Jesper Johansson's Blog

Fake Anti-Malware is Apparently Microsoft's Fault

Jesper's Blog — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:20:00 GMT

Munir Kotadia, an IT Journalist in Australia, has finally managed to figure out how to blame Microsoft for the fake anti-malware epidemic. Apparently, the reason is that "Microsoft could save the world from fake security applications by introducing...(read more)

How Delegation Privileges Are Represented In Active Directory

Jesper's Blog — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:21:00 GMT

One of the last areas where more tool support is needed is in monitoring the various attributes in Active Directory (AD). Recently I got curious about the delegation flags, and, more to the point, how to tell which accounts have been trusted for delegation...(read more)

Web Of Trust: RIP

Jesper's Blog — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:16:00 GMT

It's official. I just received an e-mail from Thawte notifying me that, as of November 16, 2009, the most innovative and useful idea in PKI since its inception, the Web of Trust , will die. Thawte was founded 14 years ago by Mark Shuttleworth. The...(read more)

Passwords are here to stay

Jesper's Blog — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:54:00 GMT

At least for the short to medium term. That is the, quite obvious, conclusion drawn in a Newsweek article entitled "Building a Better Password." The article goes inside the CyLab at Carnegie-Mellon University to understand how passwords may...(read more)

And finally, standard user malware

Jesper's Blog — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:21:00 GMT

Today I finally got wind of my first piece of true standard user malware. MS Antispyware 2008 has turned standard user. The version in question installs the binaries in c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\<something>, and makes...(read more)

Microsoft Poland Empowers White People

Jesper's Blog — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:53:00 GMT

In an absolutely astonishing move Microsoft's Polish subsidiary decided to do some photoshopping on its Business Productivity Infrastructure page to tailor it to the Polish market. Here you can see the U.S. original . In one of the least sensitive...(read more)

Is it ActiveX that is the problem?

Jesper's Blog — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Last week, an expert from Verizon, nee Cybertrust, posted a note about the Active Template Library (ATL) security vulnerability over on the Verizon Business Security Blog . For home users, the phone company now advises you to use a different browser,...(read more)

Warning: The software you are installing does not match your mental model

Jesper's Blog — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:10:00 GMT

This morning I talked to my dad. After a few minutes of polite small talk, I heard the 10 little words I have come to dread: “I had some problems with my computer the other day.” The video card on his laptop had died. The screen was just black...(read more)

Steve Riley Lands On His Feet

Jesper's Blog — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:13:00 GMT

In May, in one of the more inexplicable moves this year, Microsoft laid off my good friend Steve Riley, four days before he was to deliver half a dozen presentations at TechEd. Fortunately, it did not take Steve long to find a new gig. This Monday, he...(read more)

A better, more reliable, work-around for the Microsoft Video Control Vulnerability

Jesper's Blog — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:09:00 GMT

For the past few days I've been following the Microsoft Video Control Vulnerability with interest. Basically, it's another vulnerable ActiveX control that needs killbitted. Last night, Microsoft posted a work-around which involves using a Group...(read more)

Are Identity Theft Services Worth The Cost?

Jesper's Blog — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:01:00 GMT

The Consumer Federation of America just published a report on identity theft services entitled " Are Identity Theft Services Worth The Cost? " The conclusion is that many are not, and that regulation is needed in that industry. It is a very...(read more)

Please do not e-mail my social security number

Jesper's Blog — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:38:00 GMT

Recently I had a very interesting incident. I wrote an article some time in 2008 and the publisher paid me a little bit of money for it. That means the publisher must send a report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS - the U.S. tax department) reporting...(read more)

Kip Hawley: "No, the TSA is Necessary Because This is War!"

Jesper's Blog — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:44:00 GMT

CBS News did a story a few days ago on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Basically it was a tit-for-tat between Bruce Schneier , security pontificator extraordinaire, and Kip Hawley, the administrator of the TSA. Mr. Hawley's maintans...(read more)

One "Hacker" Attempts to Rule The World

Jesper's Blog — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:40:00 GMT

Wired, always a source for amusement and interesting literature, just carried a story on a "hacker" (the magazine's use of the term equates to "criminal") who attempted to dominate the market in stolen credit cards. It's a...(read more)

You need to manually undo your MS08-078 mitigations

Jesper's Blog — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:57:00 GMT

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-alt:"Calisto MT"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic...(read more)

Lock your USB Token

Jesper's Blog — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:10:00 GMT

Recently, Lev Bolotin of Clevx gave me a production sample of a USB token with a keypad on it. It's a pretty neat idea for certain uses. My immediate thought went to BitLocker in Windows Vista. You can store the BitLocker key on a USB stick, but you...(read more)

Believe it or not; DRM for Zune is down!

Jesper's Blog — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:21:00 GMT

Shocking, yes, I know, but in only four hours this evening Microsoft has managed to alienate over 150 additional customers with its insistence on Digital Rights Management (DRM). This time it is the DRM component of the Zune store that is down, according...(read more)

What do you think, should I do it?

Jesper's Blog — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:44:00 GMT

I get a fair bit of blog spam - comments advertising everything from sexual enhancers to fake anti-malware. This one just came in this morning: Sweet! I can turn off all the blog spam just by e-mailing the criminals? Or, could it possibly be that this...(read more)

Fun Experiences at Airport Security

Jesper's Blog — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:13:00 GMT

For a while I've been thinking about writing something about interesting times I've had at various airport security checkpoints; security theater, as they have come to be known. There is the obvious shoe removal arguments and the ill-defined rules...(read more)

XP Antivirus in the News

Jesper's Blog — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:05:00 GMT

Several helpful people just pointed me to some articles on XP Antivirus and its various variants. In case you do not remember, XP Antivirus was the subject of an article I wrote for The Register a few months back. It turns out that the scammers got hacked...(read more)