Microsoft is testing authenticator logins for Windows 10 S users

By Japhet |Munisi on Feb 26, 2018, 12:02 PM

It seems Microsoft may be aiming to ditch passwords sooner than some may have thought. The company first made their anti-password goals clear back in 2015 with the release of Windows 10 which launched with the "Windows Hello" facial recognition system for logins.

In December, the company reaffirmed their intentions, saying the model of securing devices using passwords "needs a makeover." Now, in the latest Windows Insider update preview, the company has called passwords "inconvenient and insecure" while showing off a new authenticator-based login system for Windows 10 S testers.

To use the new system, users will simply need to download the Microsoft Authenticator app on their mobile device and integrate it with their Windows 10 S PC. From the images Microsoft has provided so far, it seems like users will then be able to use their fingerprint to approve Windows device sign-ins.

The software giant feels so strongly about a password-free future for Windows that they've eliminated them entirely for Insiders who already have Windows Hello set up. However, it's unclear when, or indeed if Microsoft plans to roll out these updates to the greater Windows 10 install base.

Blogging vs Vlogging? What is the difference?

Every brand or individual wants to get more visitors to their blog. There are basically two traffic generation strategies blogging and vlogging to generate huge amount of traffic and gain potential customers.

Blogging is all about writing articles and vlogging is all about creating videos.

But the question is what to choose? Blogging or vlogging?

Blogging

Blogging is like an online log, where an author can share his thoughts, experience or whatever he wants to share with his readers about any specific topic.

Advantages of Blogging

1. Easy to set up

It’s very easy to set up a blog. You don’t need extended technical knowledge to create a blog. There are several platforms like WordPress, blogger, Thumblr… making our life simpler for creating a blog.

2. Does not require massive equipment

To create a blog, you need not to have a lot of equipment. All you need to have is A computer and a good internet connection.

Get huge traffic to your site, by using SEO and proper promotion of your content on social networking sites, blog directories … and earn decent amount of money by using Adsence ads, affiliated marketing…

Disadvantages of Blogging

1. Need to know about SEO

SEO is all about ranking a site in search engines. To generate traffic to your blog, you should have good knowledge about SEO. Learn On page SEO and Off page SEO and implement them.

• Use proper title for your blog posts.
• Use High frequency and low competition Keywords in your articles.
• Use images in your blog posts and try to have at least one image for every blog post

  2. Update your blog regularly

  Another thing you must notice here is, you need to update your blog on regular basis. Convert your visitors to regular blog readers by providing them quality stuff that they are searching for via your articles.

  Vlogging

  Vlogging stands for video blogging in which one can share his thoughts or whatever he wants to share with others by creating videos.

  Advantages of Vlogging

  1. Doesn’t require professional writing skills

  Unlike blog, you don’t need professional writing skills to create a vlog.  If you can create quality videos, you will get huge visits with minimal SEO effort and earn money from your videos.

  2. You can get more user engagement

  Generally  people used to watch videos rather than seeing of written stuff. So by creating good vlogs you can get more traffic and more user engagement.

  Disadvantages of Vlogging

  1. Need expensive equipment

  To create a vlog, you need to spend some amount of money for equipment.  You need to have a camera to shoot high-quality video and a professional video editor software like adobe after effects.

  2. Difficult to edit after submission

  We can easily edit blog post after publishing but when it comes to vlogging editing is not an easy job. If you find any mistake in your uploaded video, you need to delete it and edit the original one and again upload the video in your channel. Sometimes editing is difficult, so you may have to re-record the video.

  3. It takes time to vlog

  It takes time to record a video, edit the video and upload the video. You require 2-4 hours for a video. So you must spend some amount of time to create vlog and to become a good vlogger.

  Blogging or vlogging? It’s up to you

  Its depends on your opinion whether to choose blogging or vlogging? If you have good writing skills then go for creating a blog and share your knowledge through your blog articles. If you have good speaking skills then go for Vlogging.
  You can also create a vlog in parallel to blog. Just create a blog and embed video into your articles so that you can get more traffic, more user engagement, and more earnings$$$.

BEST HACKING TOOLS

The internet has as many downsides as well as upsides but it’s the lack of knowledge about dangers on users’ behalf makes it easier for hackers to go about their business — Let’s take a look at some of the best hacking tools and scripts.

Hacking can be used both for malicious purposes as well as a means for finding flaws in a system and notify the authorities to help them fortify their defences better. However, the tools and scripts used for hacking are known to all hackers for their own purposes. They help them greatly in their task by performing specific functions to gain leverage over a user’s system in case of non-ethical hackers and against malicious users in case of ethical hackers. Today we have covered some of them below.

