CentOS 8 – Setting up a LAMP environment

Welcome back again to another Stealthbay blog. So this week I was trying to setup a LAMP (linux, apache, mariadb, php) setup to test out some web apps. And, I thought I’d post a quick tutorial on what I did to set one up. Hopefully, it helps someone else out there to setup one very quickly using CentOS 8.

Note – I was using CentOS 8 on VMWare 15.5 and noticed there is an issue. Make sure you do not power the machine on right away. Go to the hardware settings on the VM and remove the “autostart.inf” it shows up as a CD/DVD drive. This is the easy install option and it messes up the installation.

Azure – Security Best Practices

Azure Security Best Practices – Part 1

Hello and welcome again!

This time around, I’ve decided to make this blog post as a Part 1 of many several parts that will be released. There is just too much Azure security information to put up in a single post. So, my plan is to make multiple posts over time.

Azure has many great security features that not everyone may be aware of right from the start. This post will focus on some key areas of Azure, and how it can better enhance the security of the environment. Key focus will investigate security best practices for Azure.

Attending the BCAware Security Conference

Meeting Brian Krebs at the BCAware Conference

One of the most exciting parts of the BCAware conference was getting to meet Brian Krebs live in person!

During his talk he shared some interesting topics such as how cyber criminals are using websites similar to https://haveibeenpwned.com/  

Except, that these “other” websites will actually list out the users leaked password(s) in plaintext. And, with this method attackers can now attack various social media, banking and other commonly used services online to possibly find valid emails/passwords to accounts.

Another topic was related to how cyber criminals determine how much money to ask for during a ransomware attack. The typical amount seems to point at about 10% of total revenue a business makes from the previous year. This way, they do not ask for too much or too little. It gets close to an amount that the organization can afford, and finds would be cheaper than to recover from backups or rebuilding the environment.

Recover Keys – Part 2 – Scanning Devices on the Network

In this Part 2 review of Recover Keys, we will look at how we can scan machines via the network. For most users, I don’t believe this option will be used too often. The average home user that purchase a license for personal use could just uninstall and install the tool on each machine they want to grab license keys off of, or buy a license for multiple machines.

For larger organizations this tool is excellent as it can be installed in one location on a single machine. You also get the ability of being able to extract the license keys via the network, which makes this tool much more efficient and valuable. At the end of the day it is all about saving and making the best use of time.

If you haven’t read Part 1 of using Recover Keys (scanning a local machines) you can check it out here: https://www.stealthbay.com/recover-keys-part-1-scanning-a-local-machine/

Passing the GCIH Exam

I’m proud to announce that I have now obtained my SANS – GIAC GCIH certification. It was a long process, and I pushed myself to get it done before the start of the New Year – 2020.

New SANS GIAC changes to exams

One thing that was particularly new for me compared to the other 2 SANS exams I’ve done was the lab questions. SANS with GIAC now has added a section that tests your knowledge through a virtual lab. Now, I have to say I think it’s actually pretty awesome! It puts your real world skills to the test to see if you can actually can apply needed practical skills. It also gives companies assurance that their employees are also getting and being tested on real hands on work and not just theory based topics.