2009-02-07

Recover Windows Passwords

For some serious physical hacking, or if (in the unlikely scenario that) you honestly lost your Windows login password and would like to either retrieve it or reset it, I would recommend Ophcrack.

Ophcrack is a open source live CD, that you would need to download and burn, and then use it to boot up the PC, that requires its password reset/recovered.

Works with XP and Vista and can crack both LM, as well as NTLM passwords.

Retrieving Microsoft Product Keys

This is not by any means a new software, but I still wanted to put this on my blog, just for general awareness.

Magical Jelly Bean KeyFinder is a very handy tool to extract the Windows XP, Vista and MS Office product key from any PC. May come in useful to dig out a forgotten or lost key. Could also be misused to steal someone else's key, if you can manage to get access to a victim's machine.

2009-02-04

Defect vs Vulnerability

Defect vs Vulnerability

What do you think should be more critical to the business? Should we be spending more resources on managing Quality Defects or should we give Security Vulnerabilities a higher priority?

As Info Security professionals, we blindly tend to think that a vulnerability is more serious than a defect and hence must be tackled asap. However, HP has a very interesting article that talks about this philosophy, that just shattered my misconception..!!