Links for August 11th 2009

A lot of buzz going on about DDoS and how to prevent them. Now, this will probably take a while, so don't hold your breath or wager your last savings. Since the pipes to your site/ISP is just so wide you can't do much to prevent bad things happening when a 100k of computers start throwing garbage (or legitimate for that matter) requests at your stack. Even force feeding your goose to get your daily dose of foie gras has it's limits, no matter what kind of feeding mechanisms you use. DDoS will be around for a long while, so let's just pray you will not be the victim of such an evil attack, even though these are short term (hours/days) and eventually will go away when a new and "nobler" cause comes the attackers way.

And now to today's links:
  • PCI-DSS: Oh no!!! Not that PCI-thingie again! Well, you'll hear a lot about it, not just here. It's here to stay. It's a good start, and if you comply you're well on your way of securing your network. But remember: Compliance does NOT mean you're done securing your network. Though it is good framework to start with. And it makes the credit card issuers happy, and will let you taking payments through plastic magic. Well, here a nice pcap parser to see if credit card information travels through your network in clear, a big no-no. Just capture data with your favorite dumper (tcpdump, Wireshark etc.) and feed it though the BreachSource products. Check the video demos.
  • Incidents: Computer forensics are not for tha faint hearted, we know this. Peeking in at memory dumps makes the world spin even faster. Luckily there are tools out there that makes living easier. Here's a nice step by step intro to WinXP memory dump forensics.
  • LinkLaw: bing.com seems to be advertising nice little products. I usually find these ads for prescription drugs and on-line pharmacies trapped in my spam inbox, but Microsoft apparently gives them prime time on bing.com, according to a report from legitscript and knujon. Examples from the report: 89.7% of the ads lead to "rogue" on-line pharmacies. Counterfeit drugs are not unusual. Prescription drugs sold without requirement of prescriptions.
  • Hacks: If you're one of the fanboys/gals (or just the opposite) out there with your nice iPhone you might find this or this or this interesting. Don't save anything critical (secret) on your phone. After watching the videos, which might scare you off, go on and read the whole story here. I'll just wait for a while before I decide if this is the phone for me.
  • Trivia: When Felipe Massa drove into the wall in Hungary and almost got killed, news has been trumpeting out that Michael Schumacher would re-appear in the shiny red Ferrari car. Schumi might have won a lot of races in his time, but the arrogant driver isn't a team player at all. Now the former F1 champion has problem with his neck after a motorcycle accident earlier this year, and won't be able to participate after all... poor little sod.

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