes, biometrics, time, and location.
Vulnerabilities: A vulnerability is a hole or a weakness in the application, which can be a design flaw or an implementation bug, that allows an attacker to cause harm to the stakeholders of an application. Stakeholders include the application owner, application users, and other entities that rely on the application.
SQL injections: SQL injection is a code injection technique, used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution.
Cyber attacks: In computers and computer networks an attack is any attempt to expose, alter, disable, destroy, steal or gain unauthorized access to or make unauthorized use of an asset.
Confidentiality: Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits access or places restrictions on certain types of information.
Secure channel: In cryptography, a secure channel is a way of transferring data that is resistant to overhearing and tampering. A confidential channel is a way of transferring data that is resistant to overhearing, but not necessarily resistant to tampering.
Tunneling: Communications protocol that allows for the movement of data from one network to another. It involves allowing private network communications to be sent across a public network through a process called encapsulation.
SSH: Secure Shell is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Typical applications include remote command-line, login, and remote command execution, but any network service can be secured with SSH.
SSL Certificates: SSL certificates are what enable websites to move from HTTP to HTTPS, which is more secure. An SSL certificate is a data file hosted in a website’s origin server. SSL certificates make SSL/TLS encryption possible, and they contain the website’s public key and the website’s identity, along with related information.
Phishing: Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords.
Cybercrime: Cybercrime, or computer-oriented crime, is a crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Cybercrime may threaten a person, company or a nation’s security and financial health.
Backdoor: A backdoor is a means to access a computer system or encrypted data that bypasses the system’s customary security mechanisms. A developer may create a backdoor so that an application or operating system can be accessed for troubleshooting or other purposes.
Salt and Hash: A cryptographic salt is made up of random bits added to each password instance before its hashing. Salts create unique passwords even in the instance of two users choosing the same passwords. Salts help us mitigate rainbow table attacks by forcing attackers to re-compute them using the salts.
Password: A password, sometimes called a passcode,[1] is a memorized secret, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm the identity of a user.[2] Using the terminology of the NIST Digital Identity Guidelines,[3] the secret is memorized by a party called the claimant while the party verifying the identity of the claimant is called the verifier. When the claimant successfully demonstrates knowledge of the password to the verifier through an established authentication protocol,[4] the verifier is able to infer the claimant’s identity.
Fingerprint: A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfaces such as glass or metal.
Facial recognition: Facial recognition works better for a person as compared to fingerprint detection. It releases the person from the hassle of moving their thumb or index finger to a particular place on their mobile phone. A user would just have to bring their phone in level with their eye.
Asymmetric key ciphers versus symmetric key ciphers (Difference between symmetric and Asymmetric encryption): The basic difference between these two types of encryption is that symmetric encryption uses one key for both encryption and decryption, and the asymmetric encryption uses public key for encryption and a private key for decryption.
Decryption: The conversion of encrypted data into its original form is called Decryption. It is generally a reverse process of encryption. It decodes the encrypted information so that an authorized user can only decrypt the data because decryption requires a secret key or password.
Algorithms: Finite sequence of well-defined, computer-implementable instructions, typically to solve a class of problems or to perform a computation.
Authentication: is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicating a person or thing’s identity, authentication is the process of verifying that identity. It might involve validating personal identity documents, verifying the authenticity of a website with a digital certificate,[1] determining the age of an artifact by carbon dating, or ensuring that a product or document is not counterfeit.
DFIR: Digital forensic and incident response: Multidisciplinary profession that focuses on identifying, investigating, and remediating computer network exploitation. This can take varied forms and involves a wide variety of skills, kinds of attackers, an kinds of targets. We’ll discuss those more below.
OTP: One Time Password: A one-time password, also known as one-time PIN or dynamic password, is a password that is valid for only one login session or transaction, on a computer system or other digital device
Proxy Server and Reverse Proxy Server:A proxyserver is a go‑between or intermediary server that forwards requests for content from multiple clients to different servers across the Internet. A reverseproxyserver is a type of proxyserver that typically sits behind the firewall in a private network and directs client requests to the appropriate backend server.
Offensive * Exploit Database – The Exploit Database is maintained by Offensive Security, an information security training company that provides various Information Security Certifications as well as high end penetration testing services. https://www.exploit-db.com/
Dark Reading Cyber security’s comprehensive news site is now an online community for security professionals. https://www.darkreading.com/
The Hacker News – The Hacker News (THN) is a leading, trusted, widely-acknowledged dedicated cybersecurity news platform, attracting over 8 million monthly readers including IT professionals, researchers, hackers, technologists, and enthusiasts. https://thehackernews.com
SecuriTeam – A free and independent source of vulnerability information. https://securiteam.com/
SANS NewsBites – “A semiweekly high-level executive summary of the most important news articles that have been published on computer security during the last week. Each news item is very briefly summarized and includes a reference on the web for detailed information, if possible.” Published for free on Tuesdays and Fridays. https://www.sans.org/newsletters/newsbites
SimplyCyber Weekly vids, Simply Cyber brings Information security related content to help IT or Information Security professionals take their career further, faster. Current cyber security industry topics and techniques are explored to promote a career in the field. Topics cover offense, defense, governance, risk, compliance, privacy, education, certification, conferences; all with the intent of professional development. https://www.youtube.com/c/GeraldAuger
HackADay – Hackaday serves up Fresh Hacks Every Day from around the Internet. https://hackaday.com/
TheCyberMentor – Heath Adams uploads regular videos related to various facets of cyber security, from bug bounty hunts to specific pentest methodologies like API, buffer overflows, networking. https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCyberMentor/
Grant Collins – Grant uploads videos regarding breaking into cybersecurity, various cybersecurity projects, building up a home lab amongst many others. Also has a companion discord channel and a resource website. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTLUi3oc1-a7dS-2-YgEKmA/featured
Risky Business Published weekly, the Risky Business podcast features news and in-depth commentary from security industry luminaries. Hosted by award-winning journalist Patrick Gray, Risky Business has become a must-listen digest for information security professionals. https://risky.biz/
Pauls Security Weekly This show features interviews with folks in the security community; technical segments, which are just that, very technical; and security news, which is an open discussion forum for the hosts to express their opinions about the latest security headlines, breaches, new exploits and vulnerabilities, “not” politics, “cyber” policies and more. https://securityweekly.com/category-shows/paul-security-weekly/
Security Now – Steve Gibson, the man who coined the term spyware and created the first anti-spyware program, creator of Spinrite and ShieldsUP, discusses the hot topics in security today with Leo Laporte. https://twit.tv/shows/security-now
Daily Information Security Podcast (“StormCast”) Stormcasts are daily 5-10 minute information security threat updates. The podcast is produced each work day, and typically released late in the day to be ready for your morning commute. https://isc.sans.edu/podcast.html
ShadowTalk Threat Intelligence Podcast by Digital Shadow_. The weekly podcast highlights key findings of primary-source research our Intelligence Team is conducting, along with guest speakers discussing the latest threat actors, campaigns, security events and industry news. https://resources.digitalshadows.com/threat-intelligence-podcast-shadowtalk
Don’t Panic – The Unit 42 Podcast Don’t Panic! is the official podcast from Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks. We find the big issues that are frustrating cyber security practitioners and help simplify them so they don’t need to panic. https://unit42.libsyn.com/
Recorded Future Recorded Future takes you inside the world of cyber threat intelligence. We’re sharing stories from the trenches and the operations floor as well as giving you the skinny on established and emerging adversaries. We also talk current events, technical tradecraft, and offer up insights on the big picture issues in our industry. https://www.recordedfuture.com/resources/podcast/
The Cybrary Podcast Listen in to the Cybrary Podcast where we discuss a range topics from DevSecOps and Ransomware attacks to diversity and how to retain of talent. Entrepreneurs at all stages of their startup companies join us to share their stories and experience, including how to get funding, hiring the best talent, driving sales, and choosing where to base your business. https://www.cybrary.it/info/cybrary-podcast/
Cyber Life The Cyber Life podcast is for cyber security (InfoSec) professionals, people trying to break into the industry, or business owners looking to learn how to secure their data. We will talk about many things, like how to get jobs, cover breakdowns of hot topics, and have special guest interviews with the men and women “in the trenches” of the industry. https://redcircle.com/shows/cyber-life
Career Notes Cybersecurity professionals share their personal career journeys and offer tips and advice in this brief, weekly podcast from The CyberWire. https://www.thecyberwire.com/podcasts/career-notes
Down the Security Rabbitholehttp://podcast.wh1t3rabbit.net/ Down the Security Rabbithole is hosted by Rafal Los and James Jardine who discuss, by means of interviewing or news analysis, everything about Cybersecurity which includes Cybercrime, Cyber Law, Cyber Risk, Enterprise Risk & Security and many more. If you want to hear issues that are relevant to your organization, subscribe and tune-in to this podcast.
The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Showhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-privacy-security-osint-show/id1165843330 The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show, hosted by Michael Bazzell, is your weekly dose of digital security, privacy, and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) opinion and news. This podcast will help listeners learn some ideas on how to stay secure from cyber-attacks and help them become “digitally invisible”.
