Wednesday, June 30, 2010

the evolution of CAPTCHA


from the comic User Friendly

surely in the arms race against spammers this is where we're headed - CAPTCHA's that bots and CAPTCHA sweatshop workers alike can't solve.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

spamasterpiece theatre



awesome that such a well recognized character is tackling such a pervasive problem in such a funny way, reading spam with hashbusters (aka word salad) aloud like it was classic literature.

this is actually the first of a miniseries of videos - you can find more here

Monday, June 28, 2010

Friday, June 25, 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

if the threat is too new

trying my hand at catch phrases. see what you think.
if the threat is too new then a scanner won't do

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

having backups - priceless

inspired by this post on the kaspersky labs blog (shame i took so long to post it - slightly ruins the effect)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

counting vulnerabilities...

from Robert Hensing's blog (technically right from the title)

Counting vulnerabilities is a natural way to measure security. If you're a retard.

in reality counting vulnerabilities is like counting dents in a car - unusually high numbers may suggest there's a cause for concern but neither low nor high numbers are conclusive of anything.

Monday, June 21, 2010

POC code for near-zero day 'sploits...

from Christofer Hoff's blog

POC code for near-zero day ’sploits is like SPAM advertising penis-extending drugs…the only dick it’s helping is the one writing it…
 nicely put @beaker.

Friday, June 18, 2010

why cutaway does security

 

from Security Ripcord

sometimes things just don't go the way they ought to. you better have a plan for when that happens.

this is cutaway's only cartoon so far - maybe he'll do more for us but this is from way back in '08 so i guess we shouldn't hold our breath

Thursday, June 17, 2010

top 10 threats to your system

thanks to dave lewis for pointing out that top 10 lists are 'infectious'...

top 10 threats to your system

10) floppy disks (for those of you who still have floppy drives)
9) cd's / dvd's / usb drives
8) mp3 players
7) digital picture frames
6) email
5) web pages (all of them, no seriously all of them)
4) instant messaging
3) p2p
2) an internet connection
1) you

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

the original trojan horse



from bruce schneier's blog

sometimes in hind-sight you really have to wonder "what were they thinking?"

that goes for more than just the people of troy, by the way.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

the cobbler has no shoes


from there, i fixed it

sometimes the people we expect to best be able to protect themselves still do a lousy job of it

Monday, June 14, 2010

security door fail


from failblog

there is no security mechanism that can do everything by itself. you can have the strongest door in the world but without walls to go with it it's pointless.