Erdmanor Blogs

So we got an RMA’d Watchguard unit in the other day and I finally got time to install it last night. The first Watchguard unit started having issues last night and I figured that was a perfect time to replace the old unit with the new. It was right at that moment we started having issues. Earlier in the week I rebuilt the firewall ruleset, proxy configurations and static NAT translations to mimic exactly what the current Watchguard was doing. As any company does, this client has an email server, a few websites, and other inbound and outbound ports that need to be open. The original Watchguard was being replaced with a better one that is able to handle more … Continue reading →

Too often I, as well as many of my co-workers, go into a client and throughout whatever assessment I am working on, general questions come up like, “when’s the last time you’ve had a pen test?” And the client responds, “Ohhh, we do those annually with ‘Some Corporation.’ ” And after looking at ‘Some Corporation’s’ website and seeing what they consider to be a penetration test, I am again disgusted to see that they show up with a vulnerability scanner, run it, validate some findings, and are off to their next client. Now I know these are some brash comments made toward some random security companies, but let’s be honest here: If you’re going to do something, do it right the … Continue reading →

Well, if you saw my blog, “The Spin Stops Here,” you see that we’ve already covered topics such as battery life, and the difference between traditional disks and the newer SSDs, among other things. But in this blog, I wanted to cover a couple other issues and facts surrounding SSDs. You may want to read my last blog on SSDs, as I will be using acronyms and information mentioned previously. Since my last SSD blog, prices have come down and larger drives have become available. I am in transition on my own laptop in running off a SSD with a secondary drive as a SATA disk, mainly for storage and running VMs (not counting the 1.5TB external USB drive I … Continue reading →

I have always been a fan of the latest and greatest hardware and always been amazed on how fast new hardware is getting. Well now the Security field is going to have to start worrying about how this hardware is being leveraged to crack passwords. The Nvidia Corporation has harnessed the functionality of the C programming language and integrated it with their newest GPU’s to form the CUDA Technology. In Fact, even the Lenovo T60 and T61’s are loaded with Nvidia Quadro graphics cards that can run CUDA software. There are even Python bindings for CUDA and many other languages may enter this arena. Applications for Fluid Dynamics, Digital Media, Electronic Design, Finance, Game Physics, Audio and Video, and many … Continue reading →

I’ve done a lot of firewall ruleset reviews for companies large and small. There is a pattern forming in almost every firewall I’ve seen. Bad management. It’s not about blaming people though. The economy is in the sewer and layoffs plague every company across the planet. Most every security team is dealing with tons of ongoing work to stay secure and low budgets and resources to get the job done. The firewall rule sets I’ve seen range from 50 lines to 10,000+ lines. Some are so complex that we schedule a week of work to audit and determine what can be taken out, what needs to stay and what shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Let’s face it; … Continue reading →

So who out there has ever experienced a Hard Disk failure? Sure, a lot of you have. Current magnetic spinning disks are (very) slowly being replaced by faster, longer lasting, Solid State Disks. Solid State Disks are nothing new. But they do offer many benefits over their predecessor. The major benefits over older technology are what really set apart this new technology. With no moving parts, higher resistance to dropping and lower power consumption, laptop users are loving this new technology. Accident prone people who drop their laptops are enjoying their data staying put, road warriors are enjoying longer battery life, and power users are enjoying longer disk life. The market share for Solid State Disks is relatively small at … Continue reading →

So you’re sitting at your desk and the phone rings. “Hey this is Mark from information security. We are noticing that your computer is creating a lot of traffic out to the internet. Are you noticing that anything on your computer is out of the ordinary lately?” What would you say? Well, in the average Social Engineering test we perform, the answer is quite honestly a, “yeah my computer is slow… can you guys finally come and fix it?” That’s when we say, “Sure! We’d be glad to *cough* help! Go here, download this patch, and run it…” and a couple minutes later we have fully compromised a system sitting behind a firewall in a corporate environment and easily getting … Continue reading →

Anyone who has ever written a set of policies and procedures knows how time consuming, headache ridden and tedious they are to create. For those of you who are in need of updating or creating new policies and procedures, this blog will be going over some things to keep in mind. We’ll also go over tips to making your writing easier for you and easier for your users to understand. Whether you’re just starting to write brand new policies and procedures or you’re doing your yearly updates on existing ones, I think the thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is simplicity. So that means, for any lawyers that may be reading this, you guys aren’t allowed to write … Continue reading →