Defensive Security Podcasthttps://defensivesecurity.org/ Hosted by Andrew Kalat (@lerg) and Jerry Bell (@maliciouslink), the Defensive Security Podcasts aims to look/discuss the latest security news happening around the world and pick out the lessons that can be applied to keeping organizations secured. As of today, they have more than 200 episodes and some of the topics discussed include Forensics, Penetration Testing, Incident Response, Malware Analysis, Vulnerabilities and many more.
Darknet Diarieshttps://darknetdiaries.com/episode/ Darknet Diaries Podcast is hosted and produced by Jack Rhysider that discuss topics related to information security. It also features some true stories from hackers who attacked or have been attacked. If you’re a fan of the show, you might consider buying some of their souvenirs here (https://shop.darknetdiaries.com/).
Brakeing Down Securityhttps://www.brakeingsecurity.com/ Brakeing Down Security started in 2014 and is hosted by Bryan Brake, Brian Boettcher, and Amanda Berlin. This podcast discusses everything about the Cybersecurity world, Compliance, Privacy, and Regulatory issues that arise in today’s organizations. The hosts will teach concepts that Information Security Professionals need to know and discuss topics that will refresh the memories of seasoned veterans.
Open Source Security Podcasthttps://www.opensourcesecuritypodcast.com/ Open Source Security Podcast is a podcast that discusses security with an open-source slant. The show started in 2016 and is hosted by Josh Bressers and Kurt Siefried. As of this writing, they now posted around 190+ podcasts
Cyber Motherboardhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cyber/id1441708044 Ben Makuch is the host of the podcast CYBER and weekly talks to Motherboard reporters Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Joseph Cox. They tackle topics about famous hackers and researchers about the biggest news in cybersecurity. The Cyber- stuff gets complicated really fast, but Motherboard spends its time fixed in the infosec world so we don’t have to.
Hak5https://shop.hak5.org/pages/videos Hak5 is a brand that is created by a group of security professionals, hardcore gamers and “IT ninjas”. Their podcast, which is mostly uploaded on YouTube discusses everything from open-source software to penetration testing and network infrastructure. Their channel currently has 590,000 subscribers and is one of the most viewed shows when you want to learn something about security networks.
Threatpost Podcast Serieshttps://threatpost.com/category/podcasts/ Threatpost is an independent news site which is a leading source of information about IT and business security for hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. With an award-winning editorial team produces unique and high-impact content including security news, videos, feature reports and more, with their global editorial activities are driven by industry-leading journalist Tom Spring, editor-in-chief.
CISO-Security Vendor Relationship Podcasthttps://cisoseries.com Co-hosted by the creator of the CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Series, David Spark, and Mike Johnson, in 30 minutes, this weekly program challenges the co-hosts, guests, and listeners to critique, share true stories. This podcast, The CISO/Security Vendor Relationship, targets to enlighten and educate listeners on improving security buyer and seller relationships.
Getting Into Infosec Podcast Stories of how Infosec and Cybersecurity pros got jobs in the field so you can be inspired, motivated, and educated on your journey. – https://gettingintoinfosec.com/
Unsupervised Learning Weekly podcasts and biweekly newsletters as a curated summary intersection of security, technology, and humans, or a standalone idea to provoke thought, by Daniel Miessler. https://danielmiessler.com/podcast/
SECURITY BOOKS:
Building Secure & Reliable Systems Best Practices for Designing, Implementing and Maintaining Systems (O’Reilly) By Heather Adkins, Betsy Beyer, Paul Blankinship, Ana Oprea, Piotr Lewandowski, Adam Stubblefield https://landing.google.com/sre/books/
Security Engineering By Ross Anderson – A guide to building dependable distributed systems. (and Ross Anderson is brilliant //OP editorial) https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html
The Cyber Skill Gap By Vagner Nunes – The Cyber Skill Gap: How To Become A Highly Paid And Sought After Information Security Specialist! (Use COUPON CODE: W4VSPTW8G7 to make it free) https://payhip.com/b/PdkW
Texas A&M Security Courses The web-based courses are designed to ensure that the privacy, reliability, and integrity of the information systems that power the global economy remain intact and secure. The web-based courses are offered through three discipline-specific tracks: general, non-technical computer users; technical IT professionals; and business managers and professionals. https://teex.org/program/dhs-cybersecurity/
AWS Cloud Certified Get skills in AWS to be more marketable. Training is quality and free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hLmDS179YE Have to create an AWS account, Exam is $100.
“Using ATT&CK for Cyber Threat Intelligence Training” – 4 hour training The goal of this training is for students to understand the following: at: https://attack.mitre.org/resources/training/cti/
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Workshop Training – The Chief Information Security Office (CISO) workshop contains a collection of security learnings, principles, and recommendations for modernizing security in your organization. This training workshop is a combination of experiences from Microsoft security teams and learnings from customers. – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security/ciso-workshop/ciso-workshop
CLARK Center Plan C – Free cybersecurity curriculum that is primarily video-based or provide online assignments that can be easily integrated into a virtual learning environments https://clark.center/home
Hack.me is a FREE, community based project powered by eLearnSecurity. The community can build, host and share vulnerable web application code for educational and research purposes. It aims to be the largest collection of “runnable” vulnerable web applications, code samples and CMS’s online. The platform is available without any restriction to any party interested in Web Application Security. https://hack.me/
M.E. Kabay Free industry courses and course materials for students, teachers and others are welcome to use for free courses and lectures. http://www.mekabay.com/courses/index.htm
Enroll Now Free: PCAP Programming Essentials in Pythonhttps://www.netacad.com/courses/programming/pcap-programming-essentials-python Python is the very versatile, object-oriented programming language used by startups and tech giants, Google, Facebook, Dropbox and IBM. Python is also recommended for aspiring young developers who are interested in pursuing careers in Security, Networking and Internet-of-Things. Once you complete this course, you are ready to take the PCAP – Certified Associate in Python programming. No prior knowledge of programming is required.
Stanford University Webinar – Hacked! Security Lessons from Big Name Breaches 50 minute cyber lecture from Stanford.You Will Learn: — The root cause of key breaches and how to prevent them; How to measure your organization’s external security posture; How the attacker lifecycle should influence the way you allocate resources https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9agUAz0DwI
Stanford University Webinar – Hash, Hack, Code: Emerging Trends in Cyber Security Join Professor Dan Boneh as he shares new approaches to these emerging trends and dives deeper into how you can protect networks and prevent harmful viruses and threats. 50 minute cyber lecture from Stanford. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544rhbcDtc8
Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections (Documentary) (Referenced at GRIMMCON), In advance of the 2020 Presidential Election, Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections takes a deep dive into the weaknesses of today’s election technology, an issue that is little understood by the public or even lawmakers. https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/kill-chain-the-cyber-war-on-americas-elections
Intro to Cybersecurity Course (15 hours) Learn how to protect your personal data and privacy online and in social media, and why more and more IT jobs require cybersecurity awareness and understanding. Receive a certificate of completion. https://www.netacad.com/portal/web/self-enroll/c/course-1003729
Cybersecurity Essentials (30 hours) Foundational knowledge and essential skills for all cybersecurity domains, including info security, systems sec, network sec, ethics and laws, and defense and mitigation techniques used in protecting businesses. https://www.netacad.com/portal/web/self-enroll/c/course-1003733
Pluralsight and Microsoft Partnership to help you become an expert in Azure. With skill assessments and over 200+ courses, 40+ Skill IQs and 8 Role IQs, you can focus your time on understanding your strengths and skill gaps and learn Azure as quickly as possible.https://www.pluralsight.com/partners/microsoft/azure
Blackhat Webcast Series Monthly webcast of varying cyber topics. I will post specific ones in the training section below sometimes, but this is worth bookmarking and checking back. They always have top tier speakers on relevant, current topics. https://www.blackhat.com/html/webcast/webcast-home.html
Federal Virtual Training Environment – US Govt sponsored free courses. There are 6 available, no login required. They are 101 Coding for the Public, 101 Critical Infrastructure Protection for the Public, Cryptocurrency for Law Enforcement for the Public, Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management for the Public, 101 Reverse Engineering for the Public, Fundamentals of Cyber Risk Management. https://fedvte.usalearning.gov/public_fedvte.php
Harrisburg University CyberSecurity Collection of 18 curated talks. Scroll down to CYBER SECURITY section. You will see there are 4 categories Resource Sharing, Tools & Techniques, Red Team (Offensive Security) and Blue Teaming (Defensive Security). Lot of content in here; something for everyone. https://professionaled.harrisburgu.edu/online-content/
OnRamp 101-Level ICS Security Workshop Starts this 4/28. 10 videos, Q&A / discussion, bonus audio, great links. Get up to speed fast on ICS security. It runs for 5 weeks. 2 videos per week. Then we keep it open for another 3 weeks for 8 in total. https://onramp-3.s4xevents.com
HackXOR WebApp CTF Hackxor is a realistic web application hacking game, designed to help players of all abilities develop their skills. All the missions are based on real vulnerabilities I’ve personally found while doing pentests, bug bounty hunting, and research. https://hackxor.net/
flAWS System Through a series of levels you’ll learn about common mistakes and gotchas when using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Multiple levels, “Buckets” of fun. http://flaws.cloud/
