An ATM skimmer is a card reader that is installed on some ATMs by criminals in order to steal the card numbers and PINs of the victims who use them. ATM skimmers vary in sophistication, but may be installed either directly within an ATM or next to it and may either interfere with the ATM’s …
In a symmetric cipher, both parties must use the same key for encryption and decryption. This means that the encryption key must be shared between the two parties before any messages can be decrypted. Symmetric systems are also known as shared secret systems or private key systems. Symmetric ciphers are significantly faster than asymmetric ciphers, …
Learning how to pick locks is almost as much an art as it is a science. Locksmiths describe lock picking as the exploitation of a lock’s machinery to open a lock without a key. To understand the process of picking locks, the prospective picker has to be acquainted with how locks and keys function. The …
A test credit card number is the card number of a fake live credit account provided by a credit card company in order for retailers to verify that their card readers are working properly and that they are compatible with a specific credit card brand. Test credit card numbers are read like real credit card …
The word forensic comes from the Latin word forensis, which means “before the forum,” and refers to something “of, pertaining to, or used in a court of law.” In this day and age, it almost always refers to a method of obtaining criminal evidence in order to use it in a court of law. Forensic …
SHA stands for Secure Hash Algorithm. It consists of five hash functions designed by the National Security Agency (NSA) and published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The five algorithms are SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512. SHA-1 is the most commonly used of the SHA series. Hash algorithms are called secure …
A logic bomb is a program, or portion of a program, which lies dormant until a specific piece of program logic is activated. In this way, a logic bomb is very analagous to a real-world land mine. The most common activator for a logic bomb is a date. The logic bomb checks the system date …
Bluejacking is a relatively new term that describes the act of sending an anonymous message to other Bluetooth equipped devices such as mobile phones, laptops, printers, cars, and Personal Data Assistants (PDAs). To date, mobile users have primarily Bluejacked others in their general proximity for friendly purposes. Bluejacking is possible because Bluetooth technology is open …
Cryptology has quickly grown from a field only used by government and military agencies to being one that impacts the day to day lives of consumers across the globe. Cryptographic libraries are used by individuals in just about any country in the world when conducting secure online transactions, communicating via secure email or video, and …
Sometimes instead of encrypting a file or a set of files, you want to encrypt an entire file system, partition, or disk. One of the chief advantages of this approach is that, once you have entered your encryption key, the encryption becomes transparent to both you and your applications. When you power off your computer, …