Winson Digital Techniques

What is ethical hacking? Ethical hacking involves a collection of processes where organizations authorize individuals to exploit a system’s vulnerabilities for a deeper understanding of their existing security posture. When performing an ethical hack, a security professional or researcher replicates the actions and strategies of a malicious hacker . This helps development and security teams to detect and identify security risks before hackers can exploit them. Ethical hacking, also known as  White Hat Hacking , is a fundamental step for assessing the effectiveness of an organization’s security strategy. To separate themselves from malicious hackers, white hat hackers rely on four principle values: 1)   Keeping the exploits legal by obtaining client approval  before conducting the vulnerability assessment. 2)   Predefining the scope of the attack so that the  security assessments stay within the approved legal boundaries. 3)   Reporting all di...

A birthday attack  is a type of cryptographic attack that belongs to a class of brute force attacks. It exploits the mathematics behind the birthday problem in probability theory. The success of this attack largely depends upon the higher likelihood of collisions found between random attack attempts and a fixed degree of permutations, as described in the  birthday paradox problem . Birthday paradox problem  –   Let us consider the example of a classroom of 30 students and a teacher. The teacher wishes to find pairs of students that have the same birthday. Hence the teacher asks for everyone’s birthday to find such pairs. Intuitively this value may seem small. For example, if the teacher fixes a particular date say  October 10 , then the probability that at least one student is born on that day is  1 – (364/365) 30  which is about  7.9% . However, the probability that at least one student has the same birthday as any other student is around  7...

Internet of Things (IoT)? Internet of Things is a catchall phrase for all the various internet-connected devices that are not traditional computers. This includes everything from fitness trackers and smartwatches to smart refrigerators, headphones, cameras, washing machines, cars, traffic lights, airplane engines, and home security systems. As the access to broadband Internet service grows and processors become more affordable, more and more gadgets with Wi-Fi capabilities are being created. Today there are billions of IoT devices in existence. This network of devices produces great benefits and convenience for users, but IoT devices can also be targeted by attackers as well as used to carry out cyber attacks. As with internet-connected computers, these devices are perfectly safe to use, but precautions should be taken to ensure they aren’t compromised. History of the Internet of Things? A British technology researcher named Kevin Ashton coined the term ‘Internet of Things in 1999, but...

What Is a Rootkit? A rootkit is a clandestine computer program designed to provide continued privileged access to a computer while actively hiding its presence. The term rootkit is a connection of the two words "root" and "kit." Originally, a rootkit was a collection of tools that enabled administrator-level access to a computer or network. Root refers to the Admin account on Unix and Linux systems, and kit refers to the software components that implement the tool. Today rootkits are generally associated with malware – such as Trojans, worms , viruses – that conceal their existence and actions from users and other system processes. What Can a Rootkit Do? A rootkit allows someone to maintain command and control over a computer without the computer user/owner knowing about it. Once a rootkit has been installed, the controller of the rootkit has the ability to remotely execute files and change system configurations on the host machine. A rootkit on an infected computer...

Man-in-the-Middle Attack You may have heard the term ‘Man-in-the-middle (MiTM) Attack.’ You may even have a blurred idea of it. But you’re still wondering ‘What exactly is a Man-in-the-middle attack?’ Right? Let us hash it out for you. As implied in the name itself, this kind of attack occurs when an unauthorized entity places him/herself in between two communicating systems and tries to intercept the ongoing transfer of information. To put it simply, a MiTM attack is a modern-day version of bugging. We’ll get more into the man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks in a minute but first, look around you. Look at your smartphone, look at the apps in it, look at your PC, look at those smart-connected devices gossiping with each other, and look at the website you’re on right now. Had a good look at them? Good. Now take a step back and think about everything you just looked at. What’s driving all these things? The answer would be data/information. The thing about data is that it travels. Whether it...

Password attacks involve exploiting a broken authorization vulnerability in the system combined with automatic password attack tools that speed up the guessing and cracking of passwords. The attacker uses various techniques to access and expose the credentials of a legitimate user, assuming their identity and privileges. The username-password combination is one of the oldest known account authentication techniques, so adversaries have had time to craft multiple methods of obtaining guessable passwords. Additionally, applications that use passwords as the sole authentication factor are vulnerable to password attacks since the vulnerabilities are well understood. Password attacks have far-reaching consequences since malicious users only require unauthorized access to a single privileged account or a few users' accounts to compromise the web application. Depending on the data hosted by the application, compromised passwords can pave the way for exposure of sensitive information, distr...

Technical SEO is a necessity. Here are four key technical tasks SEOs should take care of to help increase organic visibility. Driving revenue and awareness from search relies on your website health — today’s success in organic search is about a lot more than just keywords and content,” said Shachar Radin Shomrat, CMO of Deepcrawl, in her presentation at The MarTech Conference. “It demands technically sound websites in today’s marketing landscape.” “Over a longer timeframe, the technical aspects of your website play a huge role in how well your content performs,” she added. If SEOs don’t take the time to optimize critical technical aspects of your site that influence page speed, indexing, and more, it could mean lost traffic and revenue. Here are four key technical tasks SEOs should take care of to help increase organic visibility. 1. Optimize site architecture “Architecture is your foundational stage,” Shomrat said. “If the overall website structure is not optimized for search performa...