Articles

History of Hacking 3: The Dawn of Computer Hacking

Reasons for phone phreaking effectiveness, as well as peculiarities and flaws of the first known online systems are what John Draper outlines in this part. Why Phone Phreaking Worked Well, AT&T’s decision to use what they called ‘in-band signaling’ was their downfall, very bad idea....

History of Hacking 2: Insight into Phone Phreaking

This part of John Draper’s presentation is about the various methods of phone phreaking as one of the early manifestations of hacking into systems. Phone Phreaking 101 Who is a phone phreak? A phone phreak is a person, usually blind, because the only things that are in their lives are audio and what they...

History of Hacking: John “Captain Crunch” Draper’s Perspective

Well-known old school hacker and phone phreak John “Captain Crunch” Draper delineates the major milestones in the evolution of different types of hacking at CONFidence IT security event. Hello everybody! I don’t know if you’ve heard of me or not, but I was the old school hacker back in the...

Pwned by the Owner 4: Lessons Learned

At the end of his fantastic Defcon talk, Andrew ‘Zoz’ Brooks takes some time to provide more details about the thief’s identity, and lists the lessons learned. Who is Melvin Guzman? The Close-Up Well, Melvin Guzman is the kind of person who spells his own name wrong on his Facebook page (see snapshot)....

Pwned by the Owner 3: VNC, Browser Cookies and Keylogger to the Rescue

Zoz Brooks elaborates on the methods he used for figuring out accurate personal details of the burglar who ventured to steal his beloved computer. Retrieving the Burglar’s Personal Details But childish fun aside, I wanted that machine back, so let’s start taking a look to see what we can find out about...

Pwned by the Owner 2: Tracking Down the Thief’s Whereabouts

Trying to get his stolen computer back, Andrew ‘Zoz’ Brooks sought ways to figure out where it was, and had some success owing to smart cyber tricks. Learning the Machine’s Location What I did have was the serial number of the machine and the stats of what machine it was, so I started to look...

Pwned by the Owner: What Happens When You Steal a Hacker’s Computer

Dr. Andrew Zoz Brooks, a well-known computer expert and co-host in ‘Prototype This!’ TV series, shares his hilarious computer theft story with Defcon attendees. Alright, I have no less of an authority of speaking at Defcon than Jason Scott here. Everyone is really confused about what room I am...

Data Mining a Mountain of Zero Day Vulnerabilities 6: Mobile Application Vulnerabilities and Secure Coding

Winding up with his Black Hat presentation, Chris Wysopal dwells on smartphone application vulnerabilities and the issue of assuring secure code development. Smartphone Application Vulnerabilities I have a little bit of data here on smartphones. Like I said, we don’t have a lot of data because we just...

Data Mining a Mountain of Zero Day Vulnerabilities 5: Code Security Assessment

Chris Wysopal breaks down the industries and application types by security assessment criteria, and elaborates on secure code correlation with software vendor. Industries Holding Their Software Vendors Accountable Then we looked at, you know, what industries are securing their supply chain; what industries...

Data Mining a Mountain of Zero Day Vulnerabilities 4: Distribution Trends over Time

Chris Wysopal comments on vulnerability distribution trends within a specified time span and analyzes web applications compliance with security standards. How Vulnerability Distribution Is Changing Over Time So, then we looked at trends over time. Are any of these vulnerability distribution percentages...