buffer overflow Archives - The Silicon Underground

Security+ vs CISSP

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:00:27 +0000

Someone asked me to compare Security+ vs CISSP, particularly the difficulty. I’m glad to oblige. I have both certifications. Let’s start by looking at a couple of hypothetical questions. Don’t expect to see either of these on the test; I’m

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Speed up Windows XP, Vista, and 7

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:09:32 +0000

I was looking for something else entirely when I found this PC World article: Speed Up Windows by Stripping it Down. That’s a familiar concept. It includes several tips that apply to XP, Vista, and 7. Some of the optimization

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Open-source licenses, the CISSP, and the real world

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:09:56 +0000

You may have a question about open-source licenses on your CISSP exam. I don’t remember the specifics and wouldn’t be able to repeat them anyway, but I had a question on my exam where knowing the differences was helpful in

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Buffer overflows explained

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:28:21 +0000

I'm taking a class for Security+ certification. Today one of the topics we covered was buffer overflows. The textbook explanation was confusing. For that matter I think it was wrong, but I was so confused by the end that I'm not sure.

I'm going to give a simplified example and explanation of a buffer overflow, similar to the one I gave to the instructor, and then to the class.

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Microsoft buys and then discontinues Linux/Unix antivirus products

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:57:00 +0000

First GeCAD, now Sybari.

Microsoft has been buying smaller anti-virus firms and discontinuing their Linux and Unix product lines.

Trust, schmust. When your god is Big Business, that means Big Business can do no wrong, so when you're the U.S. government, you let companies like Microsoft do whatever they want. The problem is that Unix antivirus products are extremely useful, especially in Microsoft shops.

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Help! I do tech support for everyone I know! (Version 1.1)

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 03:40:38 +0000

Here's an interesting dilemma: How do you avoid becoming the primary technical support contact for all of your friends and family?

(If this sounds vaguely familiar, yes, this is a revised version of something I wrote a year and a half ago.)

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Linux gets more attractive on the Xbox

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 15 Apr 2003 23:41:05 +0000

There's been another milestone in getting Linux running on Microsoft's Xbox game console. It's now possible to get it going if you bridge a couple of solder points on the motherboard to enable flashing the unit's BIOS, then you use the James Bond 007 game and a save game that exploits a buffer overflow, and with a few more tricks, you can unlock the hard drive, put it in a Linux PC, install Linux, then move the drive back to the Xbox and turn it into a cheap Linux box.

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Help! I do tech support for everyone I know!

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 07 Jan 2003 00:14:17 +0000

Here's an interesting dilemma: How do you avoid becoming the primary technical support contact for all of your friends and family?

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Update your BIND servers

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 01 Jul 2002 18:59:35 +0000

A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in a large number of versions of BIND. CERT released an advisory over the weekend. I haven't seen this on most news sites yet.

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Another RISC platform for Linux

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 24 Feb 2002 06:50:27 +0000

Vintage workstations. I've read two articles this past week about running Linux or another free Unix on vintage hardware.

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