New Language: Python

Last week I decided to delve into the world of Python.

After my Placement Year, i will be starting my Final Year Project. 

My project will be software based and i want to use Python for it. So i thought id start learning now!

I couldnt help myself so i started on the FYP as i was learning. I think it was actually much easier learning the language with an actual objective rather than going through tutorials to learn little bits at a time. 

Not sure how much I want to put on here about the FYP i have in mind at the moment as id rather not have it copied!

I Have Started My New Job!

I am now a Junior Cyber Security Engineer for a well respected firm in the West Midlands.

My first day was yesterday which involved the usual; setting up email, setting up the new laptop, getting to know the clients that are on the books etc etc.

Tomorrow I am off to Manchester to attend a Cisco Security Workshop!

I will be using this blog to keep track of all the things i will be doing over the next year because at the end of it, i have to write an essay about it so it will be useful for remembering things!

PS. I hate setting up new computers to get them to exactly how you want them!

Placement Year

Pretext: I have mentioned about doing another couple of posts about the work ive been doing over the past month, but I havent gotten around to it with deadlines and stuff. Ill sort them out soon...


I seem to have forgotten to post about my Placement Year.
At my university, i do 2 years, then a "Year in Industry" and then go back for my final year.

I thought I had sorted this before Christmas, but one thing led to another and it didnt pan out!
I kind of pre-empted the first placement falling through, so i started looking for another.

I found one!

Effects of Encryption on IT Systems and Digital Investigations

I feel that alot of my posts on this blog have been Cyber Security related when theoretically, given the name of my course "Forensic Computing" it should be based around Forensics!
So its my "Easter Resolution" to do more forensics posts. Starting with this one.

The title of this post was the title of the essay i had to write. As i said in the other post, i enjoyed doing this essay. It forced me to really look at encryption and learn the ins and outs. Before doing it, i had a general idea of Symmetric and Asymmetric encryption but not the technical details of it.

The breakdown of my essay was something like this:

Ahh The Easter Break...My Work Overview

After completing all the exciting work before Easter, because, well, it was more exciting that the standard essays. I am now left with completing pure essays and not much hands on Hacking/Forensics!

Currently left to hand in i have:

• Essay on "The effects of Encryption on IT Systems and Digital Investigations"
• Essay on "Biometric Spoofing Techniques"
• A Penetration Testing Methodology
• A Penetration Testing Report
• Writing up notes from a Digital Investigation on a suspects USB stick and network traces.

Nexpose - New Favourite Toy

I did an essay last semester giving a brief comparison of various vulnerability scanners. I have to admit, I didnt install and try as many as i could, mainly because the essay didnt call for it, but i should have.
If I did, i would have found Nexpose sooner!!!

In our Ethical Hacking module, we have to scan and exploit a target. In reality, this is a VM with Metasploitable installed on it.

However, because we were attacking it from any given location, the IP address associated to each VM had to be accesible outside our closed Forensic Lab network.
This means Nessus was a no go due to licencing restrictions and coupled with the fact that OpenVas is such a ball ache - i thought id give Nexpose a go.

Using DD Command

So I thought i really should backup my hard drive on my laptop.
I was in a situation today where a 32GB Memory Stick just wasnt big enough (EnCase!!!).

So i brought a 1TB 2.5" drive today and thought it would be a good opportunity to properly use the DD command to take an image of it.

Here is the syntax i used:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/DRIVE-LABEL/backup.dd bs=512k

It took the best part of 3 hours to do 250GB over USB.