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White hat gray hat black hat – what’s the difference?

Dave Farquhar security July 12, 2018November 23, 2018

In computer security circles, you’ll hear the words white hat gray hat black hat thrown around a lot. Everyone just assumes you know what they mean. If you’re unsure about it, here’s what the terms mean, and what the difference is.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Can your computer become infected with a virus via email?

Dave Farquhar security July 11, 2018August 19, 2018

Can your computer become infected with a virus via email? It absolutely can. I had one of the worst weeks of my career due to a virus delivered over e-mail. But the good news is, it’s preventable. You can take simple measures to make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to catch a virus via e-mail.

Dave Farquhar

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Budget pfSense build with workstation parts

Dave Farquhar Hardware, security July 9, 2018July 3, 2018

I’ve written about pfSense before. It’s a router project based on FreeBSD, a free Unix project that never gained the popularity of Linux but is perfectly capable in its own right. But it doesn’t run on router hardware. It’s designed to run on a PC. But a lot of pfSense builds get expensive. So let’s look at a budget pfSense build. Let’s see what we can do for around $100-$150.

I see a lot of pfSense builds with price tags of $300. If you’re OK with using used equipment, you can build a nice machine for half that. And you don’t have to give up quality either. In fact, I’ll argue that building one my way gains you quality. Let’s get to it.

Dave Farquhar

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Should I buy a Chromebook? Yes!

Dave Farquhar Hardware, security June 29, 2018November 19, 2018

Should I buy a Chromebook? Absolutely. It’s true that Chromebooks are great for some things and mediocre for others. But Chromebooks are dirt cheap, and great enough at some things that it’s worth buying one if only for security purposes. Online banking is the best example, but not the only one. To me, the question isn’t whether to buy one. It’s whether to buy two.

Dave Farquhar

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Why is collaboration important?

Dave Farquhar security June 7, 2018May 24, 2018

Why is collaboration important? I once worked someplace that had collaboration as a core value, but not all of its employees collaborated. So I learned first hand why collaboration is important. It’s one of the best ways to be successful without making enemies.

I’m a security professional by trade. Security professionals are notoriously bad at collaborating. Collaboration may be the only thing I do better than other security professionals I’ve met, so I see the importance of it. And not just in security, and not just in IT.

Dave Farquhar

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Brute force hacking

Dave Farquhar security June 1, 2018March 18, 2024

Brute force hacking is a crude form of hacking by guessing passwords over and over again until you guess right. As you may guess, it can be rather time consuming. But there are more than 40 gigabytes’ worth of stolen usernames and passwords in circulation that we know about, so obviously, it works.

In computing in general, brute force refers to getting something done inelegantly, relying on persistence and the computer’s ability to repeat things over and over quickly until it’s successful. Here’s how brute force hacking works, and some ways to prevent it.

Dave Farquhar

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What is geolocation? And is it good or bad?

Dave Farquhar security May 31, 2018May 19, 2018

What is geolocation? It’s the practice, or some would say black magic, of inferring your geographic location from your computer, phone, or another device. It has legitimate uses, but also can arguably be an invasion of privacy. Here’s how it works, and how to defeat it.

In a nutshell, it works like algebra, where you solve something you don’t know based on two or more things you do know.

Dave Farquhar

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What is a managed service provider?

Dave Farquhar security May 29, 2018May 30, 2018

Managed service providers have really taken off in recent years, partly due to the boom in cloud computing. But what is a managed service provider, and what are the advantages of using one?

Dave Farquhar

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How to create a good password

Dave Farquhar security May 10, 2018May 12, 2018

Most passwords aren’t good, because humans just aren’t very good at making good ones and computers are much better at guessing them than at telling humans whether they are good. So here’s how to create a good password.

Dave Farquhar

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How good is my password?

Dave Farquhar security May 9, 2018April 3, 2021

How good is my password? Chances are, not as good as the web site’s strength-o-meter says it is. That’s assuming the site even has a strength-o-meter. Unfortunately, more goes into the quality of a password than just the things the typical web site strength-o-meter measures. Here’s what you need to know, and what you can do about it.

Dave Farquhar

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