Intercop Blog

Checkpoint Socialguard – A must have for all parents.

Checkpoint Technologies, the leading network security products, has come up with a new software solution which will help the parents to protect their children from social networking threats.

Check point Zone Alarm “SocialGuard” has its proprietor y algorithm which can monitor the Facebook Friends list and calculate the risk wisely when a new friend request comes in by checking the reliability of the requester. This program works with the API of Facebook and you need to allow its execution within Facebook.

“SocialGuard” is capable of detecting hacking attempts to your Facebook account & can also produce the real time alerts or email alerts about the malicious content in your account.

SocialGuard comes with an array of exciting features like:

• Cyber bullying – Inappropriate content detection.
• Strangers – Alerts you when a stranger is trying to interact with your child.
• Age Concerns – Identifies & alerts when someone pretends as a child.
• Dangerous Link detection

Zone alarm SocialGuard produced excellent test results when we tried it out in our test lab. Abusive language detection, stranger detection etc are some of the features we tested. The algorithm is so well designed that it is not noisy at all but performs all its functions efficiently.

We are sure that you are going to love this and we think it as a must have for all parents concerned about social networking cyber threats.

Offline Password Cracking ( using  fgdump  and Ophcrack )

Pwdump is a program that results in password hashes of local user  accounts from the Security Account Manager (SAM). In order to work, it must be  run under an Administrator account i.e. user with full privilege. Pwdump  could allow a malicious administrator to access user’s passwords.

There are different flavors of Pwdump.
1. pwdump
2. pwdump2
3. pwdump3
4. pwdump4
5. pwdump5
6. pwdump6
7. pwdump7
8. fgdump-this is an advancement of pwdump6

Ophcrack is a program that cracks Windows passwords by using hashes values which is obtained as an output of pwdump or directly from the SAM file. Ophcrack can crack most passwords within a few minutes.

Requirements for Test Lab
1) 1 attacker PC(linux)
2) 1 target PC(windows)

Step1:Execute the Fgdump.exe on the Target PC(windows Machine)  using Command Line:

start >run >cmd > cd Desktop

(change directory to the location where the fgdump.exe      is saved)
Type fgdump.exe (to execute the exe file)

Fig -1

Output:

This step results a PWDUMP file with the name 127.0.0.1 on the Desktop. The file contains the hashed output values of all the  users.

Step2: Install ophcrack on the Attacker PC  (linux)

> sudo -s (to get root privilage)
> apt-get install ophcrack

Fig -2

>Step3: Start ophcrack – Type the key word ophcrack on the terminal to open the GUI mode of Ophcrack

Fig -3

> Step:4   Install the Raindow Tables(these are  pre-configured tables containing hashed output of all the passwords of a windows system)

Fig -4

Step:5 – Load the PWDUMP file on to the OPHCRACK (i.e 127.0.0.1 PWDUMP file.The output of step1)

Fig -5

Step:6 – Crack the hash – Click on Crack tab.
This step results passwords of all the users of the Target PC

GNOME 3 Vs Unity the real War is On

I have been a big fan of all Linux distros especially ubuntu , and was really comfortable with the pretty cool default Gnome Desktop Shell , so when Canonical announced the change over of the default Gnome shell in Ubuntu 11.04 I was so disappointed . But to my surprise the new Unity shell was so cool and after trying the new Ubuntu 11.04 beta I realized that , there has been major improvements in the feel & look of the new unity interface compared to the very laggy Unity shell of Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook edition.

With the recent release of the much awaited Gnome 3, the real war is on; new Gnome 3 brings a lot of exciting features. Following are some of those changes.

* In Gnome 3 there is only single panel, which is on the top of the screen, the bottom panel of Gnome 2 is no longer there.
* Activities Overview – moving the mouse to the upper left corner of the screen activates the frequently accessed overview.
* Grouping of Windows to workspaces – the default is only one workspace, user can add more workspaces if needed.
* Screencast recording – With Control+Shift+Alt+R you can start or stop recording your desktop.
* Intelligent application launchers – Clicking on the icon will start the application if it is not all ready running & will open the last used window if it is already running.

Above are only a few of the exciting new features of Gnome 3 , much details you can find in the Gnome 3 Cheat sheets . Unity interface is simple & easy to use , but to enjoy the full benefits of Unity you need to have a dedicated graphics card, without that it can work only in 2D.

Even though I was quite much impressed with the new unity interface , after trying Gnome 3.0 with ubuntu 11.04, I strongly feel that Canonical is doing a mistake & they are taking a very big risk, there is a greater chance of disappointed users start using Gnome 3 based Fedora instead of Ubuntu . I think Canonical also must be realizing it as one of the sliding windows that appears in the ubuntu website carries a congratulatory message to Gnome Team.

Join us and let us know your take on the topic.