Rodney Campbell's Blog

10 IT security companies to watch

Data-leak prevention, behavior-based malware detection among focus areas.

Research Shows Image-Based Threat on the Rise

New Purdue University research shows steganography, long considered a minor threat, may be on the rise.

Patent filed for revolutionary technique to quickly recover lost passwords

ElcomSoft has harnessed the combined power of a PC’s Central Processing Unit and its video card’s Graphics Processing Unit.

I Was a Hacker for the MPAA

In an exclusive interview with Wired News, gun-for-hire hacker Robert Anderson tells for the first time how the Motion Picture Association of America promised him money and power if he provided confidential information on TorrentSpy, a popular BitTorrent search site.

DNS Cache Poison (BIND 9)

A vulnerability in BIND 9 allows remote attackers to cause a cache poisoning attack against it.

Check Point Secure Platform Hack (pdf)

An uncensored real-time how I exploited a vulnerability in a kernel hardened EAL4+ certified firewall.

Analyzing the Effectiveness and Coverage of Web Application Security Scanners (pdf)

The study centered around testing the effectiveness of the top three web application scanners in the following 4 areas. Links crawled, Coverage of the applications tested using Fortify Tracer, Number of verified vulnerability findings and Number of false positives.

The Changing Storm

The latest Storm variants have a new twist. They now use a 40-byte key to encrypt their Overnet P2P traffic.

The Russian Business Network Responds

An individual claiming to represent the Russian Business Network has denied media reports the company provides Web hosting services to numerous cyber criminal operations.

How to Turn Your Browser Into a Weapon

Add these extensions to Firefox when you’re looking to do some hacking.

HD Moore takes iPhone exploits public

He says the device will still be vulnerable even after Apple patches it.

Attack Surface Analysis of BlackBerry Devices (pdf)

One of the BlackBerry’s main selling points is that it provides an integrated wireless messaging system, providing push email access over cellular wireless networks throughout the world. Another major factor in the BlackBerry’s popularity is its comprehensive and systematic approach to security. BlackBerry devices are versatile, and can be used for a range of functions including telephony, SMS, email, and Web browsing amongst other things.

Hack in the Box 2007 Presentations

Insecure Magazine Issue 13

HD Moore joins iPhone hackers

Releases Metasploit Framework for device “HD Moore, one of the developers of the Metasploit hacking software, is supporting the iPhone within the Metasploit framework and providing tools to run ‘shellcode’ prompts.

Interview With A Convicted Hacker: Robert Moore

On his way to federal prison, the 23-year-old hacker says breaking into computers at telecom companies and major corporations was “so easy a caveman could do it.”

SCOUT – Speedy Complete Online URL Test

This page allows you to submit a suspicious URL to our high interaction client honeypot Capture to determine whether the suspicious URL is indeed malicious. The client honeypot, which runs Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6, will make the request to the server and determine whether any unauthorized state changes, such as placing an executable file in the start-up folder, have been made. If these state changes are detected, our client honeypot will classify the URL as malicious.

The (Practically) Ultimate OpenSSH/Keychain Howto

How to generate public/private key pairs and strong passphrases, and how to use the wonderful Keychain utility to automate your SSH logins.

Internet Security Moving Toward ‘White List’

According to Symantec, ‘Internet security is headed toward a major reversal in philosophy, where a ‘white list’ which allows only benevolent programs to run on a computer will replace the current ‘black list’ system’.

Hacker Finds Serious Flaw in Adobe PDF

Security researcher said he would not release code that shows how a PDF attack works until Adobe provided a patch for the problem.

Scrutinizing SIP Payloads – Traversing Attack Vecors in VOIP (pdf)

The objective of this research is to traverse the hidden artifacts of SIP realm to expose the infection oriented vectors.

Uninformed Journal Volume 8

Real-time Steganography with RTP, A Brief Analysis of PatchGuard Version 3, Escaping Internet Explorer Protected Mode, OS X Kernel-mode Exploitation in a Weekend, A Catalog of Windows Local Kernel-mode Backdoors and Generalizing Data Flow Information.

Data Stored in RAM Could Be Subject to E-Discovery, Court Says

Why is the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California’s recent ruling that defendants in a copyright infringement case “collect and produce” information stored in their servers’ random access memory significant?

Google Desktop as a Source of Digital Evidence (pdf)

Discusses the emerging trend of Personal Desktop Searching utilities on desktop computers, and how the information cached and stored with these systems can be retrieved and analysed, even after the original document has been removed.

The Threat of Reputation-Based Attacks

An attempt to smear the good name of a legitimate organization by tainting them with the stain of illegal activity – known as a “reputation attack” – by making it look to the victims of the stolen PayPal accounts as if the legitimate organisation is the one stealing their money.

Report – Insiders cause more computer security problems than viruses (pdf)

The Computer Security Institute has just released the 2007 edition (PDF) of its long-running “Computer Crime and Security Survey,” and it offers some dreary news for overworked computer security admins: average losses from attacks have surged this year. More surprising is the finding that the single biggest security threat faced by corporate networks doesn’t come from virus writers any more; instead, it comes from company insiders.

Malware moves from scattershot to honeypot

End users were far less likely to receive malware programs in their in-boxes and far more likely to get attacked as they visited legitimate Web sites over the first six months of 2007.