Zenoss Core
Zenoss Core is an enterprise-grade network and systems monitoring product that delivers the functionality IT operations teams need to effectively manage the health and performance of their entire infrastructure through a single, integrated package. Some features of Zenoss Core include Inventory & Configuration, Availability Monitoring, Performance Monitoring, Event Monitoring and Management. For far too long, robust IT infrastructure monitoring was out of reach for most organizations because of the cost and complexity of the proprietary systems that offered the required functionality. Zenoss has changed the game by offering a complete, easy-to-use solution as a free (i.e. no money), downloadable, open source software product.
Quick Links for 27 April 2007
- Heir ‘hired firm to spy on wife’ - American banking heir Matthew Mellon paid private detectives to hack into the e-mails of his estranged wife prior to their divorce, a court was told.
- Schneier questions need for security industry - “We shouldn’t have to come and find a company to secure our e-mail. E-mail should already be secure. We shouldn’t have to buy from somebody to secure our network or servers. Our networks and servers should already be secure.”
- Websense buys Surf Control - Websense is bulking up to take on the big IT security vendors by buying Surf Control, the British censorware developer, for £201m ($400m) cash.
- Virus Writers Taint Google Ad Links - Virus writers are aiming to get their malicious software installed on computers whose users click onto ad links after searching for legitimate sites such as BBBonline.org, the official Web site of the Better Business Bureau.
Wikto
Wikto is a Web Server Assessment Tool. It works by trying to find interesting directories and files on the web site, it looks for sample scripts that can be abused or finds known vulnerabilities in the web server implementation itself. It’s written for the MS .NET environment so, you need to install the .NET framework for Wikto. If you want to use Google functionality you will need a valid Google API key. It provides similar functionality as Nikto, with some additional features such as a Back-End miner and Google integration.
Top 10 Most Famous Hackers of All Time
IT Security has a nice article about Top 10 Most Famous Hackers of All Time. 5 Black Hat Crackers and 5 White Hat Hackers. Some famous for wrecking havoc and others for driving technological innovation.
10 Most Commonly Used Passwords Online
Password is the weakest form of authentication and if you’re using one of the 10 Most Commonly Used Passwords Online, you should immediately change it.
1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)
Netfilter
Netfilter is a Linux kernel packet filter/firewall. It is the re-designed and heavily improved successor of the previous Linux 2.2.x ipchains and Linux 2.0.x ipfwadm systems. With the Netfilter you can build internet firewalls based on stateless and stateful packet filtering, use NAT and masquerading for sharing internet access if you don’t have enough public IP addresses, use NAT to implement transparent proxies, aid the tc and iproute2 systems used to build sophisticated QoS and policy routers and do further packet manipulation (mangling) like altering the TOS/DSCP/ECN bits of the IP header.
KNOPPIX
KNOPPIX is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk.
Ad-Aware Personal
Ad-Aware Personal is one of the most popular anti-spyware product for windows pc. It’s a free anti-spyware version which provides you with advanced protection against spyware that secretly attaches and takes control of your computer, resulting in aggressive advertising pop-ups, sluggish computer activity, even identity theft through stolen bank details, passwords, and credit card account numbers. Some of the key features of Ad-ware Personal are user-controlled spyware removal, customizable scans, code sequence identification (CSI) technology, extensive Lavasoft Detection Database, ADS scan, blocks browser hijackers and quarantine manager.
SARA
The Security Auditor’s Research Assistant (SARA) is a third generation network security analysis tool based on the Security Administrator’s Tool for Analyzing Networks (SATAN) model. Advanced Research’s philosophy relies heavily on software re-use. Rather than inventing a new module, SARA is adapted to interface to other community products. For instance, SARA interfaces with the popular NMAP package for superior “Operating System fingerprinting”. Also, SARA provides a transparent interface to SAMBA for SMB security analysis.



