What is Cyber Security ???

Learn about cyber security, why it's important, and how to get started building a cyber security program in this installment of our Data Protection 101 series.

A DEFINITION OF CYBER SECURITY

Cyber security refers to the body of technologies, processes, and practices designed to protect networks, devices, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access. Cyber security may also be referred to as information technology security.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CYBER SECURITY

Cyber security is important because government, military, corporate, financial, and medical organizations collect, process, and store unprecedented amounts of data on computers and other devices. A significant portion of that data can be sensitive information, whether that be intellectual property, financial data, personal information, or other types of data for which unauthorized access or exposure could have negative consequences. Organizations transmit sensitive data across networks and to other devices in the course of doing businesses, and cyber security describes the discipline dedicated to protecting that information and the systems used to process or store it. As the volume and sophistication of cyber attacks grow, companies and organizations, especially those that are tasked with safeguarding information relating to national security, health, or financial records, need to take steps to protect their sensitive business and personnel information. As early as March 2013, the nation’s top intelligence officials cautioned that cyber attacks and digital spying are the top threat to national security, eclipsing even terrorism.

CHALLENGES OF CYBER SECURITY

For an effective cyber security, an organization needs to coordinate its efforts throughout its entire information system. Elements of cyber encompass all of the following:

Network security
Application security
Endpoint security
Data security
Identity management
Database and infrastructure security
Cloud security
Mobile security
Disaster recovery/business continuity planning
End-user education
The most difficult challenge in cyber security is the ever-evolving nature of security risks themselves. Traditionally, organizations and the government have focused most of their cyber security resources on perimeter security to protect only their most crucial system components and defend against known treats. Today, this approach is insufficient, as the threats advance and change more quickly than organizations can keep up with. As a result, advisory organizations promote more proactive and adaptive approaches to cyber security. Similarly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued guidelines in its risk assessment framework that recommend a shift toward continuous monitoring and real-time assessments, a data-focused approach to security as opposed to the traditional perimeter-based model.

MANAGING CYBER SECURITY

The National Cyber Security Alliance, through SafeOnline.org, recommends a top-down approach to cyber security in which corporate management leads the charge in prioritizing cyber security management across all business practices. NCSA advises that companies must be prepared to “respond to the inevitable cyber incident, restore normal operations, and ensure that company assets and the company’s reputation are protected.” NCSA’s guidelines for conducting cyber risk assessments focus on three key areas: identifying your organization’s “crown jewels,” or your most valuable information requiring protection; identifying the threats and risks facing that information; and outlining the damage your organization would incur should that data be lost or wrongfully exposed. Cyber risk assessments should also consider any regulations that impact the way your company collects, stores, and secures data, such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, FISMA, and others. Following a cyber risk assessment, develop and implement a plan to mitigate cyber risk, protect the “crown jewels” outlined in your assessment, and effectively detect and respond to security incidents. This plan should encompass both the processes and technologies required to build a mature cyber security program. An ever-evolving field, cyber security best practices must evolve to accommodate the increasingly sophisticated attacks carried out by attackers. Combining sound cyber security measures with an educated and security-minded employee base provides the best defense against cyber criminals attempting to gain access to your company’s sensitive data. While it may seem like a daunting task, start small and focus on your most sensitive data, scaling your efforts as your cyber program matures.

What is Tunneling?

Tunneling is a method that protects the contents of protocol packets by encapsulating them in packets of a different protocol. Actually, transferring a letter to your grandma includes the use of a tunneling process. You create the personal letter (the primary content protocol packet) and place it in a container (the tunneling protocol). The container is delivered through the postal service (the untrusted intermediary network) to its proposed receiver.

Tunneling can be used in many conditions, such as when you are avoiding firewalls, gateways, proxies, or other traffic control devices. The bypass is accomplished by encapsulating the restricted content inside packets that are authorized for sending. The tunneling process stops the traffic control devices from blocking or filtering the communication because such devices don’t know what the packets really contain.

Tunneling secures the contents of the internal protocol and traffic packets by covering it in an authorized protocol used by the intermediary network or connection. Tunneling can be applied if the original protocol is not routable and to have the entire number of protocols supported on the network to a minimum.

What is Bitcoin? How does it work?

