Hacking Manual

Something every Ethical Hacker should be able to do is spoof his MAC address. Network security professionals use switch port security with sticky mac addresses, meaning if your mac address doesn’t match, you’re not getting in. This can prove to be a false sense of security for network security specialists because hackers can sniff packets and spoof the MAC address needed to get access to the network.

MAC stands for Media Access Control Address and it is a HEX number that is hard encoded in your Network Interface Card. Changing your MAC address is as simple as changing a few Registry settings. However if your not comfortable working with the registry Technitium Mac Address Changer allows you to change your MAC address for Free. (They don’t charge for just changing a registry value!) You Can Download MAC Address Changer for free at Technitium

Another Reason to change your MAC address is to remain anonymous. Many people believe that if they spoof their IP address by using proxies they can remain anonymous. Unfortunately your MAC address is also recorded

Free software that ever computer repair technician should have in his toolkit.

UBCD4WIN-Ultimate Boot CD for windows provides a preinstalled windows environment that will allow you to boot into a windows environment from a cd when your hard drive crashes.

Hirens Boot CD 9.9 – Most importantly Mini Windows XP bootable from CD.

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware- Great at Removing Rouge Anti virus Software.

PC Tools Spyware Doctor-One of the best spyware scanners around. It blows Spybot and Adaware out of the water. This program is now free with Googlepack.

CCleaner- Use CCleaner to delete hidden unwanted data, Fix Registry Errors and remove unwanted programs

Advanced System Care-Scans and removes spyware. Prevents spyware from being installed on your computer by blocking know threats websites and cookies. Fixes Registry Errors. Performs System Optimization. A Start up manager shows you which entries are trust worthy and which should be removed. Privacy Sweep removes your history and tracking cookies. Removes junk files and Provides Detailed System Information.

If you guys have any other ideas, feel free to share.

Yes, Microsoft hires hackers, and they have launched their official blog called Hackers @ Microsoft. These are ethical hackers hired by Microsoft to search for vulnerability’s in their software before other hackers can. The blog focuses on security and how to prevent exploits.

In other news, Microsoft has also launched a new ethical hacker game called Hello Secure World. Designed with virtual labs, hands on labs, tutorials, videos, and you can play attack/defender games to learn about security exploits. It appears that the character you play as is a monkey wearing a brown hat named Mr. Corbin. “Welcome To Security Sector 7″

IGRP stands for Interior Gateway Routing Protocol.

IGRP is a distance vector protocol, meaning that it decides that the best path is the closest path. IGRP sends regular updates to it’s neighbors but it doesn’t talk as much as RIP. IGRP updates every 90 seconds. Because RIP couldn’t handle long distance relationships IGRP was created as a replacement. IGRP’s Default hop count is 100 but it can be set up to 255 hops by the network administrator. Which is way further than RIP’s 16 hop maximum.

RIP also lacked more than one routing metric. IGRP uses Bandwidth, Delay, reliability, and load as it’s routing metrics.

IGRP is a Cisco proprietary protocol. Meaning it only talks to routers made by Cisco. Kinda like the preppy girls from high school who wouldn’t be caught dead talking to someone who wasn’t popular.

IGRP uses hold down timers prevent gossip. When a route is marked invalid hold down timers prevent router gossip from reinstating that route. So lets pretend we have a router named Map , so if Map doesn’t receive an update from a particular route with in a certain period of time, it calculates the next best way to get to the destination, then it sends that information to all of the other routers. Then those routers update everyone else. The failed route change gets spread by word of mouth so to speak. But what if a router that hadn’t gotten an update and spreads false information to a router that had gotten the update. When a route is marked invalid, hold down timers prevent router gossip from reinstating that router. IGRP also uses split horizons and poison reverse to prevent routing loops.

Uses AS Number for activation
Invalid Timer: 270 seconds or 3 times how often it updates.
Hold down Timer: 280 seconds or 10 seconds more than the invalid timer.
Flush timer: 670 seconds or 7 times how often it updates.

EIGRP stands for Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol. It is a classless hybrid routing protocol created as an enhanced version of IGRP.

Just like it’s predecessor EIGRP is a Cisco proprietary routing protocol that uses an AS number. It synchronizes routing tables between neighbors at startup, and then it sends specific updates only when topology changes occur.

EIGRP performs path selection by using DUAL(Diffusing Update Algorithm)

EIGRP Supports several protocols including IP, IPX, and Apple Talk. It stored it’s data in the ram for fast retrieval. The three databases it uses are:

The Neighbor table
The Topology table
The Routing table

EIGRP Uses RTP and Supports multiple AS numbers It’s administrative distance is Internal:90 and External:270

Routers Are Layer 3 Devices A.K.A. Network Layer Device.

Routers connect separated networks together
Routers perform packet switching from one network to another

Routers perform packet filtering and path selection. If different routes are learned from multiple routes the lowest administrative distance determines which route is chosen.

The router says: “What’s the best way I can deliver this data?”

Every router makes it’s routing decsions alone, based on the information it has in it’s own routing table.

Sometimes a router is referred to as a DTE Device.

Routers do not forward broadcasts

A Router connects to a switch with a straight through cable.
Routers examine the destination IP address of a packet.
They send that packet to the next router reffered to as the next hop.

Routers can connect networks that use different routing protocols.
Routers allow multiple users to share a single connection to the internet.
Routers create separate broadcast and collision domains.

So if a broadcast is sent on one segment of the network, the router will not forward it to the other segments on the network. This is done to reduce unnecessary traffic.

The Router IOS loading sequence is
1. Flash
2. TFTP
3. ROM

If no IOS is found the router will enter Rom Monitor Mode.