July 12, 2019, Fernando Corbató, nicknamed “Corby,” passed away at the age of 93. Corby was a pioneer in computer technology. Having developed a computer time-sharing system, his Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) paved the way for modern computing to be what it is today. From allowing multiple people to use a computer at the same time, to having induvial user accounts … [Read more...]
Ruby’s strong_password Gem Backdoored
Just recently I wrote about how a software developer, who is security-aware, was spear-phished and almost fell victim to a Firefox 0-day exploit. Fortunately for him, he was using Google Chrome and not Firefox. Follow that link for more details about that story, but what both that story and this story share in common is a security checklist that both parties … [Read more...]
Spear-Phishing, a Real-Life Example
While reading some online security articles, one in particular stood out. The reason it stood out was how the story was told; it wasn’t just a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo that is tough to decipher. Sure, there were some technical points but the way the author detailed his experience made the story far more relatable to what users face in the real world. Even being somewhat … [Read more...]
Internet Hiccup: Cloudflare’s Brief Outage
When a company’s website goes down, IT staff rush to resolve the issue and try to get to its root cause. This is easier said than done, considering the hosting options available in today’s Internet-market. You can host services internally, use online providers, or use a combination of options that help dynamically load balance traffic workload. A provider of such services, … [Read more...]
Manually Virus Scan Your Samsung TV, Please
With a price tag of $1,000 USD or more, one would think that a Smart TV should be able to automatically do what it needs to do to stay safe. Why then did Samsung make a Tweet suggesting users should manually virus scan their TVs? Included in the Tweet was this video displaying how to initiate the virus scan. The Tweet has since been removed, more than likely due to the influx … [Read more...]