What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and a digital payment system created by an unknown programmer, or a group of programmers, under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It is the first decentralized digital currency.

Bitcoins are digital coins, you can send over the internet. Compared to other choices, bitcoin have many advantages. They are transferred straight from person to another via Internet without going to the bank. It means that the transactions fees are extremely lower, anyone can use them in every country, the account cannot be frozen and there are no limits.

How does it work?
Many currency exchanges exist on the Internet where you can buy and sell bitcoins. Your coins are saved in your digital wallet on your computer or mobile device or any online wallet. Sending and receiving Bitcoins is as easy as sending and receiving email, you can buy anything with Bitcoin.

When it comes to the transaction it generates a first Bitcoin address, something like an email, which acts in a way that they can send you money, by using that address you can use it and receive the Bitcoins in your wallet. You can generate as many addresses as you want, it is best to use them only once.

The bitcoins system is secured by individuals called Bitcoin miners. Workers or miners are paid newly created bitcoins for verifying transactions. All transactions after verified are recorded in a transparent public record.

What is a Jammer?

Signal jammer is created to help people solve different problems coming from cell phones, radio signals and wireless connections. Every kind of signal jammer is designed to work with a specific frequency range.

For example, WiFi signal jammer has been created to successfully block wireless signals in WiFi frequency range (2.4-2.5 GHz) and in addition, it blocks Bluetooth signals because the match the same frequency range. Everything else in this type of jammer works the same as in other jammers, maybe with some minor differences.

Jamming is regularly recognized from interference that can happen due to device defects or other accidental events. Devices that easily cause interference are regulated under various regulations. Jamming happens when an operator transmits on a busy frequency without first checking whether it is busy, or without being able to hear stations using the frequency.

There are some techniques to identify and stop these sorts of attacks. Wireless intrusion prevention systems (WIPS) can make the signal jammer apparent, WIPS is a network device that monitors the radio spectrum for the presence of unauthorized access points (intrusion detection), and can automatically take countermeasures (intrusion prevention). Some radio-based devices support spread spectrum modulation so that hardware can cycle through different frequencies to make the devices harder to jam.

Man in the middle attacks tutorial

MITM attacks (Man -In-The -Middle )

MITM are attacks where the attacker places themself between a “victim machine” and the “router”, this  generally occurs without the knowledge of the victim.

A MITM attack exploits the real-time packets in transit allowing attackers to intercept, send and receive data never meant to be for them without either outside party knowing until it is too late.

Disclaimer – Our tutorials are designed to aid aspiring pen testers/security enthusiasts in learning new skills, we only recommend that you test this tutorial on a system that belongs to YOU. We do not accept responsibility for anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to try to use this to attempt to hack systems that do not belong to you

Victim IP address : 1.0.0.98
Router IP address : 10.0.0.1
Requirements:

1. Arpspoof
2. Driftnet
3. Urlsnarf

Open your terminal and configure your Kali Linux machine to allow packet forwarding, because Kali Linux must act as router between “real router” and the victim.
first step is setting up arpspoof between victim and router.

# sudo arpspoof -i eth0 -t 1.0.0.98 10.0.0.1

And then setting up arpspoof  to capture all packet from the router to the victim machine .

# sudo arpspoof -i eth0 10.0.1.1 10.0.1.98

now all the packet sent or received by the victim should be going through the attacker machine.

as an exemple we will capture image trafic , so we need to use drifnet Driftnet ( is a program which listens to network traffic and picks out images )

to run drifnet just type :

# sudo driftnet -i eth0

when the victime browse a website with images , drifnet will capture all images trafic .

this is the victime machine while browsing images

and driftnet will capture all image traffic as shown in the screenshot below.

Ubuntu vs Linux Mint : Which Distro Should You Use?

Ubuntu and Linux Mint are both famous for being very friendly for beginners. Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. But there are some real differences between both of these. And how would you choose the one for you? today we will answer this Ubuntu vs Linux Mint question.

System Requirements

Linux Mint:

512MB Ram  with 1GB as recommended.
9GB of disk space with 20GB as recommended.
800 x 600 screen resolution with 1024 x 768 recommended.

Ubuntu:

512MB RAM with 2GB as recommended.
5GB of disk space with 25GB as recommended.
1024 x 768 screen resolution.