Stanford CS 253 Web Security A free course from Stanford providing a comprehensive overview of web security. The course begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of web security and proceeds to discuss the most common methods for web attacks and their countermeasures. The course includes video lectures, slides, and links to online reading assignments. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs253
Linux Journey A free, handy guide for learning Linux. Coverage begins with the fundamentals of command line navigation and basic text manipulation. It then extends to more advanced topics, such as file systems and networking. The site is well organized and includes many examples along with code snippets. Exercises and quizzes are provided as well. https://linuxjourney.com
Ryan’s Tutorials A collection of free, introductory tutorials on several technology topics including: Linux command line, Bash scripting, creating and styling webpages with HTML and CSS, counting and converting between different number systems, and writing regular expressions. https://ryanstutorials.net
CYBER INTELLIGENCE ANALYTICS AND OPERATIONS Learn:The ins and outs of all stages of the intelligence cycle from collection to analysis from seasoned intel professionals. How to employ threat intelligence to conduct comprehensive defense strategies to mitigate potential compromise. How to use TI to respond to and minimize impact of cyber incidents. How to generate comprehensive and actionable reports to communicate gaps in defenses and intelligence findings to decision makers. https://www.shadowscape.io/cyber-intelligence-analytics-operat
Linux Command Line for Beginners 25 hours of training – In this course, you’ll learn from one of Fullstack’s top instructors, Corey Greenwald, as he guides you through learning the basics of the command line through short, digestible video lectures. Then you’ll use Fullstack’s CyberLab platform to hone your new technical skills while working through a Capture the Flag game, a special kind of cybersecurity game designed to challenge participants to solve computer security problems by solving puzzles. Finally, through a list of carefully curated resources through a series of curated resources, we’ll introduce you to some important cybersecurity topics so that you can understand some of the common language, concepts and tools used in the industry. https://prep.fullstackacademy.com/
Hacking 101 6 hours of free training – First, you’ll take a tour of the world and watch videos of hackers in action across various platforms (including computers, smartphones, and the power grid). You may be shocked to learn what techniques the good guys are using to fight the bad guys (and which side is winning). Then you’ll learn what it’s like to work in this world, as we show you the different career paths open to you and the (significant) income you could make as a cybersecurity professional. https://cyber.fullstackacademy.com/prepare/hacking-101
Choose Your Own Cyber Adventure Series: Entry Level Cyber Jobs Explained YouTube Playlist (videos from my channel #simplyCyber) This playlist is a collection of various roles within the information security field, mostly entry level, so folks can understand what different opportunities are out there. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Q-ttyNIRAqog96mt8C8lKWzTjW6f38F
NETINSTRUCT.COM Free Cybersecurity, IT and Leadership Courses – Includes OS and networking basics. Critical to any Cyber job. https://netinstruct.com/courses
HackerSploit – HackerSploit is the leading provider of free and open-source Infosec and cybersecurity training. https://hackersploit.org/
Computer Science courses with video lectures Intent of this list is to act as Online bookmarks/lookup table for freely available online video courses. Focus would be to keep the list concise so that it is easy to browse. It would be easier to skim through 15 page list, find the course and start learning than having to read 60 pages of text. If you are student or from non-CS background, please try few courses to decide for yourself as to which course suits your learning curve best. https://github.com/Developer-Y/cs-video-courses?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com
Cryptography I -offered by Stanford University – Rolling enrollment – Cryptography is an indispensable tool for protecting information in computer systems. In this course you will learn the inner workings of cryptographic systems and how to correctly use them in real-world applications. The course begins with a detailed discussion of how two parties who have a shared secret key can communicate securely when a powerful adversary eavesdrops and tampers with traffic. We will examine many deployed protocols and analyze mistakes in existing systems. The second half of the course discusses public-key techniques that let two parties generate a shared secret key. https://www.coursera.org/learn/crypto
Software Security Rolling enrollment -offered by University of Maryland, College Park via Coursera – This course we will explore the foundations of software security. We will consider important software vulnerabilities and attacks that exploit them — such as buffer overflows, SQL injection, and session hijacking — and we will consider defenses that prevent or mitigate these attacks, including advanced testing and program analysis techniques. Importantly, we take a “build security in” mentality, considering techniques at each phase of the development cycle that can be used to strengthen the security of software systems. https://www.coursera.org/learn/software-security
Intro to Information Security Georgia Institute of Technology via Udacity – Rolling Enrollment. This course provides a one-semester overview of information security. It is designed to help students with prior computer and programming knowledge — both undergraduate and graduate — understand this important priority in society today. Offered at Georgia Tech as CS 6035 https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-information-security–ud459
Cyber-Physical Systems Security Georgia Institute of Technology via Udacity – This course provides an introduction to security issues relating to various cyber-physical systems including industrial control systems and those considered critical infrastructure systems. 16 week course – Offered at Georgia Tech as CS 8803 https://www.udacity.com/course/cyber-physical-systems-security–ud279
Finding Your Cybersecurity Career Path – University of Washington via edX – 4 weeks long – self paced – In this course, you will focus on the pathways to cybersecurity career success. You will determine your own incoming skills, talent, and deep interests to apply toward a meaningful and informed exploration of 32 Digital Pathways of Cybersecurity. https://www.edx.org/course/finding-your-cybersecurity-career-path
Building a Cybersecurity Toolkit – University of Washington via edX – 4 weeks self-paced The purpose of this course is to give learners insight into these type of characteristics and skills needed for cybersecurity jobs and to provide a realistic outlook on what they really need to add to their “toolkits” – a set of skills that is constantly evolving, not all technical, but fundamentally rooted in problem-solving. https://www.edx.org/course/building-a-cybersecurity-toolkit
Cybersecurity: The CISO’s View – University of Washington via edX – 4 weeks long self-paced – This course delves into the role that the CISO plays in cybersecurity operations. Throughout the lessons, learners will explore answers to the following questions: How does cybersecurity work across industries? What is the professionals’ point of view? How do we keep information secure https://www.edx.org/course/cybersecurity-the-cisos-view
Introduction to Cybersecurity – University of Washington via edX – In this course, you will gain an overview of the cybersecurity landscape as well as national (USA) and international perspectives on the field. We will cover the legal environment that impacts cybersecurity as well as predominant threat actors. – https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-cybersecurity
Cyber Attack Countermeasures New York University (NYU) via Coursera – This course introduces the basics of cyber defense starting with foundational models such as Bell-LaPadula and information flow frameworks. These underlying policy enforcements mechanisms help introduce basic functional protections, starting with authentication methods. Learners will be introduced to a series of different authentication solutions and protocols, including RSA SecureID and Kerberos, in the context of a canonical schema. – https://www.coursera.org/learn/cyber-attack-countermeasures
Introduction to Cyber Attacks New York University (NYU) via Coursera – This course provides learners with a baseline understanding of common cyber security threats, vulnerabilities, and risks. An overview of how basic cyber attacks are constructed and applied to real systems is also included. Examples include simple Unix kernel hacks, Internet worms, and Trojan horses in software utilities. Network attacks such as distributed denial of service (DDOS) and botnet- attacks are also described and illustrated using real examples from the past couple of decades. https://www.coursera.org/learn/intro-cyber-attacks
Enterprise and Infrastructure Security New York University (NYU) via Coursera – This course introduces a series of advanced and current topics in cyber security, many of which are especially relevant in modern enterprise and infrastructure settings. The basics of enterprise compliance frameworks are provided with introduction to NIST and PCI. Hybrid cloud architectures are shown to provide an opportunity to fix many of the security weaknesses in modern perimeter local area networks. https://www.coursera.org/learn/enterprise-infrastructure-security
Network Security Georgia Institute of Technology via Udacity – This course provides an introduction to computer and network security. Students successfully completing this class will be able to evaluate works in academic and commercial security, and will have rudimentary skills in security research. The course begins with a tutorial of the basic elements of cryptography, cryptanalysis, and systems security, and continues by covering a number of seminal papers and monographs in a wide range of security areas. – https://www.udacity.com/course/network-security–ud199
Real-Time Cyber Threat Detection and Mitigation – New York University (NYU) via Coursera This course introduces real-time cyber security techniques and methods in the context of the TCP/IP protocol suites. Explanation of some basic TCP/IP security hacks is used to introduce the need for network security solutions such as stateless and stateful firewalls. Learners will be introduced to the techniques used to design and configure firewall solutions such as packet filters and proxies to protect enterprise assets. https://www.coursera.org/learn/real-time-cyber-threat-detection
Hey everyone, I’ve started getting into hacking, and would like to know the cheapest but best Wi-Fi cracking/deauthing/hacking adapter. I’m on a fairly tight budget of 20AUD and am willing to compromise if needed. Priority is a card with monitor mode, then cracking capabilities, then deauthing, etc. Thank you guys! By the way, if there are any beginner tips you are willing to give, please let me know!
