Null Byte Features

How To: Hide Your IP Address with a Proxy Server

Proxies can be quicker to use than a VPN for specific applications, like web browsers or torrent clients. Both services will hide your true IP address, but a VPN is slowed down because it encrypts all data through a VPN network, while a proxy just acts as a middleman for fetching and returning requests from a server on your behalf. When speed is needed, go proxy.

How To: Defend from Keyloggers in Firefox with Keystroke Encryption

Null Byte is looking for moderators. More threats to computers exist every day. Not only do we have computer viruses and malware, but we have rootkits and other nasty pieces of code that can log your keyboard strokes or even add your computer to a botnet to attack other websites. Your computer can be infected even if you have anti-virus software installed. I can't stress enough how easy it is for a hacker to write a piece of code that gets around every piece of anti-virus software.

Hack Like a Pro: The Basics of the Hexadecimal System

Welcome back, my novice hackers! It has become clear from some of your questions that quite a few of you are unfamiliar with the hexadecimal system, or simply, hex. The hexadecimal system is used throughout computing and if you have never studied this Base16 numering system, it may appear relatively opaque.

News: Performance Hacks & Tweaks for Linux

If you have made the switch from Windows to Linux, I want to congratulate you in advance. I'm sure you have noticed a huge performance increase when using Linux over other operating systems. This is only half the battle, though! Most users who are new to Linux end up using Ubuntu. I have no gripes with Ubuntu, but I do not agree with their philosophy. It almost mimics Windows. Ubuntu favors ease of use, and despite valiant efforts by the development team thus far (Ubuntu is crazy fast), all o...

Hack Like a Pro: Digital Forensics for the Aspiring Hacker, Part 7 (Windows Sysinternals)

Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! In many of my earlier tutorials, I mentioned the complementary nature of hacking and forensics. Both disciplines, hacking and forensics, benefit from a knowledge of the other. In many cases, both disciplines will use the same tool. In this tutorial, we will use another tool that can be used in either discipline—Sysinternals—a suite of tools developed by Mark Russinovich.

How To: OpenSSL Unique Encryption/Decryption Scripts

In this tutorial I will be explaining the purpose of unique encryption/decryption scripts ( I will be referring to these at "UEDS" for this tutorial). Then, I will show you how to make one. Finally I will talk about the downsides to the method I use. I will also provide links explaining the concepts and algorithms used in encryption to anyone who wants to see what is going on under the hood.

How To: Exploit DDE in Microsoft Office & Defend Against DDE-Based Attacks

In our previous article, we learned how to take advantage of a feature, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), to run malicious code when an MS Word document is opened. Because Microsoft built DDE into all of its Office products as a way to transfer data one time or continuously between applications, we can do the same thing in Excel to create a spreadsheet that runs malicious code when opened. The best part is, it will do so without requiring macros to be enabled.

How To: Share Your Laptop's Wireless Internet with Ethernet Devices

Sharing a laptop's wireless Internet connection with other computers connected to its Ethernet port is a great skill to know. It can be good for a number of reasons; Your computer may not have proper hardware to have a standard setup, or you may have an awkward network topology where sharing your wireless Internet via Ethernet would just be a better option.

How To: Use Wireshark to Steal Your Own Local Passwords

Here at Null Byte, we've spoken a lot about securing and anonymizing traffic. This is a big deal. With all of today's business taking place electronically via computers, we need to be secure when on-the-go. A lot of businesses don't even train their employees to secure their computers to protect from various threats. Here are a few things that should always happen when doing business on computers:

Secure Your Computer, Part 3: Encrypt Your HDD/SSD to Prevent Data Theft

Welcome to Part 3 in my series on protecting your computer from prying eyes (Part 1, Part 2). In today's segment, we will be going over drive encryption using the TrueCrypt program on Windows OS. Drive encryption is a technique that masks your data with a cryptographic function. The encryption header stores the password that you have entered for the archive, which allows the data to be reversed and read from. Encrypted data is safe from anyone who wants to read it, other than people with the ...

Secure Your Computer, Part 4: Use Encryption to Make a Hidden Operating System

This is Null Byte's fourth part in a series about fully securing our computers (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). In our last Null Byte, we went over how to encrypt an entire operating system to protect our data, however, this doesn't fully protect us. In the case of legal extortion, the government can actually make you give up your cryptographic key to your computer so that they can look through it.

How To: Use Magic Tree to Organize Your Projects

MagicTree is often the go-to tool for data collection and reporting for many pentesters. It organizes data in nodes in a tree-structure which is very efficient at managing host and network data. Reports can be completely customized to meet the user's needs. Also, MagicTree allows you to import XML data and has XSLT transforms for Nessus, Nmap, OpenVas, Burp, Nikto. MagicTree comes pre-installed in Kali.

How To: 13 Black Friday Deals on Courses That Will Beef Up Your Hacking & Programming Skill Set

It's Black Friday time, and in 2020, that means a lot of online deals to make up for more stores closing on Thanksgiving, as well as everyone avoiding in-person shopping because of the coronavirus. But while you may wish to grab a better 65-inch 4K TV, the new PlayStation 5, or some hacker hardware on sale, Black Friday is also the best time to invest in your programming and cybersecurity education.

Windows Security: Software Level

As many of you know Windows is not the most secure Operating System in the world, but then again no OS is really secure if the user doesn't know how to protect themselves. Later I will show you how to lower the risk even more on your (the user's) end.

How To: Fingerprint Web Apps & Servers for Better Recon & More Successful Hacks

Web applications are ubiquitous in the modern online world, and knowing how to attack them is an increasingly valuable skill. But the key to a successful attack is good recon since it's easier to be focused and efficient with the more information you have. There are many fingerprinting tools available, such as httprint and WebTech, but there are even more that can aid us in reconnaissance.