Interface

Most distros opt the standard Linux desktop interface as their default. But Both Linux Mint and Ubuntu developed their own.

Ubuntu makes use of the Unity interface. Unity Interface is a GNOME-based desktop environment that is common only to Ubuntu.  To say simply, Ubuntu looks a lot like Mac OS while Linux mint looks similar to Windows with it’s start menu kind of look.

Linux Mint 18 uses the Cinnamon 3.0. You can see an  overview of its features in the below video .

Both  Linux Mint and Ubuntu have their own user themes. Linux has Mint-Y, while  Ubuntu has Ambiance and Radiance , a new look based on the Moka  and Arc theme icons.

Performance

When you consider the overall performance, Linux Mint definitely has an edge over Ubuntu when it comes to speed. Ubuntu has  gotten faster over its previous versions, but Linux Mint was always pretty snappy. Even on an older and lower-powered hardware, Mint stays fast ( compared to Ubuntu). If you are installing Linux on your PC to speed it up, Mint offers you a better experience.

Conclusion

If you are someone who is installing Linux for just learning basics, Ubuntu is the one for you since it’s forum has answer to every question you ask. If you are a tech savy guy and want to dig deep into Linux but don’t know where to start, Linux Mint is your best choice. If you are installing Linux on your old PC to make it faster, Mint is again one of the best choices you have.

10 Things You Should Delete from Facebook Immediately

Facebook is the worst.

By now, everyone knows it's just a sophisticated platform to sell you stuff.

Advertisers pay because Facebook mines your data (and simply reads what you give it willingly) for your preferences. It can sell to you better because it knows who you are.

Noone's used it earnestly as a way to connect with people since 2009.

You just scroll through photos of people you don't like enough to message personally, and watch videos, or like memes.

It's a grief pit we're all lying in, making excuses about why we haven't left yet.

So here's a few steps you can take to reduce its hold on you:



1. Delete the mobile app

Why do you need it on your phone? Seriously.

Think of all the hours you've spent scrolling. Think about the books you could have read, the people you could have met, the things you could've done in that time.

Also, Facebook grabs your location data. Which seems pointless.

The app also drains your battery massively, just by being on your phone.

Also it's got stories now.

Make the smart decision.



2. Your phone number

Firstly, why are you advertising that to your friendslist?

Secondly, Facebook just wants to be the front page of the internet, or better yet the entire internet.

Why help it along the way by supplying your personal contact information? Especially, when Facebook has made it clear it doesn't care about the welfare of your data?



3. Friends that aren't your friends

Researchers theorise that we can maintain roughly 150 stable relationships.

The odds are strong that you don't speak to most of your friendslist.

If you wouldn't stop in the street to chat, why are you keeping up the mirage online?



4. Everything Facebook knows about you for advertising

As the New Statesman covered, it's a lot.

Click this link and you'll be taken to a page which reveals your advertising preferences.

Delete everything and revoke all permissions you can.



5. Delete facial recognition

Click this link.

Go to "Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?" and revoke permissions.



6. Your location on photo tags

If you tag your location at home, people can see where you live.

This is bad for obvious reasons.



7. Your relationship status

It's a humblebrag you'll regret if and when you change to single.



8. Your status from the airport

If you post a holiday plan on social media you may not get an insurance claim accepted if you're burgled.

You told people you were away - what did you expect?



9. Your credit card details

Why would you ever do this? It seems obvious, but don't.



10. Your birthday

It can be part of a puzzle of information that is used in identity theft tests.

So why volunteer it? The birthday messages aren't worth it.



11. Your account

Honestly, burn it all down.

What Is “Capture The Flag” in Hacking Terms?

Learning how to defend what is yours online is one of the most important things in today’s society. The amount of cyber-attacks plaguing the world is terrifying. It’s no surprise that more individuals are relentlessly trying to further their knowledge on cyber security related tactics via training and conferences.

One of the more popular training techniques is a game dubbed “CTF” or “Capture The Flag”. CTF is a competition between security professionals and/or individuals with a passion to learn more in the cyber security world.