ANGRY IP SCANNER

A hacker can track people and snoop for their data using their IP address. Angry IP Scanner also goes by the name of ”ipscan” and helps someone scan IP addresses and ports to look for doorways into a user’s system. It is an open source and cross-platform software and one of the most efficient hacking tools present in the market. Network administrators, as well as system engineers, are known to use Angry IP Scanner quite frequently.

KALI LINUX

Kali Linux was released in August 2015. It has a major release known as Kali Linux 2.0. This app is packed with distribution and interface tools. It has an improved hardware and supports a large number of Desktop environments. Kali Linux is a security-focused operating system you can run off a CD or USB drive, anywhere. With its security toolkit, you can crack Wi-Fi passwords, create fake networks, and test other vulnerabilities.

CAIN & ABEL

Cain & Abel is a password recovery and hacking tool, primarily used for Microsoft systems. It helps with password recovery by cracking encrypted passwords using a few brute force methods like the dictionary method. Cain & Abel can also record VoIP conversations and recover wireless network keys.

BURP SUITE

Burp Suite Spider, which is used to map out and list the different parameters and pages of a website merely by examining the cookies and initiating connections with applications residing in the website, is arguably the most important component of Burp Suite. Vulnerabilities in the web applications can be easily identified using Burp Suite, and many hackers employ this method to find a suitable point of attack.

ETTERCAP

Widely popular tool, Ettercap helps deploy a Man in the Middle attack. Attackers can use different attack methods on a victim’s system if its functioning is successful.

JOHN THE RIPPER

John the Ripper is a password cracking tool and uses the method of a dictionary attack, where different combinations of the words in a dictionary are matched against an encrypted string to find a hit. John the Ripper is obviously a brute force technique, and its viability depends on the strength of the password chosen by the user. Like all brute force methods, it will give a positive result, though the time it spends in doing so helps one decide whether to opt for it or not. It is a common tool used by hackers, though.

METASPLOIT

Metasploit is another cryptographic tool that is hugely popular with hackers, whether they are black hat or white hat. It helps hackers gain knowledge about known security vulnerabilities. Its evasion tools are one of the many applications of Metaspoilt.

Other noteworthy tools include Nmap, Wireshark, Aircrack-ng, Nessus, THC Hydra, Netcat and Putty.

CONCLUSION

In this article, we saw some common and popular hacking tools that are used extensively by hackers to help them in their task. These tools are also used by both cyber-criminals and ethical hackers to infiltrate or to protect a system respectively.

BLOCK YOUTUE ADS WITH SIMOLE BROWSER COMMAND

While there are several ways to block YouTube ads here’s why you shouldn’t use them and instead use this simple browser command which blocks all YouTube ads just like other add-ons or extensions! This simple command can block the video ads which play inside videos as well and you don’t have to use an additional plugin or extension or add-on! No installations whatsoever!
You just need to copy-paste a simple command in your browser’s developer console and you are good to go. You’ll never see an advertisement again while browsing your favorite YouTube videos.
Out of the several experiments being conducted by Google at TestTube, one less known experiment can successfully hide all ads on YouTube with a simple browser command. Here’s how to use it:

1. Open any YouTube video. Any video works but try with a video where you can see some ads.
2. Open the developer console. You can right-click -> Click on Inspect Element -> Choose Console. Or simply press Ctrl-Shift-J for Google Chrome and Ctrl-Shift-K for Mozilla Firefox and in Internet Explorer, press F12 and select Console.
3. Paste the following code:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=oKckVSqvaGw; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

If you wish to see the advertisements again simply follow the first two steps and paste this code instead.

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

And the ads are gone. Well since this a temporary workaround and not a permanent solution we really can’t predict when it’ll stop working. But for now since it’s working let’s use it and forget what’s to come in future! Enjoy an ad-free experience without any plugins!

WHAT IS WINDOW 10 FAST STARTUP

Windows 10 is pretty new, but that doesn't mean we're not already looking for ways to speed it up. One built-in feature that can help us accomplish this is "fast startup," which combines the hibernation and shutdown properties to give you a slightly speedier boot-up experience.
Fast startup is sort of like shutdown light -- when fast startup is enabled, Windows will save some of your computer's system files to a hibernation file upon shutdown (or rather, "shutdown"). Then, when you turn your computer back on, Windows will use these saved files to boot up quicker -- basically, booting from hibernate instead of from scratch.
For obvious reasons, fast startup only works if you have hibernate enabled (learn how to enable/disable hibernate here). Also, fast startup only affects shutdowns, not restarts.
Here's how to turn it on (or off):
1. Open the Settings menu by clicking the Start button and clicking Settings. In the Settings menu, go to System > Power & sleep and click Additional power settings.