A browser or server attempts to connect to a website (i.e. a web server) secured with SSL. The browser/server requests that the web server identify itself.
The web server sends the browser/server a copy of its SSL certificate.
The browser/server checks to see whether or not it trusts the SSL certificate. If so, it sends a message to the web server.
The web server sends back a digitally signed acknowledgement to start an SSL encrypted session.
Encrypted data is shared between the browser/server and the web server.
There are many benefits to using SSL certificates. Namely, SSL customers can:
Utilize HTTPs, which elicits a stronger Google ranking
Create safer experiences for your customers
Build customer trust and improve conversions
Protect both customer and internal data
Encrypt browser-to-server and server-to-server communication
Authentication — The process of checking if a user is allowed to gain access to a system. eg. Login forms with username and password.
Authorization — Checking if the authenticated user has access to perform an action. eg. user, admin, super admin roles.
Audit — Conduct a complete inspection of an organization’s network to find vulnerable endpoints or malicious software.
Access Control List — A list that contains users and their level of access to a system.
Aircrack-ng — Wifi penetration testing software suite. Contains sniffing, password cracking, and general wireless attacking tools.
Backdoor — A piece of code that lets hackers get into the system easily after it has been compromised.
Burp Suite — Web application security software, helps test web apps for vulnerabilities. Used in bug bounty hunting.
Banner Grabbing — Capturing basic information about a server like the type of web server software (eg. apache) and services running on it.
Botnet — A network of computers controlled by a hacker to perform attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service.
Brute-Force Attack — An attack where the hacker tries different login combinations to gain access. eg. trying to crack a 9 -digit numeric password by trying all the numbers from 000000000 to 999999999
Buffer Overflow — When a program tries to store more information than it is allowed to, it overflows into other buffers (memory partitions) corrupting existing data.
Cache — Storing the response to a particular operation in temporary high-speed storage is to serve other incoming requests better. eg. you can store a database request in a cache till it is updated to reduce calling the database again for the same query.
Cipher — Cryptographic algorithm for encrypting and decrypting data.
Code Injection — Injecting malicious code into a system by exploiting a bug or vulnerability.
Cross-Site Scripting — Executing a script on the client-side through a legitimate website. This can be prevented if the website sanitizes user input.
Compliance — A set of rules defined by the government or other authorities on how to protect your customer’s data. Common ones include HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and FISMA.
Dictionary Attack — Attacking a system with a pre-defined list of usernames and passwords. eg. admin/admin is a common username/password combination used by amateur sysadmins.
Dumpster Diving — Looking into a company’s trash cans for useful information.
Denial of Service & Distributed Denial of Service — Exhausting a server’s resources by sending too many requests is Denial of Service. If a botnet is used to do the same, its called Distributed Denial of Service.
DevSecOps — Combination of development and operations by considering security as a key ingredient from the initial system design.
Directory Traversal — Vulnerability that lets attackers list al the files and folders within a server. This can include system configuration and password files.
Domain Name System (DNS) — Helps convert domain names into server IP addresses. eg. Google.com -> 216.58.200.142
DNS Spoofing — Trikcnig a system’s DNS to point to a malicious server. eg. when you enter ‘facebook.com’, you might be redirected to the attacker’s website that looks like Facebook.
Encryption — Encoding a message with a key so that only the parties with the key can read the message.
Exploit — A piece of code that takes advantage of a vulnerability in the target system. eg. Buffer overflow exploits can get you to root access to a system.
Enumeration — Mapping out all the components of a network by gaining access to a single system.
Footprinting — Gathering information about a target using active methods such as scanning and enumeration.
Flooding — Sending too many packets of data to a target system to exhaust its resources and cause a Denial of Service or similar attacks.
Firewall — A software or hardware filter that can be configured to prevent common types of attacks.
Fork Bomb — Forking a process indefinitely to exhaust system resources. Related to a Denial of Service attack.
Fuzzing — Sending automated random input to a software program to test its exception handling capacity.
Hardening — Securing a system from attacks like closing unused ports. Usually done using scripts for servers.
Hash Function — Mapping a piece of data into a fixed value string. Hashes are used to confirm data integrity.
Honey Pot — An intentionally vulnerable system used to lure attackers. This is then used to understand the attacker’s strategies.
HIPAA — The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. If you are working with healthcare data, you need to make sure you are HIPAA compliant. This is to protect the customer’s privacy.
Input Validation — Checking user inputs before sending them to the database. eg. sanitizing form input to prevent SQL injection attacks.
Integrity — Making sure the data that was sent from the server is the same that was received by the client. This ensures there was no tampering and integrity is achieved usually by hashing and encryption.
Intrusion Detection System — A software similar to a firewall but with advanced features. Helps in defending against Nmap scans, DDoS attacks, etc.
IP Spoofing — Changing the source IP address of a packet to fool the target into thinking a request is coming from a legitimate server.
John The Ripper — Brilliant password cracking tool, runs on all major platforms.
Kerberos — Default authorization software used by Microsoft, uses a stronger encryption system.
KeyLogger — A software program that captures all keystrokes that a user performs on the system.
Logic Bombs — A piece of code (usually malicious) that runs when a condition is satisfied.
Light Weight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) — Lightweight client-server protocol on Windows, central place for authentication. Stores usernames and passwords to validate users on a network.
Malware — Short for “Malicious Software”. Everything from viruses to backdoors is malware.
MAC Address — Unique address assigned to a Network Interface Card and is used as an identifier for local area networks. Easy to spoof.
Multi-factor Authentication — Using more than one method of authentication to access a service. eg. username/password with mobile OTP to access a bank account (two-factor authentication)
MD5 — Widely used hashing algorithm. Once a favorite, it has many vulnerabilities.
Meterpreter — An advanced Metasploit payload that lives in memory and hard to trace.
Null-Byte Injection — An older exploit, uses null bytes (i.e. %00, or 0x00 in hexadecimal) to URLs. This makes web servers return random/unwanted data which might be useful for the attacker. Easily prevented by doing sanity checks.
Network Interface Card(NIC) — Hardware that helps a device connect to a network.
Network Address Translation — Utility that translates your local IP address into a global IP address. eg. your local IP might be 192.168.1.4 but to access the internet, you need a global IP address (from your router).
Nmap — Popular network scanning tool that gives information about systems, open ports, services, and operating system versions.
Netcat — Simple but powerful tool that can view and record data on a TCP or UDP network connections. Since it is not actively maintained, NCat is preferred.
Nikto — A popular web application scanner, helps to find over 6700 vulnerabilities including server configurations and installed web server software.
Nessus — Commercial alternative to NMap, provides a detailed list of vulnerabilities based on scan results.
Packet — Data is sent and received by systems via packets. Contains information like source IP, destination IP, protocol, and other information.
Password Cracking — Cracking an encrypted password using tools like John the Ripper when you don’t have access to the key.
Password Sniffing — Performing man-in-the-middle attacks using tools like Wireshark to find password hashes.
Patch — A software update released by a vendor to fix a bug or vulnerability in a software system.
Phishing — Building fake web sites that look remarkably similar to legitimate websites (like Facebook) to capture sensitive information.
Ping Sweep — A technique that tries to ping a system to see if it is alive on the network.
Public Key Cryptography — Encryption mechanism that users a pair of keys, one private and one public. The sender will encrypt a message using your public key which then you can decrypt using your private key.
Public Key Infrastructure — A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system to create, store, and distribute digital certificates. This helps sysadmins verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain authorized entity.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) — Any information that identified a user. eg. Address, Phone number, etc.
Payload — A piece of code (usually malicious) that performs a specific function. eg. Keylogger.
PCI-DSS — Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. If you are working with customer credit cards, you should be PCI-DSS compliant.
Ransomware — Malware that locks your system using encryption and asks you to pay a price to get the key to unlock it.
Rainbow Table — Pre calculated password hashes that will help you crack password hashes of the target easily.
Reconnaissance — Finding data about the target using methods such as google search, social media, and other publicly available information.
Reverse Engineering — Rebuilding a piece of software based on its functions.
Role-Based Access — Providing a set of authorizations for a role other than a user. eg. “Managers” role will have a set of permissions while the “developers” role will have a different set of permissions.
Rootkit — A rootkit is a malware that provides unauthorized users admin privileges. Rootkits include keyloggers, password sniffers, etc.
Scanning — Sending packets to a system and gaining information about the target system using the packets received. This involved the 3-way-handshake.
Secure Shell (SSH) — Protocol that establishes an encrypted communication channel between a client and a server. You can use ssh to login to remote servers and perform system administration.
Session — A session is a duration in which a communication channel is open between a client and a server. eg. the time between logging into a website and logging out is a session.
Session Hijacking — Taking over someone else’s session by pretending to the client. This is achieved by stealing cookies and session tokens. eg. after you authenticate with your bank, an attacker can steal your session to perform financial transactions on your behalf.
Social Engineering — The art of tricking people into making them do something that is not in their best interest. eg. convincing someone to provide their password over the phone.
Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA) — Widely used family of encryption algorithms. SHA256 is considered highly secure compared to earlier versions like SHA 1. It is also a one-way algorithm, unlike an encryption algorithm that you can decrypt. Once you hash a message, you can only compare with another hash, you cannot re-hash it to its earlier format.
Sniffing — performing man-in-the-middle attacks on networks. Includes wired and wireless networks.
Spam — Unwanted digital communication, including email, social media messages, etc. Usually tries to get you into a malicious website.
Syslog — System logging protocol, used by system administrators to capture all activity on a server. Usually stored on a separate server to retain logs in the event of an attack.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) — Establishes an encrypted tunnel between the client and server. eg. when you submit passwords on Facebook, only the encrypted text will be visible for sniffers and not your original password.
Snort — Lightweight open-source Intrusion Detection System for Windows and Linux.
SQL Injection — A type of attack that can be performed on web applications using SQL databases. Happens when the site does not validate user input.
Trojan — A malware hidden within useful software. eg. a pirated version of MS office can contain trojans that will execute when you install and run the software.
Traceroute — Tool that maps the route a packet takes between the source and destination.
Tunnel — Creating a private encrypted channel between two or more computers. Only allowed devices on the network can communicate through this tunnel.
Virtual Private Network — A subnetwork created within a network, mainly to encrypt traffic. eg. connecting to a VPN to access a blocked third-party site.
Virus — A piece of code that is created to perform a specific action on the target systems. A virus has to be triggered to execute eg. autoplaying a USB drive.
Vulnerability — A point of attack that is caused by a bug / poor system design. eg. lack of input validation causes attackers to perform SQL injection attacks on a website.
War Driving — Travelling through a neighborhood looking for unprotected wifi networks to attack.
WHOIS — Helps to find information about IP addresses, its owners, DNS records, etc.
Wireshark — Open source program to analyze network traffic and filter requests and responses for network debugging.
Worm — A malware program capable of replicating itself and spreading to other connected systems. eg. a worm to built a botnet. Unlike Viruses, Worms don’t need a trigger.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) — Protocol that helps mobile devices connect to the internet.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) — Firewalls for web applications that help with cross-site scripting, Denial of Service, etc.
Zero-Day — A newly discovered vulnerability in a system for which there is no patch yet. Zero-day vulnerabilities are the most dangerous type of vulnerabilities since there is no possible way to protect against one.
Zombie — A compromised computer, controlled by an attacker. A group of zombies is called a Botnet.
Increased distributed working: With organizations embracing work from home, incremental risks have been observed due to a surge in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Software As A Service (SaaS), O365 and Shadow IT, as it could be exploited by various Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack vectors.
Reimagine Business Models: Envisioning new business opportunities, modes of working, and renewed investment priorities. With reduced workforce capability, compounded with skill shortages, staff who are focusing on business as usual tasks can be victimized, via social engineering.
Digital Transformation and new digital infrastructure: With the change in nature for organizations across the industrial and supply chain sector – security is deprioritized. Hardening of the industrial systems and cloud based infrastructure is crucial as cyber threats exploit these challenges via vulnerability available for unpatched systems.
With an extreme volume of digital communication, security awareness is lowered with increased susceptibility. Malicious actors are using phishing techniques to exploit such situations.
Re-evaluate your approach to cyber
Which cyber scenarios your organization appears to be preparing for or is prepared?
Is there a security scenario that your organization is currently ignoring – but shouldn’t be?
What would your organization need to do differently in order to win, in each of the identified cyber scenarios?
What capabilities, cyber security partnerships, and workforce strategies do you need to strengthen?
The organizations should reflect the following scenarios at a minimum and consider:
Which cyber scenarios your organization appears to be preparing for or is prepared?
Is there a security scenario that your organization is currently ignoring – but shouldn’t be?
What would your organization need to do differently in order to win, in each of the identified cyber scenarios?
What capabilities, cyber security partnerships, and workforce strategies do you need to strengthen?
To tackle the outcome from the above scenarios, the following measures are the key:
Inoculation through education: Educate and / or remind your employees about –
Your organization’s defense – remote work cyber security policies and best practices
Potential threats to your organization and how will it attack – with a specific focus on social engineering scams and identifying COVID-19 phishing campaigns
Assisting remote employees with enabling MFA across the organization assets
Adjust your defenses: Gather cyber threat intelligence and execute a patching sprint:
Set intelligence collection priorities
Share threat intelligence with other organizations
Use intelligence to move at the speed of the threat
Focus on known tactics, such as phishing and C-suite fraud.
Prioritize unpatched critical systems and common vulnerabilities.
Enterprise recovery: If the worst happens and an attack is successful, follow a staged approach to recovering critical business operations which may include tactical items such as:
Protect key systems through isolation
Fully understand and contain the incident
Eradicate any malware
Implement appropriate protection measures to improve overall system posture
Identify and prioritize the recovery of key business processes to deliver operations
Implement a prioritized recovery plan
Cyber Preparedness and Response: It is critical to optimize the detection capability thus, re-evaluation of the detection strategy aligned with the changing landscape is crucial. Some key trends include:
Secure and monitor your cloud environments and remote working applications
Increase monitoring to identify threats from shadow IT
Analyze behavior patterns to improve detection content
Finding the right cyber security partner: To be ready to respond identify the right partner with experience and skillset in Social Engineering, Cyber Response, Cloud Security, and Data Security.
Critical actions to address
At this point, as the organizations are setting the direction towards the social enterprise, it is an unprecedented opportunity to lead with cyber discussions and initiatives. Organizations should immediately gain an understanding of newly introduced risks and relevant controls by:
Getting a seat at the table
Understanding the risk prioritization:
Remote workforce/technology performance
Operational and financial implications
Emerging insider and external threats
Business continuity capabilities
Assessing cyber governance and security awareness in the new operating environment
Assessing the highest areas of risk and recommend practical mitigation strategies that minimize impact to constrained resources.
Keeping leadership and the Board apprised of ever-changing risk profile
Given the complexity of the pandemic and associated cyber challenges, there is reason to believe that the recovery phase post-COVID-19 will require unprecedented levels of cyber orchestration, communication, and changing of existing configurations across the organization.
CyberSecurity: Protect Yourself on Internet
Use two factor authentication when possible. If not possible, use strong unique passwords that are difficult to guess or crack. This means avoiding passwords that use of common words, your birthdate, your SSN, names and birthdays of close associates, etc.
Make sure the devices you are using are up-to-date and have some form of reputable anti-virus/malware software installed.
Never open emails, attachments, programs unless they are from a trusted source (i.e., a source that can be verified). Also disregard email or web requests that ask you to share your personal or account information unless you are sure the request and requestor are legitimate.
Try to only use websites that are encrypted. To do this, look for either the trusted security lock symbol before the website address and/or the extra “s” at the end of http in the URL address bar.
Avoid using an administrator level account when using the internet.
Only enable cookies when absolutely required by a website.
Make social media accounts private or don’t use social media at all.
Consider using VPNs and encrypting any folders/data that contains sensitive data.
Stay away from using unprotected public Wi-Fi networks.
Social media is genetically engineered in Area 51 to harvest as much data from you as possible. Far beyond just having your name and age and photograph.
Never use the same username twice anywhere, or the same password twice anywhere.
Use Tor/Tor Browser whenever possible. It’s not perfect, but it is a decent default attempt at anonymity.
Use a VPN. Using VPN and Tor can be even better.
Search engines like DuckDuckGo offer better privacy (assuming they’re honest, which you can never be certain of) than Google which, like social media, works extremely hard to harvest every bit of data from you that they can.
Never give your real details anywhere. Certainly not things like your name or pictures of yourself, but even less obvious things like your age or country of origin. Even things like how you spell words and grammatical quirks can reveal where you’re from.
Erase your comments from websites after a few days/weeks. It might not erase them from the website’s servers, but it will at least remove them from public view. If you don’t, you can forget they exist and you never know how or when they can and will be used against you.
With Reddit, you can create an account fairly easily over Tor using no real information. Also, regularly nuke your accounts in case Reddit or some crazy stalker is monitoring your posts to build a profile of who you might be. Source: Reddit
Notable Hackers
Adrian Lamo – gained media attention for breaking into several high-profile computer networks, including those of The New York Times, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, culminating in his 2003 arrest. Lamo was best known for reporting U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning to Army criminal investigators in 2010 for leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks.
Albert Gonzales – an American computer hacker and computer criminal who is accused of masterminding the combined credit card theft and subsequent reselling of more than 170 million card and ATM numbers from 2005 to 2007: the biggest such fraud in history.
Andrew Auernheimer (known as Weev) – Went to jail for using math against AT&T website.
Barnaby Jack – was a New Zealand hacker, programmer and computer security expert. He was known for his presentation at the Black Hat computer security conference in 2010, during which he exploited two ATMs and made them dispense fake paper currency on the stage. Among his other most notable works were the exploitation of various medical devices, including pacemakers and insulin pumps.