CTF Time defines the three most common types of Capture The Flag:

• Jeopardy-style CTFs has a couple of questions (tasks) in range of categories. For example, Web, Forensic, Crypto, Binary or something else. Team can gain some points for every solved task. More points for more complicated tasks usually. The next task in chain can be opened only after some team solve previous task. Then the game time is over sum of points shows you a CTF winner. Famous example of such CTF is Defcon CTF quals.

• Attack-defense CTFs is another interesting kind of competitions. Here every team has own network (or only one host) with vulnerable services. Your team has time for patching your services and developing exploits usually. So, then organizers connects participants of competition and the wargame starts! You should protect own services for defense points and hack opponents for attack points. Historically this is a first type of CTFs, everybody knows about DEF CON CTF – something like a World Cup of all other competitions.

• Mixed Competition CTFs may vary possible formats. It may be something like wargame with special time for task-based elements (like UCSB iCTF).

While hacking conferences that are constantly being held offer CTF competitions, it is more common to find CTF competitions online. With access to a training platform 24/7, CTF websites are definitely the wave of the future. Everyone with an interest in protecting their online identity and belongings should consider training with CTF.

What have you got to lose? (Besides virtually everything if you don’t learn how to protect yourself.)

The Top 10 Wifi Hacking Tools in Kali Linux

How to hack WiFi is second popular search after how to hack a Facebook. Most of the routers are not correctly configured and are susceptible to various kinds of attacks.

A lot of the router manufacturers and ISPs are still turning on WPS by default on their routers which makes the wireless security and penetration testing an even more important. Using the below Top 10 Wifi Hacking Tools you will be able to test your own wireless networks to find potential security issues.

1 Aircrack-ng
Aircrack is one of the very popular tools for WPA/WPA2/WEP cracking. The Aircrack-ng suite contains tools that help to capture packets and handshakes, de-authenticate connected clients and generate traffic and also tools to perform brute force and dictionary attacks. Aicrack-ng is an all-in-one suite that contains the following tools and many others:
– Aireplay-ng to generate traffic and client de-authentication

– Aircrack-ng for wireless password cracking

– Airbase-ng to configure fake access points

– Airodump-ng for packet capturing

If you wish to use this tool, make sure your Wifi card is capable of packet injection.

2 Reaver
Reaver is definitely second one in the top 10 Wifi hacking tools. Reaver is a very popular tool for hacking wireless networks. Reaver targets specifically the WPS vulnerabilities. The Reaver performs brute force attacks on WPS (Wifi Protected Setup) registrar PINs to recover the WPA2/WPS passphrase. Since there are many router manufacturers who turn on the ISPs by default, a lot of routers are vulnerable to this  attack out of the box.

3 Pixiewps
PixieWPS is a new tool included in Kali Linux. Pixiewps also targets a WPS vulnerability. PixieWPS is written in C and it is used to brute force WPS PINs offline and exploits the low or non-existing entropy of vulnerable access points. This is also called a pixie dust attack. PixieWPS needs a modified version of Wifite or Reaver to work with. Considering the recent growth of this tool, itstood 3rd in our list.

4 Wifite
Wifite is an automated tool and expects a very little work form the user. When start-up it asks a few parameters to work with and then it will  do all the hard work. Wifite attacks multiple wireless networks that use encryptions like with WEP/WPA/WPA2 and WPS. It captures the WPA handshakes, spoof your MAC address and safe the cracked passwords, automatically de-authenticate connected clients.

5 Wireshark
Wireshark is one of the top network security analyzing tools available online. Using Wireshark you can analyse a network to with a great detail and see what’s happening inside.

6 oclHashcat
oclHashcat is not a dedicated Wifi hacking tool and it also does  not come with  Kali Linux. But it can do brute force attacks and dictionary attacks on captured handshakes at a very high speeds  using the raw power of GPU. Comparing to other tools like Aircrack-ng suite, oclHashcat  is fast since it is using  a GPU instead of a CPU. An average GPU can do upto  50,000 combinations per second with oclHashcat.

7 Fern Wifi Cracker
Fern Wifi Cracker is a wireless security auditing and attack tool and it is written in Python. It is the first tool in this list to have a graphical user interface.

8 Wash
Wash is a tool to determine whether an access point has WPS enabled or not.

9 Crunch
Crunch is a great and easy to use tool for generating custom wordlists which can be used for dictionary attacks.

