From The Blog
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ConnectWise Slash and Grab Flaw Once Again Shows the Value of Input Validation We talk to Huntress About its Impact
Written by Sean KalinichAlthough the news of the infamous ConnectWise flaw which allowed for the creation of admin accounts is a bit cold, it still is one that…Written on Tuesday, 19 March 2024 12:44 in Security Talk Read 352 times Read more...
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Social Manipulation as a Service – When the Bots on Twitter get their Check marks
Written by Sean KalinichWhen I started DecryptedTech it was to counter all the crap marketing I saw from component makers. I wanted to prove people with a clean…Written on Monday, 04 March 2024 16:17 in Editorials Read 1272 times Read more...
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To Release or not to Release a PoC or OST That is the Question
Written by Sean KalinichThere is (and always has been) a debate about the ethics and impact of the release of Proof-of-Concept Exploit for an identified vulnerability and Open-Source…Written on Monday, 26 February 2024 13:05 in Security Talk Read 715 times Read more...
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There was an Important Lesson Learned in the LockBit Takedown and it was Not About Threat Groups
Written by Sean KalinichIn what could be called a fantastic move, global law enforcement agencies attacked and took down LockBit’s infrastructure. The day of the event was filled…Written on Thursday, 22 February 2024 12:20 in Security Talk Read 688 times Read more...
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NetSPI’s Offensive Security Offering Leverages Subject Matter Experts to Enhance Pen Testing
Written by Sean KalinichBlack Hat 2023 Las Vegas. The term offensive security has always been an interesting one for me. On the surface is brings to mind reaching…Written on Tuesday, 12 September 2023 17:05 in Security Talk Read 1909 times Read more...
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Black Kite Looks to Offer a Better View of Risk in a Rapidly Changing Threat Landscape
Written by Sean KalinichBlack Hat 2023 – Las Vegas. Risk is an interesting subject and has many different meanings to many different people. For the most part Risk…Written on Tuesday, 12 September 2023 14:56 in Security Talk Read 1400 times Read more...
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Microsoft Finally Reveals how they Believe a Consumer Signing Key was Stollen
Written by Sean KalinichIn May of 2023 a few sensitive accounts reported to Microsoft that their environments appeared to be compromised. Due to the nature of these accounts,…Written on Thursday, 07 September 2023 14:40 in Security Talk Read 1838 times Read more...
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Mandiant Releases a Detailed Look at the Campaign Targeting Barracuda Email Security Gateways, I Take a Look at What this all Might Mean
Written by Sean KalinichThe recent attack that leveraged a 0-Day vulnerability to compromise a number of Barracuda Email Security Gateway appliances (physical and virtual, but not cloud) was…Written on Wednesday, 30 August 2023 16:09 in Security Talk Read 1603 times Read more...
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Threat Groups Return to Targeting Developers in Recent Software Supply Chain Attacks
Written by Sean KalinichThere is a topic of conversation that really needs to be talked about in the open. It is the danger of developer systems (personal and…Written on Wednesday, 30 August 2023 13:29 in Security Talk Read 1612 times Read more...
Recent Comments
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Displaying items by tag: Competition
DecryptedTech's One Year Anniversary Modding Competition
About a year ago we re-launched DecryptedTech; prior to that the site was intended to fill in the gaps in other projects that I was working on. However, I soon decided that I wanted to build something new and different from what was already out there. In keeping with this spirit we have decided to hold a modding contest on our Forum. The contest officially opens today and will officially close on April 20th.
The rules are simple;
All work must be your own.
Work logs must be posted or linked on our forum.
You must be able to prove that the work is yours.
You must also be a registered member of our Forum.
DecryptedTech staff and their families are not eligible for this contest.
If you need space to store images for your work logs please contact us and we can set something up for you. At the end of the competition our three “celebrity” judges will pick the winners.
The judges are;
Ramsom Koay - Thermal Take
Chris Morley – CTO MAINGEAR Computers
Trace Hagan – Formerly from The Best Case Scenario
Our prizes are as follows
1st Place
Thermal Take Level 10 GT AND a Gigabyte G1.Guerilla
2nd Place
Gigabyte G1.Assassin (X58) motherboard
3rd Place
Gigabyte X79-UD3
Good luck to everyone, if you have any questions send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Or PM one of the staff on the forum.About a year ago we re-launched DecryptedTech; prior to that the site was intended to fill in the gaps in other projects that I was working on. However, I soon decided that I wanted to build something new and different from what was already out there. In keeping with this spirit we have decided to hold a modding contest on our Forum. The contest officially opens today and will officially close on April 20th.