Gary McKinnon – a Scottish systems administrator and hacker who was accused in 2002 of perpetrating the “biggest military computer hack of all time,” although McKinnon himself states that he was merely looking for evidence of free energy suppression and a cover-up of UFO activity and other technologies potentially useful to the public. 👽🛸
George Hotz aka geohot – “The former Facebook engineer took on the giants of the tech world by developing the first iPhone carrier-unlock techniques,” says Mark Greenwood, head of data science at Netacea, “followed a few years later by reverse engineering Sony’s PlayStation 3, clearing the way for users to run their own code on locked-down hardware. George sparked an interest in a younger generation frustrated with hardware and software restrictions being imposed on them and led to a new scene of opening up devices, ultimately leading to better security and more openness.”
Guccifer 2.0 – a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) that hacked into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event.
Hector Monsegur (known as Sabu) – an American computer hacker and co-founder of the hacking group LulzSec. He Monsegur became an informant for the FBI, working with the agency for over ten months to aid them in identifying the other hackers from LulzSec and related groups.
Jacob Appelbaum – an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker. He has been employed by the University of Washington, and was a core member of the Tor project, a free software network designed to provide online anonymity.
James Forshaw – one of the world’s foremost bug bounty huners
Jeanson James Ancheta – On May 9, 2006, Jeanson James Ancheta (born 1985) became the first person to be charged for controlling large numbers of hijacked computers or botnets.
Jeremy Hammond – He was convicted of computer fraud in 2013 for hacking the private intelligence firm Stratfor and releasing data to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
John Draper – also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch or Crunchman (after the Cap’n Crunch breakfast cereal mascot), is an American computer programmer and former legendary phone phreak.
Kimberley Vanvaeck (known as Gigabyte) – a virus writer from Belgium known for a long-standing dispute which involved the internet security firm Sophos and one of its employees, Graham Cluley. Vanvaeck wrote several viruses, including Quis, Coconut and YahaSux (also called Sahay). She also created a Sharp virus (also called “Sharpei”), credited as being the first virus to be written in C#.
Lauri Love – a British activist charged with stealing data from United States Government computers including the United States Army, Missile Defense Agency, and NASA via computer intrusion.
Michael Calce (known as MafiaBoy) – a security expert from Île Bizard, Quebec who launched a series of highly publicized denial-of-service attacks in February 2000 against large commercial websites, including Yahoo!, Fifa.com, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., E*TRADE, eBay, and CNN.
Mudge – Peiter C. Zatko, better known as Mudge, is a network security expert, open source programmer, writer, and a hacker. He was the most prominent member of the high-profile hacker think tank the L0pht as well as the long-lived computer and culture hacking cooperative the Cult of the Dead Cow.
PRAGMA – Also known as Impragma or PHOENiX, PRAGMA is the author of Snipr, one of the most prolific credential stuffing tools available online.
The 414s – The 414s were a group of computer hackers who broke into dozens of high-profile computer systems, including ones at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Security Pacific Bank, in 1982 and 1983.
The Shadow Brokers – is a hacker group who first appeared in the summer of 2016. They published several leaks containing hacking tools from the National Security Agency (NSA), including several zero-day exploits. Specifically, these exploits and vulnerabilities targeted enterprise firewalls, antivirus software, and Microsoft products.[6] The Shadow Brokers originally attributed the leaks to the Equation Group threat actor, who have been tied to the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit.
The Strange History of Ransomware The first ransomware virus predates e-mail, even the Internet as we know it, and was distributed on floppy disk by the postal service. It sounds quaint, but in some ways this horse-and-buggy version was even more insidious than its modern descendants. Contemporary ransomware tends to bait victims using legitimate-looking email attachments — a fake invoice from UPS, or a receipt from Delta airlines. But the 20,000 disks dispatched to 90 countries in December of 1989 were masquerading as something far more evil: AIDS education software.
How to protect sensitive data for its entire lifecycle in AWS
How to protect sensitive data for its entire lifecycle in AWS
You can protect data in-transit over individual communications channels using transport layer security (TLS), and at-rest in individual storage silos using volume encryption, object encryption or database table encryption. However, if you have sensitive workloads, you might need additional protection that can follow the data as it moves through the application stack. Fine-grained data protection techniques such as field-level encryption allow for the protection of sensitive data fields in larger application payloads while leaving non-sensitive fields in plaintext. This approach lets an application perform business functions on non-sensitive fields without the overhead of encryption, and allows fine-grained control over what fields can be accessed by what parts of the application. Read m ore here…
I Passed AWS Security Specialty SCS-C01 Testimonials
Passing the SCS-C01 AWS Certified Security Specialty exam
I’ve been studying for both DevOps DOP-C01 and Security Specialty SCS-C01 tests but opted to just focus on SCS-C01 since the DevOps exam seems like a tough one to pass. I’m planning to take the DevOps one next but I read that there’s a new DOP-C02 version just came out so I might postpone it until for a couple of months.
This AWS Certified Security Specialty exam is easier than the SAA exam since the main focus is all about security. The official Exam Guide has been my ultimate guide in knowing the particular AWS services to focus for the test. Once I got 90% on all my practice tests attempts from TD, I went ahead and booked my exam.
Here’s a compilation of all the helpful SCS-C01 posts that helped me:
The Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Security Specialty course provides a good summary of all the relevant topics that are about to be asked in the exam. Prepare to see topics in Key Management Infrastructure, IPS/IDS, network security, EKS/ECS container security and many more.
I'm pretty sure we've all seen and/or performed vulnerability scans before. So I'm curious what was a discovery that made you guys go "fuck no kill it with fire" I've seen assets with maybe 5 or 10 max vulnerabilities that needed to be looked at but NEVER have I seen one with over 400 vulnerabilities until today. Missing years of security patches submitted by /u/XToEveryEnemyX [link] [comments]
I don't get it, I'm in IT right now, went to school for cyber security and everyone seems to hate their job. Working with other people you have to recognize they are going to ask "dumb questions" and it's my job to help them parse that question to something that makes sense. Not everyone has the same background you do. I dont understand why everyone gets so mad over it. I have a guy I work with, if you ask a dumb question he just stops responding to them until someone else deals with it (we do things mostly over teams) And everyone seems to complain about dumb questions, seems silly to get so upset over it. Is this a constant throughout working in the field or is it just the people I work with? submitted by /u/bearboyjd [link] [comments]
Hey Guys, I’m a former software developer who just transition into project management and my new company gave me the task to manage the proper implementation of the SSDLC. Since I‘m not a security expert (and to be honest never heard of this topic before) I‘m looking for some resources that help me catch up. I already found the course guide for the CSSLP (Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional) by Paul Mano but it was published in 2013 so I‘m not sure if it’s up to date. Anyways, I do not intend to take a certification. I just need some current book / online-course, so that I can grasp the scope of the project and keep up in a conversation with the project team (which still isn’t defined yet). Thanks! submitted by /u/Sea-Eggplant480 [link] [comments]
SCAP scans are required in many cases, such as STIGs for US government work and PCI compliance for e-commerce. When not required, they're a great way to improve security hardening. These scans report issues such as world-writable files, insecurely configured services, and more. Performing SCAP scans has traditionally been a manual process involving obscure tools, complex output requiring security specialists to interpret, and non-repeatable techniques. However, I improved that process, making it automated and easy to understand. I provide copy-and-paste ready-to-go GitHub Actions and GitLab CI code that you can drop into your projects to automatically and effortlessly scan docker images for compliance with benchmarks from CIS, PCI, STIG, and more. Check out https://candrews.integralblue.com/2023/09/scap-security-and-compliance-scanning-of-docker-images-in-github-actions-and-gitlab-ci/ for the code and more information about SCAP scans and my work to make them easier to perform. submitted by /u/candrewswpi [link] [comments]
If there is anyone who went the route of Network engineer to Cyber security, I am wondering how you were able to do it, how long were you a network engineer for, before deciding to head into Cyber security and if so what were the steps you took, did you have a CCNA then went to get another certification to then going on the job hunt, what advice would you give someone trying to do this submitted by /u/Honest_Bank8890 [link] [comments]
What are some underrated cybersecurity tools or practices that more people in the industry (and outside of it) should know about? submitted by /u/Happy-Matter-3140 [link] [comments]
Hello all, I'm looking for what could be done to ICS (Industrial Control System) security, at least to have insight of all devices and vulnerabilities they exposed. Can you suggest any tool for passive discovery, device inventory or something like that...? For further improvement, the design and architecture would be reviewed as well. Is there any good reference to ICS security framework, architecture or best practices that I may learn from? submitted by /u/Nice-Estimate2311 [link] [comments]
Hello, I know the title is vague, everyone would probably choose engineer, but maybe someone had a similar situation. Asking for some perspective. I work as a SOC Analyst in shifts and I have on the table a position as a SIEM Engineer. Now the catch is that the engineer position is paid around 35% less than the soc one because of missing shifts. It would be a 9-5 position, but the thing is that I actually like the shifts especially with my curent life style. I love having free days in the middle of the week and to not work 5 days in a row. Also the soc position is quite stress free and chill and I already know that for the engineer position would involve a lot of learning and stress (especially because I wouldn't have a training, nor a colleague/trainer nothing). The only good thing I find about the engineer position is for the future jobs. So what would you choose? Remain a Soc Analyst with good pay and relax clients + free time or choose engineer with a downgrade payment of 35% and considerably more work needed but the chance to learn new things that may help you in the future + XP on engineering side and on CV? Thank you! submitted by /u/danievident [link] [comments]
