Sometimes simplest of the errors get you bad….and this was one such time.
I was trying to connect to my Oracle XE DB using SQL*Plus but kept getting this errror

connect hr/************
ERROR:
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist

Turns out I did not start the DB instance.
Start -> All Programs -> Oracle Database 10g Express Edition -> Start Database

I was just browsing away when I stumbled upon Johnny Long’s GooScan. He says that this is a Linux only tool but it seems to compile (not without problems though) on cygwin.
I kept getting the following errors:

L:\tools\gooscan-v1.0.9>gcc gooscan.c
gooscan.c: In function `inet_send':
gooscan.c:575: error: `MSG_WAITALL' undeclared (first 
                       use in this function)
gooscan.c:575: error: (Each undeclared identifier is 
                       reported only once
gooscan.c:575: error: for each function it appears in.)

Then I read somewhere that MSG_WAITALL is not defined for Cygwin and that instead of that zero would work. There are many neater solutions to this…but I’m a hacker and I’ll do the stuff that’s easiest and hassle-free.
Some people say that the following will work:
#ifdef __CYGWIN__
#define MSG_WAITALL 0

So in order to compile this bad boy, you need to goto line 574 in your favorite editor.
It looks like this:
recv(sock, recvbuf, sizeof(recvbuf), MSG_WAITALL);

You need to make it look like this:
recv(sock, recvbuf, sizeof(recvbuf), 0);//MSG_WAITALL);

You are all set:
gcc gooscan.c -o gooscan.exe

Compilation works! But then I observed that the results were not coming well. However, if you run it through a local proxy such as burp it still works…I bet it has something to do with socket establishment and receiving and being incompatible with the MSG_WAITALL flag.
But as long as you can get the results … who cares? If someone figures out exactly how to make this work, please post it as a comment.

This has been a weird one, finding version information on the operating systems.
On Ubuntu, the following gets the version information
  cat /etc/issue
  cat /etc/lsb-release

On Linux, finding the kernel version
  uname -a
  cat /proc/version

On Windows, from Start-> Run -> cmd.exe
  winver
OR
  systeminfo

This is very simple but still there are a few times when memory fails and we’re not able to do the obvious.

To see the information about the hardware mapping :
  lshal

Finding your CPU Information
  cat /proc/cpuinfo

Finding memory information
  cat /proc/meminfo

Maximum number of SYN requests that the host will remember which did not receive an ACK from clients:
  cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_max_syn_backlog

Finding data bus-size or bit-size i.e., whether my CPU is 32-bit or 64-bit:
  sudo lshw -C cpu | grep width

I recently came back from the ToorConX in San Diego, CA. It was a great conference with some really cool talks. Especially RFD (Remote file download using blind sql injection), reversing malware using browser hooking, cracking crypt() hashes using Ps3, grey box peach fuzz xml generation tool (nunchaku), voip eavesdropping, bypassing browser memory protection.
These were some really cool talks but I still don’t have access to any presentation slides yet for the con. May be those will be posted some time.

Long time since I posted anything here …. but it’s just been those times been busy as a bee. So securing Cisco routers is a big deal especially since the routers (especially the edge routers) can be critical to any organizations infrastructure. I am not a Cisco guru but am only a student. However, I thought I should create a list that could help me perform security reviews of routers.
Security of routers is important as attackers could add static routes, advertise bad BGP neighbours on edge routers, create inbound tunnel into the intranets and such. Therefore, it’s imperative that adequate efforts be put in to secure Cisco routers.

I thought I’ll put in my first attempt at creating a small checklist:

1. Use SSH for non-console access (“line vty” command should not have telnet in it)
2. Use class 5 passwords, do *not* use class 7 passwords as they’re easily reversed (“enable secret”) alongwith the use of strong passez
3. Limit virtual terminal access by using an ACL
      access-list 100 permit 10.10.10.10 log
      access-list 100 permit 10.10.10.11 log
      access-list deny any log
      line vty 0 4
       access-class 100 in
4. Disable Proxy ARP on each interface (“no ip proxy arp”)
5. Disable CDP as it can be used for information disclosures (“no cdp run”)
6. Use AAA (TACACS+ or RADIUS) (“aaa new-model”, “aaa authentication”, etc.)
7. Use “access-list ACL_NAME deny ip any any log” at the end of each ACL
8. Disable http server (“no ip http server”)
9. Keep the IOS versions updated
10. Set centralized logging using a syslog (“logging internal_ip_address”)
11. Configure NTP to keep the time synchronization (“ntp server 129.6.15.28”)
12. Disable TCP and UDP small services e.g., echo, chargen, discard, etc. (“no service tcp-small-servers” and “no service udp-small-servers”)
13. Put RFC 1918 (ingress filtering) protections using ACLs
       access-list 100 deny ip 127.0.0.0 0.255.255.255 any log
       access-list 100 deny ip 10.0.0.0 0.255.255.255 any log
       access-list 100 deny ip 192.168.0.0 0.0.255.255 any log
       access-list 100 deny ip 172.16.0.0 0.15.255.255 any log
14. Put some more filtering for common IPs
       access-list 100 deny ip 169.254.0.0 0.0.255.255 any log
15. Use SNMPv3 with ACLs if you must (“snmp-server v3 auth priv”)
16. Use SSHv2 (“ip ssh version 2”)
17. Try to use EIGRP instead of RIP/OSPF (“ip authentication mode eigrp N md5”)
18. Use MD5 authentication for RIP/OSPF if you must use these protocols (RIPv2/OSPF)
    (“ip rip authentication mode md5”)
19. For edge routers using BGP authentication (if possible)
       router bgp 10
        neighbor 10.10.10.10 password Cr4zY$%^
20. Configure BGP route flap dampening that prevents BGP oscillations (“bgp dampening”)
21. Use warning banners that could be used for legal purposes for prosecuting hackers