Introduction This allows you to query the Spiceworks database and save the results as a HTML report. It uses the PSSQLite Powerhsell module and then the ‘ConvertTo-HTML’ command to output it to HTML. Step 1: Create your SQL Query It is best to run your test query’s against a copy of your Spiceworks database, not your live database. There are…
Introduction I have being playing around with Powershell a lot more lately and trying to learn and utilise it as much as possible. One of the repetitive tasks we deal with is when a student exits the school. There are a number of steps in AD that have to be undertaken each time a student leaves. These include: Disable the…
As a Sys Admin, I am probably a bit late to the party with how useful PowerShell can be. I have lately completed a couple of online courses about PowerShell and am trying to use it as much as I can in my day to day work. I am finding it incredibly useful in work and relatively easy to pick…
Backups are crucial. You need to have the right backups in place to have your data covered in the case of any disasters. In this post I go through the different backup types and some of the different strategies for implementing them.
1. Digital Rights Management Digital Rights Management, or DRM software mechanisms, provide content owners with the technical ability to prevent the unauthorised use of their content. DRM uses encryption technology to render content inaccessible to those who do not possess the necessary license to view the information. Apple and many other subscription-based music services do use DRM technology to encrypt…
1. Brute Force Attacks Brute-force attacks are the simplest form of attack against a cryptographic system. In a brute-force attack, the attacker simply guesses repeatedly at the encryption key until he or she stumbles upon the correct value for the key and gains access to the encrypted information. Brute-force attacks can take a very long time to complete successfully, if…
1. Trust Models Requirements for Symmetric Key Exchange: The 2 parties must be confident that they are really communicating with each other and not an imposter The 2 parties must be confident that nobody is eavesdropping on the key exchange Asymmetric Cryptography Users don’t need to share their private keys Users can share their public keys freely Eavesdropping protection isn’t…
1. Key Exchange In symmetric encryption, the sender and receiver share a single secret key that nobody else should know. Before the sender and receiver can begin to communicate using a symmetric algorithm, they must somehow agree upon and exchange the shared secret key that they will use for that communication session. Problems with Key exchange EG: Alice and Bob…
1. Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) Asymmetric cryptography solves issues of scalability by giving each user a pair of keys for use in encryption and decryption operations. The RSA algorithm was one of the earliest asymmetric cryptographic algorithms and it is still used today. It was published in 1977. There’s a lot of complex maths involved in creating that key pair, but the…
1. Data Encryption Standard (DES) DES was designed by IBM in the 1970’s Intended to serve as a federal encryption standard. Up until that point different agencies used different encryption algorithms. This caused issues with security because all of those algorithms weren’t thoroughly tested, and interoperability because different agencies couldn’t easily communicate with each other How DES Works DES uses…