10 Macchanger
Last but not least in this top 10 Wifi Hacking Tools is Macchanger. Macchanger is a little utility which can be used to spoof your MAC address to a random MAC address or you can make up your own.

What is your favorite tool?

Would you agree with our list?

Share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below.

Kali linux Commands

1.Command: ls
The command “ls” stands for (List Directory Contents), List the contents of the folder, be it file or folder, from which it runs. The most common options are -a (all files) and -l (long or details)
Tab completion is supported and may be configured with .inputrc
When output to file the files are listed one per line.
By default, colour is not used to distinguish types of files. That is equivalent to using –color=none.
Using the –color option without the optional WHEN argument is equivalent to using –color=always.
With –color=auto, color codes are output only if standard output is connected to a terminal (tty).

A.Command “ls -a“, list the content of folder, including hidden files the hidden files is colored blueCommand: lsblkThe “lsblk” stands for (List Block Devices), print block devices by their assigned name (but not RAM) on the standard output in a tree-like fashion.
The “lsblk -l” command list block devices in ‘list‘ structure (not tree like fashion).
Note: lsblk is very useful and easiest way to know the name of New Usb Device you just plugged in, especially when you have to deal with disk/blocks in terminal.
3. Command: sudo
he “sudo” (super user do) command allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified by the security policy in the sudoers list.

exp: root@Kali:~# sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
Note: sudo allows user to borrow superuser privileged, while a similar command ‘su‘ allows user to actually log in as superuser. Sudo is safer than su.
It is not advised to use sudo or su for day-to-day normal use, as it can result in serious error if accidentally you did something wrong, that’s why a very popular saying in Linux community is:
“To err is human, but to really foul up everything, you need root password.”

4. Command: mkdir
The “mkdir” (Make directory) command create a new directory with name path. However is the directory already exists, it will return an error message “cannot create folder, folder already exists”.

exp: root@Kalitut:~# mkdir Kalitut
Note: Directory can only be created inside the folder, in which the user has write permission. mkdir: cannot create directory `Kalitut‘: File exists
(Don’t confuse with file in the above output, you might remember what i said at the beginning – In Linux every file, folder, drive, command, scripts are treated as file).

5.Command: chmod
The Linux “chmod” command stands for (change file mode bits). chmod changes the file mode (permission) of each given file, folder, script, etc.. according to mode asked for.
There exist 3 types of permission on a file (folder or anything but to keep things simple we will be using file).

Read (r)=4
Write(w)=2
Execute(x)=1

So if you want to give only read permission on a file it will be assigned a value of ‘4‘, for write permission only, a value of ‘2‘ and for execute permission only, a value of ‘1‘ is to be given. For read and write permission 4+2 = ‘6‘ is to be given, ans so on.
Now permission need to be set for 3 kinds of user and usergroup. The first is owner, then usergroup and finally world.

rwxr-x–x   abc.sh

Here the root’s permission is rwx (read, write and execute).
usergroup to which it belongs, is r-x (read and execute only, no write permission) and
for world is –x (only execute).
To change its permission and provide read, write and execute permission to owner, group and world.

root@Kali:~# chmod 777 abc.sh

only read and write permission to all three.

root@Kalitut:~# chmod 666 abc.sh

read, write and execute to owner and only execute to group and world.

root@Kalitut:~# chmod 711 abc.sh

Note: one of the most important command useful for sysadmin and user both. On a multi-user environment or on a server, this command comes to rescue, setting wrong permission will either makes a file inaccessible or provide unauthorized access to someone.

6.Command: tar
The “tar” command is a Tape Archive is useful in creation of archive, in a number of file format and their extraction.

root@Kali:~# tar -zxvf abc.tar.gz (Remember ‘z’ for .tar.gz)
root@Kali:~# tar -jxvf abc.tar.bz2 (Remember ‘j’ for .tar.bz2)
root@Kali:~# tar -cvf archieve.tar.gz(.bz2) /path/to/folder/abc

Note: A ‘tar.gz‘ means gzipped. ‘tar.bz2‘ is compressed with bzip which uses a better but slower compression method.

