Are You Still Using Windows XP?

You should know that Microsoft has finally given up on its most successful product and announced that it won’t support Windows XP any more. In other words, millions of computers all over the world are now at risk from security threats, but the software giant failed to persuade people to switch to another operating system. According to the latest statistics, almost 25% of the world’s machines still run XP.

Of course, it has been a pretty long run. Windows XP was released in the mid-2001 and its development was started in the late 1990s. Its prototype code was codenamed “Neptune” and built on the Windows NT kernel, intended for consumers. In the meantime, an updated version of Windows 2000 was also initially planned for the business market. In the early 2000, both of these projects were shelved in favor of a single operating system nickenamed “Whistler”, which could be used in both business and consumer environments.
The new OS introduced a considerably redesigned graphical user interface and became the first version of Windows which used product activation in an effort to reduce software piracy. Despite this feature, XP was pirated to oblivion, so you can see how that worked out.
Windows XP proved to be extremely popular among users: by January 2006, more than 400 million copies were in use. XP remained the most widely used OS until August 2012, when Windows 7 overtook it.
The much-extended deadline fell on the same day as Patch Tuesday, giving Microsoft a chance to release updates for the platform. But after the April, 8 no more updates for machines without custom support are released. The exceptions are the UK government, which has paid Microsoft £5.5 million to keep public sector entities covered, and the Dutch government. For everyone else it will be a great time to target machines running on Windows XP, because there is no protection short of virus checkers anymore.

EnjOy..:)

Bugs Of Techn0l0gy

:Top Ten Password Cracking Methods:

Top Ten Password Cracking Methods

1. Dictionary attack :-

"This uses a simple file containing words that can, surprise surprise, be found in a dictionary. In other words, if you will excuse the pun, this attack uses exactly the kind ofwords that many people use as their password..."

2. Brute force attack :-

"This method is similar to the dictionary attack but with the added bonus, for the hacker, of being able to detect non-dictionary words by working through all possible alpha-numeric combinations from aaa1 to zzz10..."

3. Rainbow table attack :-

"A rainbow table is a list of pre-computed hashes - the numerical value of an encrypted password, used by most systems today - and that’s the hashes of allpossible password combinations for any given hashing algorithm mind. The time it takes to crack a password using a rainbow table is reduced to the time it takes to look it up in the list..."

4. Phishing :-

"There's an easy way to hack: ask the user for his or her password. A phishing email leads the unsuspecting reader to a faked online banking, payment or other site in order to login and put rightsome terrible problem with their security..."

5. Social engineering :-

"A favourite of the social engineeris to telephone an office posing asan IT security tech guy and simply ask for the network access password. You’d be amazed how often this works. It take the advantage of people trust."

6. Malware :-

"A key logger or screen scraper can be installed by malware whichrecords everything you type or takes screen shots during a login process, and then forwards a copy of this file to hacker central..."

7. Offline cracking :-

"Often the target in question has been compromised via an hack ona third party, which then providesaccess to the system servers and those all-important user password hash files. The password cracker can then take as long as they need to try and crack the code without alerting the target system or individual user..."

8. Shoulder surfing :-

"The service personnel ‘uniform’ provides a kind of free pass to wander around unhindered, and make note of passwords being entered by genuine members of staff. It also provides an excellent opportunity to eyeball all those post-it notes stuck to the front of LCD screens with logins scribbled upon them..."

9. Spidering :-

"Savvy hackers have realised that many corporate passwords are made up of words that are connected to the business itself. Studying corporate literature, website sales material and even the websites of competitors and listed customers can provide the ammunition to build a custom word list to use in a brute force attack..."

10. Guess :-

"The password crackers best friend, of course, is the predictability of the user. Unless a truly random password has been created using software dedicated to the task, a user generated ‘random’ password is unlikely to be anything of the sort..."

EnjOy.. :)

Bugs Of Techn0l0gy

IMDB Blocked in Pakistan

IMDB blocked in pakistan, The popular Movie Reviews websites has been blocked in Pakistan in a surprising move by the ministry of information.

The ISP PTCL and the Telecommunication body PTA has yet to provide an offical statment for closing down a website that falls so outside of their regular parameters of closure.

From the buzz that we are hearing from the internet, we hear that the webiste IMDB has been blocked from pakistan solely becuase there were negative reviews on the webiste for the Movie waar.

If that is true this is a new low for PTA and PTCL and an infringements on the rights of internet users everywhere since the Banning of the wbeiste falls way out of the parameters set forth for their restriction clauses

is pakistan heading for the same kind of online censoreship that led to the revolts in syria and middle east, or can we expect cyber enforcements of the likes of china, will they start locking people up in jails next for blogging about important issues where will this end.

Being a techie and a movie fan i personally rely on IMDB to provide an honest critique of a movie, and that ususally ends up being my deicision to go out and see it.

PTA in banning IMDB has opened up a whole new can of worms, if it was a mistake on their end it can be forgiven and forgotten but if it is another indefinite ban like the one they have posed on Youtube and if steps are not taken to ensure that there are policies and consensus votes from the general population or sensible bodies on taking such decisions in the future

We might end up falling headfirst into complete and utter digital isolation the likes of which can only be suffered in a less than democratic totalitarian regime, where even viewing websites that are banned can earn you a prison sentence.

UPDATE – Here are comments from IMDB which resulted in the IMDB BAN

EnjOy..:)Bugs Of Techn0l0gy