The developers of Tails have put out version 1.6 of the privacy oriented Linux distribution.
Tails 1.6 is primarily a security fix for the several vulnerabilities found in the previous version (1.5.1).
The Tails’ team is asking users to immediately upgrade to version 1.6.
The Tor Browser has been upgraded to version 5.0.3 (based on Firefox 38.3.0 ESR) in Tails 1.6. Continue reading »
Fall on your knees and kiss the earth in gratitude.
Folks, Kali Linux 2.0 has just been released.
In case you’ve just arrived from Mars or Uranus, Kali is the mother of Linux penetrating distributions.
So what’s new in Kali 2.0?
A lot of goodies in there, a lot! So continue reading!
Security has been a nightmare for hundreds of millions of Android device owners given the slow/nil issue of patches for even serious vulnerabilities.
But some relief is finally at hand for owners of Google and Samsung mobile devices.
Anxious to counter widely held perceptions that Android mobile devices are not as secure as their iOS counterparts, Samsung and Google today separately announced major overhauls to their security update policies.
Samsung Electronics plans to implement a new Android security update process to fast track security patches over the air when security vulnerabilities are uncovered.
The goal is to send out security updates regularly about once per month.
The South Korean electronics giant said it’d disclose details about the new security update policies for specific models and timelines after talking to its carrier partners. Continue reading »
The good folks at BackBox have put out an upgrade to their penetration testing distro Backbox Linux.
Release 4.3 of Backbox Linux features Linux Kernel 3.16 and Ruby 2.1.
For those unfamiliar with BackBox, think of it as a younger sibling to Kali Linux, the numero uno penetration testing distro.
BackBox has lesser number of tools than Kali but comes with a better user interface and includes the anonymizing software tor (with Kali, you have to install tor separately).
BackBox distro includes tools for information gathering, vulnerability assessment, exploitation, privilege escalation, maintaining access, malware analysis, forensic analysis, mobile analysis, social engineering and stress testing.
I recently installed BackBox 4.3 as a guest OS via VirtualBox, quickly updated it and happy to report that the upgrade works fine.
So you might ask what’s new in Backbox 4.3. Continue reading »
Mark your calendar, sound the bugles and herald the dawn of a new era, my good friends.
The angels at Kali have announced D-Day for the newest version of the world’s ultimate Linux penetration testing distribution.
Folks, the spanking new Kali Linux 2.0 will debut on August 11, 2015.
Oh, what a milestone!
How many of you remember that the first version of Kali was born on May 26, 2006 (was that Backtrack 1.0?).
Kali Linux, as we now know it, first appeared on March 13, 2013.
So what should we expect from Kali Linux 2.0? Continue reading »
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that Linux servers are a million times more secure than Windows servers.
On several occasions, I’ve come across tech magazine articles and blog posts that Linux servers do not need anti-virus software because Linux is free from the malware plague that has laid waste to Windows servers and desktops.
Alas, the truth is a different beast according to the security mavens at Sophos.
As we should have long realized, when humans enter the picture there are no safe havens anywhere
A recent Sophos study of 178,000 newly-infected web servers has brought out some extremely distressing facts about Linux. Continue reading »