Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category
Friday, April 10th, 2009
In case if you missed it: new ATI Catalyst drivers (9.4) now available (you can read the release notes for details). For some reason, some driver files have been renamed (well, not in 9.4, but in 9.3 released a bit earlier, though that version was really buggy and we cannot recommend to use it anyway), and our WPA password recovery (audit) software was not able to recognize Radeon cards anymore.
Well, to make the long story short: simply download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers and updated Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor 
. Just note that this (new) version of EWSA will not work with drivers version 9.1 or older.
In the meantime, NVIDIA CUDA 2.2 (beta) released. Does that actually matter? Yes, because NVIDIA Tesla C1060 and S1070 are now officially supported on Windows. Besides, we need to have a look at Zero-copy support for direct access to system memory, because it may speed-up the GPU-enabled password cracking on some particular algorithms.
Tags: ATI, GPU, GPU acceleration, graphic cards, Nvidia, password recovery, passwords, Wireless Security Auditor, WPA
Posted in Hardware, Software, Tips & Tricks | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
Fresh life experience…A very good friend of mine told me a story I would like to share with you with her kind permission. Recently she has found a new job in a medium size company. She was perfectly satisfied with her new position and new tasks. She also got a well equipped working place including her principal tool for work – computer, which actually she inherited from an ex-employee who lately moved to another company. The company could have bought her a new computer, but what for, if there was working one absolutely ownerless. Windows XP already installed along with numerous useful applications, even her favorite Safari was there.
Inspired by favorable circumstances she got down to her duties with enthusiasm and…practically in a couple of minutes she easily found out whom exactly that very computer belonged earlier. Guess how?
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Tags: Email Client, Mailbox, password recovery, Web Browser
Posted in General, Human Factor, Security, Software, Tips & Tricks | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
The Encrypting File System (EFS) was first introduced in Windows 2000 and, as Microsoft claims, is an excellent encryption system with no back door.
However, the most secure encryption can be ambiguous. It would efficiently prevent hackers and other illegal intruders from breaking into your system and getting access to your well-encrypted data. The other side of the coin is that both a regular user and a seasoned administrator can lose important data due to unforeseen circumstances. It is also the case with EFS.
Check out the success story on how EFS-encrypted data can be recovered (the PDF is 81 Kbyte) with Advanced EFS Data Recovery.
Tags: Data Recovery, Disaster Recovery, EFS, Encryption, Microsoft
Posted in Cryptography, Security, Software, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »
Monday, March 30th, 2009
lifehacker has started a series of posts on choosing and using secure passwords. Few days ago they published a list of handy tips from their readers on how to create passwords you can rely on. One of the readers admitted that in a company he works for IT administrators require password change every 30 days and
it just results in workers picking the easiest password that meets the requirements – as in a MM/YYYY-style password.
Sounds like it’s time to rethink password policies. What are your ideas?
Tags: passwords, Security
Posted in General, Security, Software, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Have you ever had to say sorry because you’ve sent an e-mail to a wrong person? Isn’t it an embarrassing situation? Hopefully it wasn’t a confidential e-mail otherwise you may get into trouble. After all it’s typical of all of us. You’ve simply made a stupid blunder to enter a wrong address…or to use AutoComplete. Such things may trigger some unpleasant consequences which is actually a minimal harm AutoComplete can incur.
AutoComplete is just another exiting feature that can save your time. It is designed to accelerate computer interactions, facilitate the working process, and spare you the necessity to type in the whole text. Though it was initiated for user’s convenience, AutoComplete represents an ominous threat to the security of your sensitive data.
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Tags: AutoComplete, Browser, Data Recovery, E-mail Clients, Information Retrieval
Posted in General, Security, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »