Tag: security

How We Stopped a Tencent-Driven DDoS in Its Tracks

One of our customers has been on the receiving end of a sustained DDoS attack this week. Not from a sophisticated exploit or a criminal botnet, but from aggressive scraping by Tencent’s crawler operating under AS132203.

The attack was generating roughly 20 times the normal number of requests, and it was relentless. In practical terms, that kind of traffic hammers server resources, drives up hosting costs, and can take a perfectly healthy site to its knees.

Continue reading “How We Stopped a Tencent-Driven DDoS in Its Tracks”

Reduce the number of malicious URL requests that hit your website

If your site runs on Apache and you’re familiar with .htaccess, the 5G Blacklist is an effective way to secure your site against malicious HTTP activity.

[Update: The 6G Blacklist is now available.]

The 5G Blacklist is a simple, flexible blacklist that checks all URI requests against a series of carefully constructed HTAccess directives. This happens quietly behind the scenes at the server level, saving resources for stuff like PHP and MySQL for all blocked requests.

Simply add the following code to your site’s .htaccess file. Make sure you make a copy of your existing file before making any changes.

How to Reset Your Forgotten Windows Password the Easy Way

padlockForgetting your password is never any fun, but luckily there’s a really easy way to reset the password. All you need is a copy of the Windows installation disk and one simple command line trick.

Basically, the plan is to temporarily replace the Sticky Keys utility with a command shell which we can launch from the login screen.

  1. Boot from your Windows install disk and choose the “Repair your computer” option.
  2. Choose “Command Prompt”
  3. Move to the System32 directory:
    cd c:\windows\system32
  4. Backup the Sticky Keys file:
    copy sethc.exe sethc.old
  5. Copy our shell to replace Sticky Keys:
    copy cmd.exe sethc.exe and confirm the file being overwritten
  6. Reboot
  7. On the login screen, repeatedly press the [Shift] key until the command window appears.
  8. Change the password as desired:
    net user YOURUSERNAME YOURPASSWORD
    Substituting the caps for your username and new password
  9. Login with your new password.

>Once you successfully login, remember to replace the Sticky Keys file!

Source

Let us know what you think in the comments here or on Facebook and remember to share this post with your networks.

Improve your browsing speed and stay safe with Adblock Plus

adblock-plusIt often takes longer to download the ads on a page than the page content itself (in the case of flash ads anyway) and how annoying are those ads covering the bottom section of YouTube videos!? Firefox and Chrome addon Adblock Plus is here to save the day.

Ads are not just annoying, they are potentially harmful too. Although the site you’re visiting may be legit, the ads they carry (which are often out of their control) can infect your machine with all kinds of malware so blocking them is a very good idea.

Download Adblock Plus for Firefox or Chrome and never see another ad again!

Unfortunately, Adblock Plus isn’t available for Internet Explorer. Yet another reason to ditch Internet Explorer for a better internet experience.

Let us know what you think in the comments here or on Facebook and remember to share with your networks.