No root, please!

Published 6 March 2011

When you are dealing with system security, you need to create a secure system from the ground up. This is why you should never need root access to perform your job, even installing software.

The principle of security lies in separation of duty and protecting the core system, even if a component fails.

If you expect a component to fail, and it will, then you are better prepared to deal with it than if it catches you by surprise. There are so many exploits out there that denying a failure or security breach is only for the stupid and naive.
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categorie(s): security, technology, work | Leave a comment

How to handle a security incident

Published 5 March 2011

Or: Coping with the Human Bug

If you work in IT, just like me, every now and then you stumble into something, you shouldn’t have. Most of the times this happens because someone has given you temporary access with too many privileges. 9 out of 10 times this is for convenience. And it is wrong.

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A secure blanket

Published 27 August 2009

You shouldn’t trust the Internet. It is dangerous and because most people do not fully comprehend the technology and inner workings, it is hard to understand how and when you are in danger. And yet, as we become more and more reliant on Internet, we clearly need to use it. The Internet was invented by people with large ideological ideas which completely trusted each other. Yet it was conceived to withstand a nuclear bomb and keep on functioning. It appears that the threats we encounter are quite different though. As you are using Internet banking and started to buy stuff on-line, it seems ‘they’ are out there to steal your money or, worse, your identity.
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What works for me

Published 21 July 2009

I was recently asked to give a training to a technical staff to help them improve their skills. Their manager asked me if I could help them improve on troubleshooting skills and problem management. I thought about it for a long time, but it seems very hard to teach a group to ‘troubleshoot’. So I moved this to one-on-one training sessions and decided to change the training to soft skills with the motto: “What works for me”. I like to share some of these with you.

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categorie(s): draft, work | Leave a comment

unstash in Java

Published 8 March 2009

It has been ten years ago – 1999 – since the (in)famous unstash-script came out. It was a cryptic PERL script, which could read IBM’s stash files and deliver you the ‘encrypted’ password.

I was in need of the script, as I lost a password from a cryptocraphic key database and got stuck as I had no PERL installed. So I decided to create a Java-version of this script, because Java is always available when you are installing most IBM products. You may use it to your liking.

For an explanation how it works and a link to download the jar-file, please read on!

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categorie(s): security, technology, websphere, work | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

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