An unpatched security hole in BIND 9 package could be used by attackers to poison your DNS cache. Attacker to take control of all hosted domains and can can lead to misdirected web traffic and email rerouting.

This update changes Debian's BIND 9 packages to implement the recommended countermeasure: UDP query source port randomization. This change increases the size of the space from which an attacker has to guess values in a backwards-compatible fashion and makes successful attacks significantly more difficult.

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Its pretty normal for certain people to forget passwords, and its absolutely normal to forget passwords that we hardly use. The BIOS password is one such thing. So if you have forgotten your BIOS password, here are certain ways to bypass the BIOS password.

But before attempting to bypass the BIOS password on a computer, please take a minute to contact the hardware manufacturer support staff directly and ask for their recommended methods of bypassing the BIOS security. In the event the manufacturer cannot (or will not) help you, there are a number of methods that can be used to bypass or reset the BIOS password yourself. They include:

* Use password cracking software

* Reset the CMOS using the jumpers or solder beads.

* Removing the CMOS battery for at least 10 minutes

* Overloading the keyboard buffer

* Using a professional service

Please remember that most BIOS passwords do not protect the hard drive, so if you need to recover the data, simply remove the hard drive and install it in an identical system, or configure it as a slave drive in an existing system. The exception to this are laptops, especially IBM Thinkpads, which silently lock the hard drive if the supervisor password is enabled. If the supervisor password is reset without resetting the and hard drive as well, you will be unable to access the data on the drive.

Password cracking software:

The following software can be used to either crack or reset the BIOS on many chipsets. If your PC is locked with a BIOS administrator password that will not allow access to the floppy drive, these utilities may not work. Also, since these utilities do not come from the manufacturer, use them cautiously and at your own risk.

* Cmos password recovery tools 3.1
* !BIOS (get the how-to article)
* RemPass
* KILLCMOS

Using the Motherboard "Clear CMOS" Jumper or Dipswitch settings:

Many motherboards feature a set of jumpers or dipswitches that will clear the CMOS and wipe all of the custom settings including BIOS passwords. The locations of these jumpers / dipswitches will vary depending on the motherboard manufacturer and ideally you should always refer to the motherboard or computer manufacturers documentation. If the documentation is unavailable, the jumpers/dipswitches can sometimes be found along the edge of the motherboard, next to the CMOS battery, or near the processor. Some manufacturers may label the jumper / dipswitch CLEAR - CLEAR CMOS - CLR - CLRPWD - PASSWD - PASSWORD - PWD. On laptop computers, the dipswitches are usually found under the keyboard or within a compartment at the bottom of the laptop.

Please remember to unplug your PC and use a grounding strip before reaching into your PC and touching the motherboard. Once you locate and rest the jumper switches, turn the computer on and check if the password has been cleared. If it has, turn the computer off and return the jumpers or dipswitches to its original position.

Removing the CMOS Battery:

The CMOS settings on most systems are buffered by a small battery that is attached to the motherboard. (It looks like a small watch battery). If you unplug the PC and remove the battery for 10-15 minutes, the CMOS may reset itself and the password should be blank. (Along with any other machine specific settings, so be sure you are familiar with manually reconfiguring the BIOS settings before you do this.) Some manufacturers backup the power to the CMOS chipset by using a capacitor, so if your first attempt fails, leave the battery out (with the system unplugged) for at least 24 hours. Some batteries are actually soldered onto the motherboard making this task more difficult. Unsoldering the battery incorrectly may damage your motherboard and other components, so please don't attempt this if you are inexperienced. Another option may be to remove the CMOS chip from the motherboard for a period of time.

Note: Removing the battery to reset the CMOS will not work for all PC's, and almost all of the newer laptops store their BIOS passwords in a manner which does not require continuous power, so removing the CMOS battery may not work at all. IBM Thinkpad laptops lock the hard drive as well as the BIOS when the supervisor password is set. If you reset the BIOS password, but cannot reset the hard drive password, you may not be able to access the drive and it will remain locked, even if you place it in a new laptop. IBM Thinkpads have special jumper switches on the motherboard, and these should be used to reset the system.

Overloading the KeyBoard Buffer:

On some older computer systems, you can force the CMOS to enter its setup screen on boot by overloading the keyboard buffer. This can be done by booting with the keyboard or mouse unattached to the systems, or on some systems by hitting the ESC key over 100 times in rapid succession.

Jumping the Solder Beads on the CMOS:

It is also possible to reset the CMOS by connecting or "jumping" specific solder beads on the chipset. There are too many chipsets to do a breakdown of which points to jump on individual chipsets, and the location of these solder beads can vary by manufacturer, so please check your computer and motherboard documentation for details. This technique is not recommended for the inexperienced and should be only be used as a "last ditch" effort.

