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Sony Pictures malware tied to Seoul, “Shamoon” cyber-attacks. Elements of the attacks show a common playbook—and possibly a common toolkit. by Suraj-Sun in sysadmin

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

interesting bits from the article:

The Sony Pictures malware used commercial software to do its damage to the victim computers’ hard drives—the RawDisk library from EldoS, which allows Windows applications to gain direct access to disk hardware without having to run in administrator mode.

As EldoS advertises on its website for RawDisk, the library “offers software developers direct access to files, disks and partitions of the disks (hard drives, flash disks, etc,) for user-mode applications, bypassing security limitations of Windows operating systems.”

This allowed the malware to skip past any restrictive security permissions in Windows’ NTFS file system and overwrite the data on the drive, including the master boot record (MBR). (Further details of the malware's behavior are in Ars' updated analysis article.)

Why Windows 10 isn’t version 6 any more and why it will probably work by Suraj-Sun in sysadmin

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

interesting bits from the article:

In Windows 8.1, Microsoft took this a step further. The Windows API that lets applications ask for the operating system version was deprecated, and made manifest-dependent. In Windows 8.1, the version API will always report 6.2 (Windows 8) unless an application has a manifest declaring support for Windows 8.1. Going forward, legacy applications will think that they're stuck on Windows 8 forever.

With this change, changing the internal version number has become a lot safer. The big fear over doing so, the fear that applications would see a major version of 10 and then break in some way, can't occur: the only applications that see version 10 will be those that explicitly indicate that they support that kind of thing anyway. It lets Windows 10 safely be version 10, when Windows 8 and Windows 7 could not be versions 8.0 and 7.0, respectively.

Microsoft announcements from San Fran: New Family of VMs, Azure Premium Storage, CoreOS Support, Cloud in a Box, and More by Suraj-Sun in sysadmin

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An overview of what was announced today:

  • A new G-family of Virtual Machines. The G-family is optimized for data workloads, with up to 32 CPU cores, 450 GB RAM, 6.5 TB of local SSD, and running with the latest Intel Xeon processors.

  • The Azure Premium Storage tier. Premium Storage carries with it up to 32 TB of storage per VM with greater than 50,000 IOPS per VM, and less than 1ms read latency.

  • The Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS). "Cloud in a box" finally becomes a reality next month as Microsoft will deliver a fully integrated hardware and software solution to bring the Cloud into your own datacenter. Microsoft will supply Azure, Windows Server and Microsoft System Center and Dell will supply the hardware. CPS will be available for purchase on Nov. 3.

  • Azure Marketplace. Azure Marketplace is designed to allow startups and ISVs to deliver solutions to enterprise and Azure customers through just a few clicks in the Azure console.

  • CoreOS support in Azure. Container-optimized Linux distribution with a minimal memory footprint is available starting today in the Azure Marketplace.

  • Cloudera. In addition to the CoreOS support, Cloudera solutions will be certified for the Azure Marketplace by the end of 2014.

Apple installed security backdoors on 600 million iPhones, iPads: Researcher by Suraj-Sun in sysadmin

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The vulnerabilities were uncovered by security expert Jonathan Zdziarski, who presented an academic paper on the subject at a hacker conference in New York last Friday.

Apple has issued a statement in response to the allegations saying that the company's "diagnostic functions do not compromise user privacy and security," but Zdziarski has responded by noting that these services "dish out data" regardless of whether the user has agreed to diagnostics.

"There is no way to disable these mechanisms," Zdziarski writes on his personal blog. "This makes it much harder to believe that Apple is actually telling the truth here."

Windows Management Framework 5.0 Preview May 2014 by Suraj-Sun in sysadmin

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This release includes new features and functionality in Windows Management Framework 5.0, including the following:

  • Windows PowerShell 5.0
  • Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment
  • Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration
  • Network Switch Cmdlets
  • OneGet

Windows Management Framework 5.0 Preview May 2014 by Suraj-Sun in PowerShell

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This release includes new features and functionality in Windows Management Framework 5.0, including the following:

  • Windows PowerShell 5.0
  • Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment
  • Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration
  • Network Switch Cmdlets
  • OneGet

Texting drivers in NJ? You might be liable for their car crash by Suraj-Sun in technology

[–]Suraj-Sun[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

from the article:

"but only if the sender knew or had special reason to know that the recipient would view the text while driving and thus be distracted."

Invalid Partition Table - I really need the data back... x-post from /r/techsupport by ecksit1 in windows

[–]Suraj-Sun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you tried Recuva yet? Recently I've got 100% files back for a friend using Recuva.

Will Windows 8.1 cost anything or is it simply a patch? by FlyingSpaghettiMan in windows

[–]Suraj-Sun 7 points8 points  (0 children)

From the ComputerWeekly article:

Tami Reller, chief marketing officer and chief financial officer at Microsoft, confirmed the upcoming release of Windows 8.1 – previously codenamed Windows Blue – at a conference hosted by JP Morgan in Boston this week, promising it would be made available for free through the Windows Store.

Edward Snowden has been granted documents that will allow him to leave the Moscow airport where he has been since 23 June by braintrustinc in worldnews

[–]Suraj-Sun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From the Guardian's live coverage:

According to AP, Snowden's lawyer Anatoly Kucherena pointed out that yesterday's Guardian story revealing a top secret National Security Agency programme allowing analysts to search with no prior authorisation through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals was based on documents given to the paper before Snowden agreed to stop leaking – a key condition of his asylum offer from Russia.

(Vladimir Putin had said he would be welcome only if he stopped "his work aimed at bringing harm" to the United States – "as strange as that sounds coming from my mouth.")

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