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You’re telling me someone gave a stranger his password?

Dave Farquhar security February 17, 2015February 15, 2015acrobat, Acrobat Reader, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, antivirus, antivirus software, breach, Exploit, hp, IBM, LinkedIn, malware, microsoft, microsoft updates, Password, passwords, PDF, server, servers, social engineer, web page

I was talking breaches last week when a very high-up joined the conversation in mid-stream.

“Start over, Dave.”

“OK. I’m talking about breaches.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” he said, knowingly and very clearly interested.

Why every breach is different

Dave Farquhar security February 6, 2015February 5, 2015acrobat, Acrobat Reader, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Flash, breach, DOS, Exploit, java, microsoft, Microsoft Office, microsoft updates, PC, server, servers, sysadmin, unix, vulnerability, web browser, web browsers, web page, windows nt

I’ve grown used to being asked what unpatched vulnerability was used in the most recent breach, in an effort to make sure some other company is protected.

I appreciate the desire to learn from other companies’ mistakes and not repeat them. But there are several reasons why the answer to that question is complicated, and not necessarily helpful.

Why the Target data breach news keeps getting worse, and what you need to do

Dave Farquhar security January 13, 2014January 11, 2014acrobat, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, breach, budget, christmas, christmas shopping, Credit card, Data breach, DBA, Debit card, e mail, hacking, Mandiant, microsoft, microsoft patches, modems, passwords, phone, pins, server, vulnerability, water

As you probably know, last year some still-unknown criminals stole a whole bunch of credit and debit card data from Target. And the story keeps changing. First there weren’t any PINs. Then they got the PINs, but no personally identifiable data. Well, the latest news indicates they got credit card numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and for a whole lot more people, and probably from a longer length of time than just late November to mid-December.

There are a few things you ought to do if you shop at Target, which many people do. Read more

How to make an LG LD301EL dehumidifier drain the water out of a hose instead of the bucket

Dave Farquhar Landlording August 29, 2013November 28, 2015acrobat, Acrobat Reader, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, BIND, computer security, EMET, hardware store, LG, malware, microsoft, PC, PDF, screw, water

I recently came into possession of an LG LD301EL dehumidifier. It was supposed to be draining out of the hose, but it wasn’t. I figured out why.

If you have one of these or a similar dehumidifier, chances are you have the same problem. The instructions on the back of the dehumidifier aren’t as clear as they could be and the diagrams are tiny. The manual doesn’t quite seem to explain it either. If you don’t have the manual and don’t want to download one from a dodgy web site–and as a computer security professional I recommend that you don’t (more on that at the end)–here’s how to get it done.

Book scanning on the (relatively) cheap

Dave Farquhar Copyright February 15, 2013February 14, 2013adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Ars Technica, e reader, Fair Use, imagemagick, PDF, scanner, tinkerer

Ars Technica has a fascinating article on the trials and tribulations of building a book scanner from a kit.

They lament the lack of software support, however–namely, a program to convert the image files generated by the digital camera into a PDF. Should I point them in the right direction? Why not? The key is Imagemagick, of course.
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A fast way to turn lots of images into an Adobe Acrobat PDF file

Dave Farquhar Software December 3, 2012January 20, 2017acrobat, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, command line tools, imagemagick, JPG, linux, mac os x, os x, PDF, PNG, scanner, tablet, TIFF, unix, windows 7, Windows XP

I have a collection of magazine scans that, inconveniently, came as a series of JPG images rather than as PDFs that are more conducive to reading. I wanted PDFs, so I found a way to turn lots of images into an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

Building the PDF manually took a good 30 minutes per issue, so I wanted a faster way. Using command-line tools, I was able to convert the entire collection (about 40 issues) in less than 30 minutes. Read more

How to send banking documents securely over e-mail

Dave Farquhar security October 9, 2012acrobat, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, AES, encryption, office 2007, Password, PDF, PKZIP, ZIP

When you’re getting a loan, sometimes you have to send documents like bank statements electronically. If you want the money in those bank accounts to actually stay there, you need to protect those documents before you send them.

There are three relatively easy ways to do it, depending on what software you and the person on the other end have.

End of the innocence for Mac security

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, security March 30, 2012acrobat, adblock, adblock plus, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Adware, antivirus, antivirus software, apple, China, department of defense, firefox, Free Antivirus, gmail, mac os x, macintosh, malicious code, malware, Malware Domains, microsoft, microsoft word, office 2007, os x, PDF, pdf files, spyware, trojan horse, United States, vector, vulnerability, yahoo

Antivirus vendor Kapersky has identified a new trojan horse targetting Macintoshes. It spreads a botnet based somewhere in China via an infected Microsoft Word document, typically sent as an e-mail attachment.

The spin is that if you don’t use Word on your Mac, you’re safe. That’s true–this week. But going forward, it’s going to take more than that. Read more

How to view questionable PDFs safely

Dave Farquhar security August 18, 2011August 21, 2017acrobat, adobe, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, antivirus, antivirus software, chrome, EMET, google, Google Chrome, linux, microsoft, PDF, pdf files, security issues, spam, toolkits, Windows 10

I said Tuesday that it’s a bad idea to download and view PDF (Adobe Acrobat/Adobe Reader) documents from questionable sources, but I didn’t really elaborate on why, nor did I tell you how to view questionable PDFs safely.

The reason is that pretty much anybody with a little bit of determination and the ability to follow a recipe can plant a trap in a PDF file and use it to gain access to your computer. Adobe Reader is extremely prone to these kinds of attacks, and don’t think you’re safe if you don’t run Windows. There are toolkits that will inject traps that work on Macintoshes and Linux too.

Yes, your antivirus software should catch it. But most antivirus software doesn’t dig deeply enough into PDF files to find it.

Scared yet? You should be. You do have some options.
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