How to install a Debian Linux Penetration Testing machine?

There are excellent Linux distributions for Cyber Security professionals like Kali. They ship all the the bells and whistles that is needed for the tasks. If we want to learn how to put together our own Penetration Testing system we can use a fresh Debian Linux box. I created a small setup from the NetInstall…

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Cyber Security landscape 2023

As we just dipped our pinky into 2023 the articles about Cyber Security in 2023 started to pop up on the internet. Some of them are exploring the the field as a career path and others talk about the new threats and vulnerabilities. I will review what I see about these topics.

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How to check the accommodation for hidden devices

Here is the winter holiday season and a lot of people travel and use apartments, hotel rooms, AirBNB etc. Hidden cameras and sound recording devices are small and stealthy. There is no way to be 100% sure that our room is not “wired”, but we can look around in the network if we use it…

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Understanding the Linux Cron and Crontab

The UNIX/Linux systems have a powerful tool for scheduling tasks while the computer is running. The daemon that is responsible for initiating the tasks (called cronjobs) is called cron, while the tool that lets us edit the configuration is the crontab. Once we understand the basics of cron we can easily master editing the cron…

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How to upgrade to Debian Bullseye from Buster in WSL?

If we installed a Debian WSL distro on our computer, there is a chance that in 6-9 months a new release will come out. We want to keep our system updated, so a distribution upgrade should happen in our WSL ecosystem.

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Understanding the Linux file permissions

Linux supports multiple users and groups on the system to log in, create, modify and delete files and folders. System files and folders must be protected from the ordinary users to avoid accidental deletion or modification. Configuration files can contain sensitive data like passwords and certificates. Our home user directory can contain our private secrets…

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How to backup and restore a distro on WSL?

Backing up and restoring WSL distros are easy! Simply exporting the stopped distro into an archive file works pretty well. The archive can be moved on an external disk or cloud share. Restoring a backup is importing back the generated archive. Moreover we can add multiple instances of the same distro with exporting then importing…

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Jr. Penetration Tester learning path on THM

TryHackMe is a great site to learn Cyber Security with practical lab exercises. I just finished their penetration tester path to refresh my knowledge. They provide a nice certificate after finishing the path and a short “test”.

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How to stay safe on the internet in 2023?

2022 was a busy year for the IT professionals with the defense against the increased number of security threats. As the world has been hit by COVID-19, and many companies introduced a remote work scheme, the attack surface grew exponentially. Most companies stayed with the hybrid work model after the lockdowns, so the issue will…

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The future of DevOps

A lot of people are talking about the future of the IT, the traditional operations work, and they are trying to guess whether they will have a job in IT in the future. As I see most IT colleagues feel some uncertainty about their jobs. Different positions (and position names) come and go at the…

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Password Manager upgrade: I switched to KeepassXC

I’ve been using the Keepass password vault for years. I don’t remember when I started to keep my secrets in it, but it can be easily a decade ago. Though I always liked Keepass, and its features are strong, times have changed and I looked for something fresher and more elegant. My choice is KeepassXC.…

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Password Manager 101

In 2022 there is no excuse to do not use a reliable password manager. Period! In the age of passwordless authentication, IoT, smart devices and high speed internet connection data breaches are more common than usual, mostly because of the insecure password usage. Remembering long and difficult passwords is really counter productive but luckily there…

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