Hello everyone,I'm conducting a research survey on the challenges and gaps in AI security. Given the expertise in this community, I believe your feedback would be invaluable in shaping the future of AI security solutions.The survey takes less than 10 minutes and delves into current practices, perceptions, and needs related to AI security. If you have experience or insights in this area, I would greatly appreciate your participation. Survey Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdu11MiKZeUrPPpIcYbh2Q96D2NGmqEK_LTT8d9Herj052LCQ/viewform?usp=sf_link All responses will remain anonymous, and the collected data will only be used for research purposes. Additionally, if you're open to a deeper discussion on this topic, there's an option within the survey to indicate your interest.Thank you in advance for your time and insights! If you have any questions or additional thoughts, please don't hesitate to comment below. submitted by /u/Agile_Temperature678 [link] [comments]
I am currently a CISO in a rather small Org, interesting work since we are a cyber company so I am able to do internal work and consult clients at the same time. I am a certified ISO Lead auditor and implementer, some project management certs and an MBA. Where should I spent my yearly budget on now, given that I want to grow as CISO. submitted by /u/CircumlocutiousLorre [link] [comments]
24 September 2023 - National Student Clearinghouse Data Breach Impacted Approximately 900 U.S. Schools The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that provides educational verification and reporting services to educational institutions, employers, and other organizations The organization has disclosed a data breach that impacted approximately 900 US schools using its services. The security breach resulted from a cyber attack exploiting a vulnerability in the MOVEit managed file transfer (MFT).- Read more: https://securityaffairs.com/151281/data-breach/national-student-clearinghouse-data-breach.html 22 September 2023 - Head of Hong Kong consumer watchdog apologises for potential data leak The head of Hong Kong’s consumer watchdog apologised on Friday over a potential leak of personal data involving more than 8,000 people following a cyberattack. Unknown hackers had threatened to leak the data by Saturday night if a US$500,000 ransom was not paid, Consumer Council chairman Clement Chan Kam-wing said, addressing the public over an incident that had shut down 80 per cent of the watchdog’s computer systems. Read more: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3235438/head-hong-kong-consumer-watchdog-apologises-potential-data-leak-affecting-over-8000-people-us500000 20 September 2023 - Pizza Hut Australia hack: data breach exposes customer information and order details The data obtained includes customer details and online order details from Pizza Hut’s customer database, including names, delivery address and instructions, email addresses and contact numbers. For registered accounts, it would also include encrypted credit card numbers and encrypted passwords. Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/20/pizza-hut-hack-australia-data-breach-passwords-information-leak submitted by /u/zolakrystie [link] [comments]
Hi As an org, we using alot of SaaS apps, plan to have no onsite servers. We are doing a transformation project and now making sure they integrate with 365/AAD credentials for single sign on. Flip side, this will create more alerts and risks due to misconfiguration of AAD/Entra ID. I am hence looking for recommendations on a CSPM tool to help with automate and assist with misconfiguration aswell as, but am open to it, a system that can help via AI to help with the volume of logs to help deal with security risks. Were/are looking at Huntress for 365 as use their EDR but don't think their system is comprehensive enough. 700 login, rising to 1000 in next 18months atleast. MFA is in place. So any points appreciated. Thanks in advance. submitted by /u/slewis_1972 [link] [comments]
An unnamed Southeast Asian government has been targeted by multiple China-nexus threat actors as part of espionage campaigns targeting the region over extended periods of time.
"While this activity occurred around the same time and in some instances even simultaneously on the same victims' machines, each cluster is characterized by distinct tools, modus operandi and infrastructure," Palo Alto
I've been searching my entire weekend, but it looks like all the products I found, PANW NGFW, Cloudflare WAF, Azure Firewall, etc., all have APIs that allows me to get Firewall policies and its settings, but not the actual intrusions, URLs, that the firewall captured. Is there a product that provides an API for this use case? submitted by /u/InfiniteHalf22 [link] [comments]
I came upon an article discussing Brand Impersonation, where cybercriminals mimic trusted brands to deceive users and take advantage of another’s reputation in order to steal information. It's alarming how advanced these tactics have become in the cybersecurity landscape. You can check out the article here. Has anyone here fallen for such impersonations or came across them professionally? Would love to hear your experiences and insights. submitted by /u/berke7689012 [link] [comments]
Recently I was wondering why even the biggest companies are prone to such simple attacks like the Password Spraying Attack. As the name suggests, it seems like a simple enough attack where they would guess passwords via computer algorithms to try and force the right one. Through some research I found that that Password Spraying is: - A brute force attack where the attacker attempts variations of passwords repeatedly in a short amount of time. (Varnois) It also mentions that hackers aren’t repeatedly trying to log in to same accounts so they avoid getting locked out due to excessive number of login attempts like brute-force attacks do. The most common practice seems to be to educate your employees to change their passwords periodically. However, what are some more effective ways to defend against Password Spraying Attacks, what can the company actually impose, other than changing passwords in their security system from stopping such attacks? submitted by /u/fried20melon [link] [comments]
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How does using a VPN or Proxy or TOR or private browsing protects your online activity?
There are several ways that using a virtual private network (VPN), proxy, TOR, or private browsing can protect your online activity:
VPN: A VPN encrypts your internet connection and routes your traffic through a secure server, making it harder for others to track your online activity. This can protect you from hackers, government surveillance, and other types of online threats.
Proxy: A proxy acts as an intermediary between your device and the internet. When you use a proxy, your internet traffic is routed through the proxy server, which can mask your IP address and make it harder for others to track your online activity.
TOR: The TOR network is a decentralized network of servers that routes your internet traffic through multiple servers to obscure your IP address and location. This can make it more difficult for others to track your online activity.
Private browsing: Private browsing mode, also known as “incognito mode,” is a feature that is available in most modern web browsers. When you use private browsing, your web browser does not store any information about your browsing activity, including cookies, history, or cache. This can make it harder for others to track your online activity.
Overall, using a VPN, proxy, TOR, or private browsing can help protect your online activity by making it harder for others to track your internet usage and by providing an additional layer of security. However, it is important to note that these tools are not foolproof and cannot completely guarantee your online privacy. It is always a good idea to be aware of your online activity and take steps to protect your personal information.
VPNs are used to provide remote corporate employees, gig economy freelance workers and business travelers with access to software applications hosted on proprietary networks. To gain access to a restricted resource through a VPN, the user must be authorized to use the VPN app and provide one or more authentication factors, such as a password, security token or biometric data.
A VPN extends a private network across a public network, and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. Applications running on a computing device, e.g. a laptop, desktop, smartphone, across a VPN may therefore benefit from the functionality, security, and management of the private network. Encryption is a common though not an inherent part of a VPN connection.
To ensure security, the private network connection is established using an encrypted layered tunneling protocol and VPN users use authentication methods, including passwords or certificates, to gain access to the VPN. In other applications, Internet users may secure their connections with a VPN, to circumvent geo restrictions and censorship, or to connect to proxy servers to protect personal identity and location to stay anonymous on the Internet. However, some websites block access to known VPN technology to prevent the circumvention of their geo-restrictions, and many VPN providers have been developing strategies to get around these roadblocks.
Private browsing on incognito window or inPrivate window a privacy feature in some web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Explorer, Edge). When operating in such a mode, the browser creates a temporary session that is isolated from the browser’s main session and user data. Browsing history is not saved, and local data associated with the session, such as cookies, are cleared when the session is closed.
These modes are designed primarily to prevent data and history associated with a particular browsing session from persisting on the device, or being discovered by another user of the same device. Private browsing modes do not necessarily protect users from being tracked by other websites or their internet service provider (ISP). Furthermore, there is a possibility that identifiable traces of activity could be leaked from private browsing sessions by means of the operating system, security flaws in the browser, or via malicious browser extensions, and it has been found that certain HTML5APIs can be used to detect the presence of private browsing modes due to differences in behaviour.
The question is:
How does using a VPN or Proxy or TOR or private browsing protects your online activity?
How can VPN, Proxy, TOR, private browsing, incognito windows How does using a VPN, Proxy, TOR, private browsing, incognito windows protects your online activity? protects your online activity?
VPN masks your real IP address by hiding it with one of its servers. As a result, no third party will be able to link your online activity to your physical location. To top it off, you avoid annoying ads and stay off the marketer’s radars.
VPN encrypts your internet traffic in order to make it impossible for anybody to decode your sensitive information and steal your identity. You can also learn more what a development team tells about how they protect their users against data theft.
If your VPN doesn’t protect your online activities, it means there are some problems with the aforementioned protection measures. This could be:
VPN connection disruption. Unfortunately, a sudden disruption of your connection can deanonymize you, if at this moment your device is sending or receiving IP-related requests. In order to avoid such a situation, the kill switch option should be always ON.
