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Showing posts from April, 2016

5 Best Linux Distros for Installation on a USB Stick

5 Best Linux Distros for Installation on a USB Stick Puppy Linux For the longest while,  Puppy Linux  has been seen as little more than a curiosity. Designed to be used on the most austere of hardware, it could comfortably chug away on early Pentium machines without breaking a sweat. But it wasn’t that practical. Many installed it on their antique hardware to see how little ‘oomph’ it needed, and then forgot about it. But it never went away. Updates and new versions are still regularly released. Sure, it’s still stripped down; it can run on low-end and underpowered hardware. But you can now use it to get stuff done. There are three different versions of Puppy. One, called  Slacko Puppy  is based upon SlackWare, which is one of the longest established Linux distributions. People continue to use it as their day-to-day operating system.  People understand it . Another is built around Ubuntu 14:04 LTS,  called TahrPup . The third version of Puppy is the mainline projec

Never10 Prevents Windows 7 and 8.1 from Automatically Upgrading to Windows 10

Never10 Prevents Windows 7 and 8.1 from Automatically Upgrading to Windows 10 Microsoft really, really wants you to upgrade to Windows 10, but if you’re a happy Windows 7 or 8.1 user, you shouldn’t be forced to upgrade. Never10 gives you control over whether Windows will upgrade itself. The free utility from security researcher and developer Steve Gibson couldn’t be simpler to use. Run the 81k program and click either “Disable Win10 Upgrade” or “Enable Win10 Upgrade.” Never10 modifies the GWX (Get Windows 10) registry settings to prevent or enable automatic OS upgrading. You’ll need to be running a non-Enterprise edition of Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 for this to work. For some systems, you might need to get a Windows Update to be able to use Never10, but the utility will also figure that out for you and also install the update if necessary. You can  read more about the technical details behind Never10 here . Unlike  GWX Control Panel , another tool used for the same purpose, Ne

Enable this New Setting to Secure your Computer from Macro-based Malware

Do you deal with MS Word files on the daily basis? If yes, then are you aware that even opening a simple doc file could compromise your system? It is a matter to think that the virus does not directly affect you, but it is you who let the virus carry out the attack by enabling deadly "Macros" to view the doc contents that are generally on eye-catching subjects like bank invoice. How Macros are Crippling your System? The concept of Macros dates back to 1990s. You must be familiar with this message: " Warning: This document contains macros. " A Macro is a series of commands and actions that help to automate some tasks. Microsoft Office programs support Macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but they can also be used for malicious activities like installing malware. Hackers are cleverly using this technique on the shade of social engineering by sending the malicious Macros through doc file or spreadsheet with an eye-catching subject in the mail

Proactively Reacting to Ransomware

Proactively Reacting to Ransomware Written by:  http://www.freeforensics.org/ For our inaugural post, we thought we would share some proof of concept ideas regarding potential reactions and responses to ransomware outbreaks.  We have been tossing around some ideas and scripts, that we think can buy the victim back some time when their machine is being infected by ransomware.  The hope being that this additional time allows the victim time to react to the infection and hopefully provide the victim an opportunity to remedy the situation. As an incident responder, we all know that ransomware cases can be overly damning to a victim and an organization, so reacting to them as quick as possible is crucial.  Since protections in place, such as AntiVirus are constantly in a rat race, that is usually one step behind, it puts everyone at a disadvantage.  One thing you can say about ransomware is that it isn't hard to spot a successful infection.  Forensically speaking, it is overly