Have you been (IDN) homographed

Check this out?

1. Open  the "proof of concept" link in the following article
https://www.xudongz.com/blog/2017/idn-phishing/

2. It will show "apple"

3.  Copy the URL and paste it in a text browser and it will show
https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com/

That's IDN Homograph attack

There is NO-WAY you can visually identify if the URL is FAKE.  So, what can you do?
The article above also provides a few hints on how to protect.

Wikipedia Link :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack


Have Fun

Coming Soon - Better Ad-blockers

To defeat anti ad blockers, the researchers say they've borrowed techniques from rootkits, which are often used for malware but can be adapted to "hide their existence and activities" from ad-blocking detectors. This is done because browser extensions are given a higher "privilege" than advertisements and ad blocker detectors. 

Another technique that was not used but was proposed to hide the ad blockers' activities is even more impressive. They are able to "create two copies of the page, one which the user sees (and to which ad-blocking will be applied) and one which the publisher code interacts with, and to ensure that information propagates between these copies in one direction but not the other."

For more details:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/princetons-ad-blocking-superweapon-may-put-an-end-to-the-ad-blocking-arms-race

FREE - SANS - THREAT INTELLIGENCE POSTER

I love SANS posters.

They generally contain useful info in a single page


Here is one on Threat Intelligence:

https://digital-forensics.sans.org/media/Poster_DFIR_Threat-Intel_2016_FINAL.pdf

Become a computer Programmer - No charge - 10 sites that offer free courses

When I started programming, my college did not have computers (but, had a computer science course).
We wrote the programs by hand and checked each others code and output manually.

Today computers are everywhere and you don't have to go to college to learn programming.

The following blog lists 10 sites (some you might now)  that can help you.


Check here
https://www.maketecheasier.com/free-programming-webistes/

Secure Site = Safe Site? - NO

WordFence, a well-regarded WordPress security company, has found that SSL certificates are being issued by certificate authorities (CA) to phishing sites pretending to be other sites. Because the certificates are valid, even though they're operating under false premises, Chrome reports these sites as being secure. They're not.

Even when a "certificate is revoked once a CA realizes they should not have issued it, we show that Chrome still shows the site as 'secure.'" The 'revoked' status is only visible in Chrome developer tools.

For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-chrome-browsers-secure-isnt-the-same-thing-as-safe/

Windows 10 Creators Update - Nice name but what is it?

Lots of tweaks and updates
(not sure how useful/relevant)


Check Here for complete details and  a short video:
http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-creators-update-review