DNS/IP address leakage. This problem can be caused by various reasons from configuration mistakes to a conflict between the app under discussion and some other installed software. Regardless of the reason, you will end up with otherwise perfectly working security app, which, in fact, is leaking your IP address.
Outdated protocol. In a nutshell, it is the technology that manages the сreation of your secured connection. If your current protocol becomes obsolete, the app will not work perfectly.
Free apps. This is about free software that makes money on your privacy. The actions of such applications are also considered as unethical and illegal. Stealing your private data and selling of it to third parties is one of them.
User carelessness. For instance, turn on your virtual private network when you visit any website or enter your credentials. Don’t use the app sporadically.
How is a VPN different from a proxy server?
On top of serving as a proxy server, VPN provides encryption. A proxy server only hides your IP address.
Proxies are good for the low-stakes task like: watching regionally restricted videos on YouTube, creating another Gmail account when your IP limit ran out, accessing region restricted websites, bypassing content filters, request restrictions on IP.
On the other hand, proxies are not so great for the high-stakes task. As we know, proxies only act as a middleman in our Internet traffic, they only serve a webpage which we are requesting them to serve.
Just like the proxy service, a VPN makes your traffic to have appeared from the remote IP address that is not yours. But, that’s when all the similarities end.
Unlike a proxy, VPN is set at the operating system level, it captures all the traffic coming from the device it is set up on. Whether it is your web traffic, BitTorrent client, game, or a Windows Update, it captures traffic from all the applications from your device.
Another difference between proxy and VPN is – VPN tunnels all your traffic through heavily encrypted and secure connection to the VPN server.
This makes VPN an ideal solution high-stakes tasks where security and privacy are of paramount of importance. With VPN, neither your ISP, Government, or a guy snooping over open Wi-Fi connection can access your traffic.
What are daily use of VPN for?
There are many uses of Virtual Private Network (VPN) for normal users and company employees. Here are the list of the most common usages:
Accessing Business Networks From Any Places in the World :
This is one of the best use of VPN. It is very much helpful when you are travelling and have to complete some work. You can connect any computer to your business network from anywhere and set up your work easily. Local resources need some security so they have to be kept in VPN-only to ensure their safety.
To Hide Your Browsing Data From ISP & Local Users :
All Internet Service Providers (ISP) will log the data of your IP address. If you use the VPN then they can only see the connection of your VPN. It won’t let anyone spy on your website history.
Moreover, it secures your connection when you use a public Wi-Fi network. As you may or may not know, users on these networks can spy on your browsing history, even if you are surfing HTTPS websites. Virtual Private Networks protect your privacy on public unsecured Wi-Fi connection.
To Access Geographically Blocked Sites :
Have you ever faced a problem like “This content is not available in your country”? VPNs are the best solution to bypass these restrictions.
Some videos on YouTube will also show this restriction. VPNs are a quick fix for all these restrictions.
What about TOR and VPN? What are the Pros and Cons?
The Tor network is similar to a VPN. Messages to and from your computer pass through the Tor network rather than connecting directly to resources on the Internet. But where VPNs provide privacy, Tor provides anonymity.
Tor is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. The name is derived from an acronym for the original software project name “The Onion Router”. Tor directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network consisting of more than seven thousand relays to conceal a user’s location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. Using Tor makes it more difficult to trace Internet activity to the user: this includes “visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages, and other communication forms”.[ Tor’s intended use is to protect the personal privacy of its users, as well as their freedom and ability to conduct confidential communication by keeping their Internet activities from being monitored.
Tor does not prevent an online service from determining when it is being accessed through Tor. Tor protects a user’s privacy, but does not hide the fact that someone is using Tor. Some websites restrict allowances through Tor. For example, Wikipedia blocks attempts by Tor users to edit articles unless special permission is sought. Although a VPN is generally faster than Tor, using them together will slow down your internet connection and should be avoided. More is not necessarily better in this situation.
The deep web is the part of the web that can not be indexed by search machines: internal company login pages, or a school portal (the internal portal) private google sites or government pages.
The dark web is the more sinister form of the Deep Web. The dark web is more associated with illegal activity (i.e child pornography, drug dealing, hitmen etc). A VPN is not necessary when connecting to the DEEP WEB. Please do not confuse the DEEP WEB with the DARK WEB.
Are there any good free VPN services?
It is not recommended to use free VPN for following reasons:
1- Security: Free VPNs don’t necessarily have to ensure your privacy is protected.
2- Tracking – Free VPNs have no obligation to keep your details safe, so at any point, your details could be passed on.
3- Speed / bandwidth – Some free VPN services are capped at a lower bandwidth that is you will receive less browsing or download speed to that of paid VPN.
2- ExpressVPN – nearly 3x NordVPN’s price but guarantees Netflix in the US. Excellent customer service and claims to not log your info.
3- Private Internet Access – a U.S. based VPN that has proven its no log policy in the court of law. This is a unique selling point that 99.99% VPNs don’t have.
4- OpenVPN provides flexible VPN solutions to secure your data communications, whether it’s for Internet privacy, remote access for employees, securing IoT, or for networking Cloud data centers.
Other Questions about VPN and security:
Why might certain web sites not load with VPN?
For security, some corporations like Banks often block IP addresses used by major VPN companies, because it is thought to improve security.
You probably need a VPN that allow you to use dedicated IP address, otherwise the server ips are constantly switching every time you reconnect to your vpn and shared ip usually raised as suspicious logins due to many people logging in from the same ip address (which make the site thinks it might be bots or mass-hacked accounts).
How is a hacker traced when server logs show his or her IP is from a VPN?
Start looking for IP address leaks. Even hackers are terrible at not leaking their IPs.
Look for times the attacker forgot to enable their VPN. It happens all the time.
Look at other things related to the attcke like domains for example. They might have registered a domain using something you can trace or they left a string in the malware that can help identify them.
Silently take control of the command and control server legally.
What is the most secure VPN protocol?
OpenVPN technology uses the highest levels (military standards) of encryption algorithms i.e. 256bit keys to secure your data transfers.
OpenVPN is also known to have the fastest speeds even in the case of long distance connections that have latency. The protocol is highly recommended for streaming, downloading files and watching live TV. In addition to speeds, the protocol is stable and known to have fewer disconnections compared to its many counterparts.
OpenVPN comes equipped with solid military grade encryption and is way better, security wise, than PPTP, L2TP/IPSec and SSTP.
What are some alternatives for VPN?
Tor network, it is anonymous, free and well, rather slow, certainly fast enough to access your private email, but not fast enough to stream a movie.
Proxies are remote computers that individuals or organizations use to restrict Internet access, filter content, and make Internet browsing more secure. It acts as a middleman between the end user and the web server, since all connection requests pass through it. It filters the request first then sends it to the web server. Once the web server responds, the proxy filters the response then sends it to the end user.
IPSec (Cisco, Netgear, etc.): secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts the packets of data sent over an Internet Protocol network.
SSL (Full) like OpenVPN
SSL (Partial) like SSL-Explorer and most appliances
SSH Tunneling is a method of transporting arbitrary networking data over an encrypted SSH connection. It can be used to add encryption to legacy applications. It also provides a way to secure the data traffic of any given application using port forwarding, basically tunneling any TCP/IP port over SSH.
You can create you own VPN as well using any encryption or simple tunneling technology.
How does private browsing or incognito window work?
When you are in private browsing mode, your browser doesn’t store any of this information at all. It functions as a completely isolated browser session.
For most web browsers, their optional private mode, often also called InPrivate or incognito, is like normal browsing except for a few things.
it uses separate temporary cookies that are deleted once the browser is closed (leaving your existing cookies unaffected)
no private activity is logged to the browser’s history
it often uses a separate temporary cache
What are the advantages of Google Chrome’s private browsing?
simultaneously log into a website using different account names
access websites without extensions (all extensions are disabled by default when in Incognito)
Shield you from being tracked by Google, Facebook and other online advertising companies
Allow you to be anonymous visitor to a website, or see how a personalized webpage will look like from a third-party perspective
Firefox private browsing or chrome incognito?
Mozilla doesn’t really have an incentive to spy on their users. It’s not really going to get them anything because they’re not a data broker and don’t sell ads. Couple this with the fact that Firefox is open-source and I would argue that Firefox is the clear winner here.
Adding a VPN to Firefox is clever because it means the privacy protection is integrated into one application rather than being spread across different services. That integration probably makes it more likely to be used by people who wouldn’t otherwise use one.
Pros and Cons of Adding VPN to browsers like Firefox and Opera:
Turning on the VPN will give users a secure connection to a trusted server when using a device connected to public Wi-Fi (and running the gamut of rogue Wi-Fi hotspots and unknown intermediaries). Many travellers use subscription VPNs when away from a home network – the Mozilla Private Network is just a simpler, zero-cost alternative.
However, like Opera’s offering, it’s not a true VPN – that is, it only encrypts traffic while using one browser, Firefox. Traffic from all other applications on the same computer won’t be secured in the same way.
As with any VPN, it won’t keep you completely anonymous. Websites you visit will see a Cloudflare IP address instead of your own, but you will still get advertising cookies and if you log in to a website your identity will be known to that site.
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