IT Pro Tuesday #254
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Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!
The latest episode of the Security Swarm Podcast: "A Discussion and Analysis of Qakbot" explores one of the most malicious botnets in today’s digital threat landscape. What originally started as an information stealer has evolved into a multi-modular malware that poses a severe threat to businesses. In our discussion and analysis, we uncover its attack chain from infecting a system to downloading a malicious payload.
As always, we're looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community... those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please reply or leave a comment with your suggestions, and we'll be featuring them in the coming weeks.
We’re also updating the full list on our website here. Enjoy.
A Free Tool
ShredOS Disk Eraser provides a way to securely wipe disks for all Intel 64-bit processors as well as other vendors with compatible 64-bit chips. catherder9000 adds, "number of options including a USB boot drive (supports UEFI). It's nwipe, which is the linux open source of DBAN. Works great with external USB docks too if you're using a 1-4 bay one to mass wipe. You can also use ShredOS on headless systems or systems with faulty display hardware as it includes a user-enabled telnet server."
Another Free Tool
Hidden Bar is a simple tool that lets you tidy your MacOS screen. It divides the menu bar into two parts: Hidden and Shown, so you can organize what you see based on what you frequently access. techypunk found it helped make MacOS usable after switching from Windows by hiding "all the stupid icons in the bar at the top."
Yet Another Free Tool
TableTalk is a cutting-edge tool that uses AI to map out a database in a way that allows queries to be entered using natural language. Enables users to generate SQL queries, perform table operations, and pull information without an understanding of syntax. Currently in beta and available for free.
A Training Resource
Learn PowerShell Video & Blog Series features operationally focused training broken down by topic, with a corresponding blog post and training video covering the same material—so you can opt for whichever format you prefer. Also allows you to dig into the code and reference examples from the Learn-PowerShell-Code-Examples GitHub repository. Kindly suggested by Lava604.
One More Free Tool
PasswordSolution enables you to assess password quality of AD users and create password-expiration notifications via customizable rules that allow you to define who gets which email and when. According to its author, MadBoyEvo, "analyze active directory passwords utilizes the DSInternals PowerShell module and [will] provide HTML-based reports around its output, making it nice and pretty, ready for management."
P.S. Bonus Free Tools
MxToolbox offers fast, accurate network diagnostic and lookup tools to help diagnose and solve website and server problems. This large suite of free tools can identify issues in the DNS, IP or host, SMTP, domain and URL. MattF considers it an "email tools one-stop shop."
Macro Magic: M4 Complete Guide is a how-to that can help you master the basics for leveraging a powerful macro processor that's lurking inside Unix. While the full capabilities of M4 are relatively unknown, it can do useful things that are hard to do any other way. Ytrog describes it as "an epic template/macro engine that is build into POSIX."
Have a fantastic week and as usual, let us know any comments.