Using a professional service:

If the manufacturer of the laptop or desktop PC can't or won't reset the BIOS password, you still have the option of using a professional service. There are a lot of firms that assist in cracking passwords in genuine cases. For most of these services, you'll need to provide some type of legitimate proof of ownership. This may be difficult if you've acquired the computer second hand or from an online auction.

Have a nice day
:)

Hey frens,
This may not be a new tactic for most of u guys but still I thought it might be useful for the ones who are not aware of it.
There is a simple and easy method for securing ur folder……Just u need is a

• Operating System-Win XP or Later, and
• New Technology File System (NTFS)

How To Protect?

1.Make a folder in NTFS drive.

2.Then Right click on it and view its propertie

3.A dialog box will appear

4.Now, Click On "Security Tab" and then on "Advanced" button located there

5.A dialog box will appear. Click on "Permissions" Tab and then uncheck the check-box "

Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child object. Include it with entries explicitly defined here."

6.The moment u uncheck the checkbox, a dialog box appears which will ask u to copy or remove the Permission. Simply click on Remove.

7.Now click On "OK" BUTTON.

8.It will ask for Confirmation. Click on "YES"

9.Again Click "OK" Now, try to access the folder. A message will appear "The folder is not accessible. Access is Denied".......Additionally u wont be able to cut, copy, delete or see the size of the folder………You can also change the folder icon and hide the folder to lock the folder.

 How to access the folder?

1.Click on "Properties" and then on Security tab.

2.Click on "Add" button".

3.Now enter the name of the user who will be authorized to access the folder.

4.You can search the user name by clicking on "Advanced" button and then clicking on "Find now" button.

5.Select the user name and click OK button thrice.

I found this online somewhere but here it is:

Windows-XP has a "feature" (???) with which it is possible to manually crash a system by simply holding the right CTRL key and pressing the "Scroll Lock" key twice. This feature can be turned on by the following steps:

1. Start regedit. (If you are unfamiliar with regedit, please refer to this FAQ)
2. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\i8042prt\Parameters
3. Create a new DWORD value and name it CrashOnCtrlScroll
4. Right-click on this newly created value and click on Modify
5. Enter 1 in the Value data field and click on OK.
6. Close regedit and reboot your system.
7. Now you can blue screen (crash) your system by holding the right CTRL key and pressing "Scroll Lock" twice.

Note:

Your system may reboot or show a blue screen whenever this crash is initiated. If your system reboots after initiating the crash, and you want to see the blue screen, follow these steps:

1. Go to Control Panel > System
2. Click on the Advanced tab
3. Under Startup and Recovery, click the Settings button.
4. Under System failure, uncheck the option Automatically restart.
 

Many of us wonder why Linux is secure than Windows.

So here are some security facts of Linux -

In Linux, each process runs in its own user and group. So the process doesn't get access to acces where it isn't allowed.

In Windows, when an application (virus) corrupts the registry, it crashes.

Think of the configuration files in Linux as the Windows registry. (/etc).

To change the configuration files, the process (its user/group) needs access to the file. So, it won't get the write access. Now, even if it gets access normally (eg. wrong file chmods), then it would be denied by the new Security system so called SELinux.

Most trusted applications won't access system files. When a virus or a non-trusted application eg a virus tries to access system files, it will be denied access using the above two methods.

Please comment if these reasons are wrong OR there are more reasons so that I can edit the article. :)

Most of the Linux distributions have an inbuilt firewall called iptables. Well, many a times its not configured properly. 

Below is a shell script, just copy and paste it into a file....further steps below the script.

#!/bin/bash

iptables -v -F;
iptables -v -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A INPUT -i eth0 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A INPUT -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A INPUT -m state -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 80 --state NEW -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A INPUT -m state -m udp --proto udp --dport 53 --state NEW -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A INPUT -m state -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 53 --state NEW -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A INPUT -j REJECT;

iptables -v -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 445 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m udp --proto udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT;
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 5222 -j ACCEPT; #Google Talk or Jabber
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 5050 -j ACCEPT; #Yahoo
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 6667 -j ACCEPT; #IRC
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -m tcp --proto tcp --dport 7777 -j ACCEPT; #Jabber file Transfers
iptables -v -A OUTPUT -j REJECT;

iptables -v -A FORWARD -j REJECT;

iptables-save > /tmp/iptables;

iptables-restore < /tmp/iptables;

/etc/init.d/iptables save

  

This shell script has been tested in Fedora (built on which) and Ubuntu (Friend's PC).

After pasting into a file, you need to chmod the file with executable permissions.

Then execute the file as root.

You may modify it further as needed.

NOTE: India Technologies will not be responsible for any damages/losses occurred due to this script.

If you need more help, go to the #iptables channel on irc.freenode.net