On Physical Authentication

Recently, I moved into a new environment and had the opportunity to witness a number of processes. This experience further reinforced in me the importance of policies over technical measures. Physical authentication is simple compared to its online equivalent. For a small sized population, we ...

Dumping Aztech DSL1015EN firmware

Recently, I had the fortune to come across a spare DSL1015EN router cum modem. After dismantling the external case, this is what the internals look like. On the left, we can see 2 u.fl connectors for the antennaes. If I wanted to, I could get a RP-SMA adapter and hook up some 9-dbi antennaes ...

Cloning Mifare 1K cards

Disclaimer : The information provided here is solely for educational purposes. The system I would be looking at is the ST Electronics' ST8100 Securnet. This is an integrated security management system that includes an access control module that manages physical access to facilities. One of the ...

A different kind of birthday attack

Considering how many people actually use their birthday as their ATM pin, this is bad from a security standpoint.

Code runs on code

This semester has been a rather hectic one. There is this massive Java Enterprise project that lasts throughout the entire semester. In the midst of this project, our team encountered a rather puzzling bug. Despite following the sample code snippets closely and trawling through Stack Overflow, ...

Flaws of a single ecosystem

The post is triggered by the recent leak of celebrity nude photos. Apple has claimed that the iCloud ecosystem is secure and the leak was the result of targeted attempts. Nevertheless, they eventually decided to tighten the security of the ecosystem. This is not an isolated incident as I ...

Software Versioning

I have recently started managing yet another server. The server is running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and therefore support is good for another 5 years. Just to be safe, I double checked the openssl version after updating to make sure that it is not vulnerable to heartbleed. # openssl version OpenSSL ...

Wireless Woes

My struggle with wireless networking has spanned several years. One major problem with wireless is the short coverage range. As a result, rooms that are further from the router experience spotty coverage at very low speeds(1 Mbps). One of the initial solutions I have tried is using a wireless ...