Category: Security

Coreboot

BIOS

We've all seen one of these two BIOS screens upon starting a computer:

On the left is American Megatrends' BIOS, on the right is Award's BIOS. These are the two main BIOS manufacturers, and they have almost complete marketshare when it comes to firmware on laptops and desktops. Most newer machines don't show these screens anymore, but they're typically still running one of these two pieces of software. I'm going to cover what these two pieces of software do, and an alternative to these.

Posted on January 23, 2020January 24, 2020Categories Security, UncategorizedTags Basics, Security, TheoryLeave a comment on Coreboot

Hack The Box Intro

Hack The Box

Hack The Box is a website that gives people a great place to test their penetration testing (hacking) skills. They have a selection of different machines available that are vulnerable to different types of attacks. This site uses the capture the flag scoring mechanism, where you hack machines, get a "flag" from them, and submit it to their site for points.

In this article, I'll cover how to make an account on HTB.

Posted on November 18, 2019August 3, 2021Categories Security, TrainingTags Hack The Box, tutorialLeave a comment on Hack The Box Intro

About Pseudo Random Number Generators

Random Numbers

Pseudo Random Number Generators, or PRNGs, are extremely important, as randomness is needed by computers for many purposes. As computers are "deterministic" machines, meaning they follow a specific procedure for everything, they are terrible at making randomness. Because of this, there has been an enormous amount of studying on how to simulate randomness on computers. The algorithms that are developed to simulate randomness are called PRNGs.

Posted on November 12, 2019November 14, 2019Categories SecurityLeave a comment on About Pseudo Random Number Generators

All About Certificate Authorities

What is a certificate authority?

A "Certificate Authority" (CA), is a idea of "Public Key Infrastructure" (PKI), in which a special type of certificate is able to essentially co-sign other certificates to verify them as valid and trustworthy to certain levels.

Posted on November 12, 2019November 12, 2019Categories CA, Encryption, PKI, SecurityLeave a comment on All About Certificate Authorities

Root CA Thoughts

What is a Root CA?

A root CA is a certificate authority (CA) that doesn't have any parent CAs. The root CAs are pretty interesting, because root CAs are CAs that are typically ultimately trusted, with the ability to sign intermediate CAs.

Posted on November 11, 2019November 12, 2019Categories CA, Encryption, PKI, SecurityTags CA, Certificate, PKI, Root CA, Security, Theory, ThoughtsLeave a comment on Root CA Thoughts