The rules are simple;
All work must be your own.
Work logs must be posted or linked on our forum.
You must be able to prove that the work is yours.
You must also be a registered member of our Forum.
If you need space to store images for your work logs please contact us and we can set something up for you. At the end of the competition our three “celebrity” judges will pick the winners.
The judges are;
Ramsom Koay - Thermal Take
Chris Morley – CTO MAINGEAR Computers
Trace Hagan – Formerly from The Best Case Scenario
Our prizes are as follows
1st Place
Thermal Take Level 10 GT AND a Gigabyte G1.Guerilla
2nd Place
Gigabyte G1.Assassin (X58) motherboard
3rd Place
Gigabyte X79-UD3
Good luck to everyone, if you have any questions send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Or PM one of the staff on the forum. Head over to the Modding Competition Thread to get started
Apple's Myth Machine Slowly Coming to a Halt
There are many things that bother me about the way the media portrays things and how this portrayal develops corporate myths that are then bought into by the consumer market. One of these has always been the superiority of Apple products over the rest of the competition. The myth all started many years ago when Apple manufactured everything they made here in the US pretty much by hand. They were a boutique dealer and could afford to take the extra time and effort to get all of the details right. However, all of that changed when Tim Cook arrived on the scene.
Why Apple is Important to the Industry
In talking about Apple (and SIri) over the last couple of days I started to think about what Apple does that is “right”. I know that most of the media and many consumers view almost any Apple product as glorious and Apple can do no wrong. While that is not true there is something important in that mindset and it finally dawned on me why Apple is vital to the future of the computer industry. It is not because they make amazing products with quality second to none.
The fact is they make good products with the same quality as everyone else. If you did not know already every iPhone, iPod and Mac is made by Foxconn over in China. The line that assembles these is very close to the line that builds HP, Dell and others (at least they were the last time I checked). This means that the same level of build quality is present in all of those devices. If you are getting an Apple product there is not some magical line that makes their devices better. The same can be said for the components inside. The A4 and the original A5 found in the iPad2 was not manufactured by Apple it was made by Samsung (which makes the lawsuits very interesting and is another case of Apple biting the hand the fed them). The more recent ones (after April 2011) have been made by TSMC. These are the same guys that make nVidia and AMD GPUs as well as many other ARM processors. Again there is nothing that makes Apple product magically better using either of these companies.
No it is not Apple’s hardware that makes them vital to the tech world. It is also not their software. True the iOS is fast and nimble, just like OSX is. However, it is fast and nimble on a very narrow hardware group. If you take it outside that and manage to get different hardware to work you will find that it is not so quick.
In short terms the thing that makes Apple crucial and an amazing company is this; No one can sell a product like Apple. You just cannot do it. All you have to do is look back at recent history to see what I mean. For example, let’s take the MP3 player. Long before the first iPod hit there was an MP3 Player from Creative called Nomad that pretty much kicked things off. Many other companies came along and put out MP3 players at the same time, even D-Link had one.
In fact the MP3 player looked like it was going to fade away when Apple released the iPod with a new device inside, the Micro Drive from IBM (and later Fujitsu). This meant that while other companies were pushing 16, 32 and 128 MB (yes Megabyte) Apple could put 1-2 GB and more space in their products. Later as these drives grew (and the advent of the 1.8-inch drive) the size of the iPod grew while other companies were barely getting by with the smaller amounts of flash memory. Apple’s product was not all that better, it was primitive with basic controls but it was good looking and offered more from the consumer’s point of view. This was even more true when you combined iTunes and the $0.99 song. Apple showed people that they wanted this product. The iPod became a synonym for MP3 player. You can follow this chain through the iPhone and the iPad. On the day the iPhone launched there were more sophisticated phones and phones with better support. However, the iPhone caught the consumer’s imagination. Suddenly they wanted these products. A touch screen phone? With icons. Wow. Of course there had been touch screen Windows Mobile phones and Palm based phones for years before. Still the smart phone market as an entertainment and business tool did not take off until Apple launched the iPhone. It is the same story with the iPad and now Natural Voice Command. Both of these products have been out for a long time, but Apple has been able to make people WANT them.
So you can criticize Apple for their xenophobic ways, their controlling nature, their reprehensible patent policies and legal team (I know I will). In the same breath, anyone in the tech industry should also be thanking them. Without Apple, so many of the cool toys that we love and want would never survive in the market. We might also still have nothing more than boxy and bulky laptops right next to those terrible unstylish off-white cases that were so popular…
Think about it.
Discuss in our Forum