7. Command: cp
The “copy” stands for (Copy), it copies a file from one location to another location.

root@Kali:~# cp /home/user/Downloads abc.tar.gz /home/user/Desktop (Return 0 when sucess)

Note: cp is one of the most commonly used command in shell scripting and it can be used with wildcard characters (Describe in the above block), for customised and desired file copying.

8. Command: mv
The “mv” command moves a file from one location to another location.

root@Kali:~# mv /home/user/Downloads abc.tar.gz /home/user/Desktop (Return 0 when sucess)

Note: mv command can be used with wildcard characters. mv should be used with caution, as moving of system/unauthorised file may lead to security as well as breakdown of system.

9.Command: pwd
The command “pwd” (print working directory), prints the current working directory with full path name from terminal.

root@Kali:~# pwd
/home/user/Desktop

Note: This command won’t be much frequently used in scripting but it is an absolute life saver for newbie who gets lost in terminal in their early connection with nux. (Linux is most commonly referred as nux or nix).

10. Command: cd
Finally, the frequently used “cd” command stands for (change directory), it change the working directory to execute, copy, move write, read, etc. from terminal itself.

root@Kali:~# cd /home/user/Desktop
server@localhost:~$ pwd
/home/user/Desktop

Note: cd comes to rescue when switching between directories from terminal. “Cd ~” will change the working directory to user’s home directory, and is very useful if a user finds himself lost in terminal. “Cd ..” will change the working directory to parent directory (of current working directory).

File Operations:
pwd                        Print Name Of Current/Working Directory
The pwd is an acronym for print working directory. The pwd command is considered as one of the most frequently used commands on Linux, AIX, HP-UX, *BSD, and other UNIX like operating systems along with the ls, and cd commands. It can be used for the following purposes under Apple OS X or UNIX or Linux operating systems:
=> Find the full path to the current directory.
=> Store the full path to the current directory in the shell variable.
=> Verify the absolute path.
=> Verify the physical path i.e exclude .

cd                            Changing The Working Directory
cp                            Copy Files Or Directory
rm                            Remove Files And Directory
ls                              List Of Directory Contents
mkdir                       Make Directory
cat                            Concatenate Files And Print On Standard Output
mv                            Move Files
chmod                      Change Files Permissions

Know Your System
uname                      Print System Information
who                         Show Who Is Logged On
cal                           Displays Calculator
date                         Print System Date And Time
df                            Report File System Disk Space Usage
du                            Estimate File Space Usage
ps                            Displays Information Of Current Active Processes
kill                          Allows To Kills Process
clear                        Clear The Terminal Screen
cat /proc/cpuinfo          Cpuinfo Display CPU Information
cat /proc/meminfo          Display Memory Information

Compression
tar                        Store and Extract Files From An Archive File
gzip                       Compress Or Decompress Named Files

Network
ifconfig                   To Config Network Interface
ping                       Check Other System are reachable from The Host System
wget                       Download Files From Network
ssh                        Remote Login Program
ftp                        Download/Upload Files From/To Remote System
last                       Displays List Of Last Logged In User
telnet                     Used To Communicate With Another Host Using THe Telnet Protocol

Searching Files
grep                       Search Files(s) For Specific Text
find                       Search For Files In A Directory Hierarchy
locate                     Find Files By Name

What is pretexting?

Pretexting is defined as the action of building a planned scenario to convince a targeted victim to disclose data or make some action. It is more than only creating a trick; in some situations, it can be generating a completely new identity and then using that identity to manipulate the receipt of data.

Social engineers can use pretexting to impersonate people in specific positions and roles that they never themselves have done. Pretexting is not a one-size-fits-all solution. A social engineer must improve many various pretexts over his or her career. All of them will have one thing in common: research. Good information gathering methods can create or break a good pretext. For example, simulating the perfect tech support rep is ineffective if your victim does not use external support.

Pretexting is also used in fields of life other than social engineering. Trades; public speaking; so-called fortune tellers; neurolinguistic programming (NLP) experts; and even professors, lawyers, therapists, and the like all have to use a form of pretexting. They all have to build a scenario where people are satisfied with revealing information they regularly would not. The difference in social engineers using pretexting and others are the purposes involved. A social engineer must live that persona for a time, not just play a part.