Cyber-Security

For 6-months, this website was compromised. I am not sure what exactly happened, but it was most likely password-reuse, which lend itself to this problem. The problem became apparent when I first noticed an unusual link to a ride-sharing service. Later, I saw more of those links. That’s when I realized that I couldn’t merely sit and scan every blog post manually and decided to write a small interactive link checker tool. This tool whitelists the starting domain and allows you to whitelist URLs on a per-domain basis. The whitelist is persisted at the end of execution and will be used next time you use the tool. ...

As the world moves towards cloud-based storage and computing, the task of storing our data on a PC hard disk is being replaced with cloud-based storage providers. This includes our emails, social data, professional data, and financial data. Accessing this data requires authentication, despite its various limitations, username and password are still the standard way of authentication [though OpenID is slowly becoming popular]. One thing which is crucial in this case is how web services store user’s password.

CERT-In is a low-profile (Indian) government organization. The Government of India established the Computer Emergency Response Team (“CERT-IN”) to ensure Internet security. Many institutions, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, courts, the intelligence services, the police, and the National Human Rights Commission, may call on it for specialist expertise. CERT-IN’s stated mission is “to enhance the security of India’s Communications and Information Infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration” [ Source] I had a chance to visit CERT-In last week. The experience was overall good, unlike the typical dirty government office with laid-back employees, I saw employees enthusiastic about their work (and a colorful office).