No doubt, you’ve heard many times that the NTLM Relay support is about to be disabled in Windows. I’ve heard it many times, too, but it’s mid-2025, and I still encounter NTLM Relay in almost every project. This article discusses relevant NTLM Relay…
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Comparing 8 Home Firewalls: Which Has the Strongest Default Security?
You’d think picking a firewall for a home PC would be simple—just install it and go. But firewalls aren’t all the same, and choosing the right one can take time and effort. Today we’ll look at eight…
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Windows 10 Privacy Tools: Testing Apps to Disable Telemetry and…
It’s been more than three years since Windows 10 launched, and the issue of user data being sent to Microsoft’s servers still hasn’t been resolved. Worse, it’s been compounded by forced resets of privacy settings and the…
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DeepNude Explained: How AI Undresses Women in Photos and Drives…
DeepNude, an app that can shamelessly undress women in photos, blew up online last June. The project runs on a hellish cocktail of neural networks, artificial intelligence, and raw sexual instinct.
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Why Messaging Apps Don’t Truly Protect Your Chat Privacy—and How…
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is often touted as a cure-all against persistent attempts by hackers and law enforcement to read online conversations. It’s commonly summarized as “the keys live only on the participants’ devices and never touch the…
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How Everyday Users Try to Hide Digital Evidence—and Why It…
Most criminals are anything but professionals, so the data-hiding methods they use are pretty crude. Yet these methods often work—simply because the investigator may not have the time or expertise to run a thorough analysis. So what…
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How to Choose and Set Up an ESP8266 Wi‑Fi Deauther
A Wi‑Fi jammer—also called a Wi‑Fi blocker—is a gadget designed to disconnect wireless devices from an access point. Such a device can be used for harmless pranks as well as for criminal purposes, for example to take…
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DIY Ultra-Cheap Zigbee and Z-Wave Hub for Smart Home Devices
Once you start building a smart home, it’s hard to stick to a single vendor. That means you’ll end up with a mishmash of standards that don’t mesh well and a lineup of hubs—each one hogging a…
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Quick Guide to Online Anonymity: Encryption Types, Traffic Protection, and…
Today, everyday users have access to a solid range of cryptographically robust encryption protocols and the software that implements them. In this article, we’ll survey the main categories of these solutions (even if many are already well…
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Intercepting and Decoding RF Remote Control Signals with SDR
If the word “radio” only brings to mind grandpa’s old Grundig or a Soviet Okean set, that’s a pretty narrow view. We live in an age of wireless devices, the Internet of Things, 5G, and all sorts…
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Vim for Beginners: Stop Fearing the Editor You Can’t Exit…
Vim is one of the most polarizing tools ever made. It’s not just an editor—it’s a litmus test that neatly divides programmers, admins, and Unix die-hards into insiders and outsiders. While some ask why we still need…
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Hacking with Google: Up-to-Date Google Dork Queries for OSINT and…
Penetration tests usually rely on a toolkit of specialized utilities, but one of them is available to everyone and always at your fingertips—Google. You just need to know how to use it. Google dork queries are clever…
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GPU-Accelerated Password Cracking: Harnessing Your Graphics Card for Brute-Force Attacks
Modern graphics cards are essentially compact supercomputers, delivering several teraflops of performance. A multi-GPU setup fits on a desk and can quickly crack most encrypted files. Where you once had to buy and configure a stack of…
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Privacy Showdown: Comparing the Most Secure Browsers
Web browsers collect a lot of data about users and track their activity online. To counter that, there are dedicated privacy browsers built to protect your privacy and block tracking and ads. Today we’ll review and compare…
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Beyond Packet Sniffers: How to Choose the Right Tool for…
There’s a lot of interesting stuff to be found in network packets. To capture and analyze traffic, we use packet sniffers—and there are plenty to choose from. Today, we’ll look at the most popular sniffers for Windows.
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FPGA Fundamentals: Inside Programmable Logic Architecture and Key Advantages
Imagine a processor that, instead of executing a fixed set of instructions, reconfigures itself for each program and turns the algorithm directly into hardware. That’s exactly how FPGAs work! In this article, I’ll explain how that’s possible…
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Windows 10 Hardening Guide: Secure, Private, and Optimized Setup for…
Over the years, Windows has evolved from a graphical shell on top of MS-DOS into a client front end for Microsoft’s cloud services. Turning it into a fully self-sufficient OS is probably unrealistic, but with some deep…
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Fortress assault: Bypassing authentication in FortiOS and FortiProxy
This article narrates my searches for the CVE-2024-55591 vulnerability in FortiOS and FortiProxy disclosed by Fortinet. This security hole makes it possible to bypass authentication using an alternate path or channel (CWE-288) and enables a remote attacker to gain administrator privileges and execute arbitrary commands.
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How to Encrypt XMPP (Jabber) Chats: Step-by-Step Guide
I don’t think I need to explain why someone might want a reliable, secure communication channel. Sure, you can encrypt messages and send them by email, but the very fact that you’re sending something can be telling.…
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Modlishka Reverse-Proxy Phishing: How Attackers Bypass Two-Factor Authentication
Underground forums are rife with offers to hack accounts. In most cases, attackers rely on phishing with spoofed login pages. However, that approach doesn’t work when the user receives an SMS verification code. I’ll show how to…
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