 

2. The Power Options window will open. On the left side of the screen, click Choose what the power buttons do.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

3. At the bottom of the window, you should see a section called Shutdown settings. In this section, you'll see an option labeled Turn on fast startup (recommended). To turn on fast startup, check the box next to this option.

If you cannot check or uncheck the box next to this setting (if the option is grayed out), scroll up and click Change settings that are currently unavailable. You may be prompted to confirm your choice by a User Account Control (UAC) pop-up window -- click Yes. You should now be able to adjust this setting.
4. Click Save changes to save your changes and exit out of the Power Options window. To see how your changes have affected your startup time, shut down your computer (completely -- restart is not affected by fast startup) and boot it up.

How to Encrypt Files With Your Windows PC

 Snoopers and thieves can easily access files and passwords on your computer, even without your Windows password. All they have to do is insert a special disc (such as UBCD4Win or Hiren's BootCD) into your computer and power it up. The computer will then boot from the operating system on the disc, bypassing the Windows operating system installed on the PC--and any passwords you’ve set--and giving the intruders access to your hard drives. If you want to protect your computer from this type of attack, you have to encrypt the files that you don’t want others to be able to access. That's why we're going to show you three different methods for using encryption tools on your PC.
If you're looking to encrypt only a few sensitive documents, we recommend using TrueCrypt, which lets you create virtual encrypted disks where you can protect select files. Read "How to Use TrueCrypt to Encrypt Your Sensitive Documents" for a step-by-step explanation of how to set up a basic virtual encrypted disk that will make your important files unreadable to prying eyes.

On the other hand, in case your work PC's data is important enough that you want to encrypt the entire hard drive, we'll show you how to do that, too. Windows 7 and Windows Vista's Ultimate and Enterprise editions include a feature called BitLocker that can encrypt whole hard drives, right down to the system files and password caches. If you want full drive encryption but don't have Windows in its Ultimate or Enterprise flavor, don't worry. We'll also walk you through the process of using the third-party DiskCryptor utility to encrypt your whole hard drive--and you (probably) won't have to reformat to get started. What's more, it's absolutely free.

OPEN PGP JAVASCRIPT

OpenPGP JavaScript Implementation Allows Webmail Encryption

 

Researchers from German security firm Recurity Labs have released a JavaScript implementation of the OpenPGP specification that allows users to encrypt and decrypt webmail messages.
Called GPG4Browsers, the tool functions as an extension for Google Chrome and now is capable of working with Gmail.
According to its developers, GPG4Browsers is a prototype, but it supports almost all asymmetric and symmetric ciphers and hash functions specified in the OpenPGP standard.
The OpenPGP specification uses public key cryptography to encrypt and digitally sign messages and other data. It is based on the original PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) program and is most commonly used for securing email communications.
Setting up a PGP variant to work with a particular email client on a local computer can prove troublesome for less technical users, not to mention that it's not portable. A PGP user who wants to send and receive encrypted emails from a different computer, would have to install it on that system first, import his private and public keys into the local database, known as the keyring, and then configure his email client.
The benefits of a JavaScript-based implementation that runs inside the browser is that it
doesn't require a dedicated email client or other software installed on the computer.
At the moment, GPG4Browsers only works in Google Chrome and is not available for download from the Chrome Web Store. However, if the name is any indication, the extension will be ported to other browsers in the future.
Users interested in giving it a try must download it manually and install it as an unpacked extension. This can be done from the Tools > Extension page by checking the "Developer mode" box and clicking on "Load unpacked extension."

The current release is limited by the fact that it cannot generate private keys, although the menu for doing this is present, so the feature will most likely be implemented in the future.
Importing public and private keys works fine and when browsing on Gmail a black lock icon is displayed in the address bar. Clicking on it will open a dialog for composing an encrypted or a digitally signed message.
Similarly, when an encrypted message arrives in the Gmail inbox, the browser asks users if they want to open it with GPG4Browsers. The extension can decrypt messages signed with GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard), a popular open source PGP implementation, but only if data compression isn't used.
The GPG4Browsers source code is available under a GNU Lesser Public License so the tool can be easily improved to support additional webmail providers. The developers also provide documentation which explains the available APIs.
An OpenPGP JavaScript implementation offers convenience and portability, but also has some downfalls. "Since memory-wipe of private data and validation of a secure execution environment cannot be achieved in JavaScript this implementation should not be used in environments where the confidentiality and integrity of the transmitted data is important," the developers warned.
This means that GPG4Browsers shouldn't probably be used on a computers system when there's reason to believe that it might be infected with malware or compromised or in some other form. However, in such cases the user can always boot from a live Linux CD or a similar read-only environment.