This is a big week-- I've been tremendously busy with work and being sick lately, but stuff is happening with or without me. Core i7 released today, although motherboard and RAM prices will keep it from the mainstream for now. Tomorrow is the grand re-launch of the XBox360 with the New Xbox Experience.
Exciting times!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
WPA Encyrption hacked, 15 minutes to heaven
PC World is reporting that a "mathematical breakthrough" combined with a method for forcing a router to give you lots of good samples of encrypted data allows for a non-dictionary attack against the TKIP encryption algorithm behind WPA. Researchers expect that WPA encryption can be cracked in 12-15 minutes given modern hardware. Combine that with a high power antenna, and you should be very concerned if you have routers and systems using WPA to carry sensitive data.
Aircrack-ng is already being updated to take advantage of the latest vulnerability, so this attack is in the wild now or will be shortly. (props to DownloadSquad for the info.)
As you should already know, WEP encryption is trivial to bypass, and while WPA2 isn't officially "cracked" yet, significant advancements in parallel processing using CUDA allow for much faster brute-force cracking of WPA2. That would still require a very high end system with lots of local storage over a 24+ hour period to crack, but the impractical is now possible.
So with anything below WPA2 being easily exploitable, using WiFi without additional encryption layers (SSH, VPN, etc.) is becoming too risky for any kind of sensitive data. Be careful out there...
Aircrack-ng is already being updated to take advantage of the latest vulnerability, so this attack is in the wild now or will be shortly. (props to DownloadSquad for the info.)
As you should already know, WEP encryption is trivial to bypass, and while WPA2 isn't officially "cracked" yet, significant advancements in parallel processing using CUDA allow for much faster brute-force cracking of WPA2. That would still require a very high end system with lots of local storage over a 24+ hour period to crack, but the impractical is now possible.
So with anything below WPA2 being easily exploitable, using WiFi without additional encryption layers (SSH, VPN, etc.) is becoming too risky for any kind of sensitive data. Be careful out there...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
MS08-067 in the wild
It appears that at least two credible variants of worms based on the MS08-067 exploit have gone live.
I'm fully (and I do mean fully patched) and your organization should be too.
I'm fully (and I do mean fully patched) and your organization should be too.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Amazon: No more Wrap Rage!
OK, so maybe this isn't the most high-level IT topic I've covered, but I've got to hand it to Amazon for trying to find a serious solution for a serious problem. They're working with manufacturers to eliminate overpackaged, hard-to-open containers for merchandise!
While on some level, Mother Nature is breathing a sigh of relief, there are also tangible benefits in terms of cost and frustration as well as weight. Heck, there's a closet-industry built up around devices to open modern blister packs!
In my day toys came in a cardboard box, possibly with some assembly required and with at most a small plastic window to see some of the contents inside. The current trend of exposing as much of the toy as possible in a demo mode is so ungodly frustrating to me that it makes me want to strangle kittens. Knowing that I'll be undoing half a roll of tape and a few dozen steel twist-ties is frustrating!
Just package the stuff in an appropriate, but not overdone package. A lot of computer stuff is already very lucky in this regard, but tons of consumer-oriented gear is not. Nobody is putting their greasy mitts on an Amazon product in a retail store. You don't have to compete with other items on the shelf. It's all going to ultimately come in a plain brown wrapper no matter what, so let's save time, material, plastic, frustration, etc. and see some more sensible packaging. Good job, Amazon! Keep it up.
While on some level, Mother Nature is breathing a sigh of relief, there are also tangible benefits in terms of cost and frustration as well as weight. Heck, there's a closet-industry built up around devices to open modern blister packs!
In my day toys came in a cardboard box, possibly with some assembly required and with at most a small plastic window to see some of the contents inside. The current trend of exposing as much of the toy as possible in a demo mode is so ungodly frustrating to me that it makes me want to strangle kittens. Knowing that I'll be undoing half a roll of tape and a few dozen steel twist-ties is frustrating!
Just package the stuff in an appropriate, but not overdone package. A lot of computer stuff is already very lucky in this regard, but tons of consumer-oriented gear is not. Nobody is putting their greasy mitts on an Amazon product in a retail store. You don't have to compete with other items on the shelf. It's all going to ultimately come in a plain brown wrapper no matter what, so let's save time, material, plastic, frustration, etc. and see some more sensible packaging. Good job, Amazon! Keep it up.
Intel: i7 first benchmarks released.
I'm not going to rehash what's out there, and what's out there is still pouring in, but Core i7 is fast. Big surprise there. Here are some early reviews:
Maximum PC
TechSpot
PC Perspective
Expect mass-market acceptance by Q2-Q3 of '09, but with the Core i7 920 at around $270, that's tempting for a midrange + system now. i7 Xeon benchmarks are still MIA as far as I can tell, but expect similar performance.
Shanghai will be good, but Intel has so much breathing room now... things are looking grim over at the green camp.
Maximum PC
TechSpot
PC Perspective
Expect mass-market acceptance by Q2-Q3 of '09, but with the Core i7 920 at around $270, that's tempting for a midrange + system now. i7 Xeon benchmarks are still MIA as far as I can tell, but expect similar performance.
Shanghai will be good, but Intel has so much breathing room now... things are looking grim over at the green camp.
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