extreme makeover: network edition

 gpo's, network administration, security  No Responses »
Feb 212012
 

recently i spoke at a conference about a network upgrade i did at a previous job.

the upgrade was a very difficult, but rewarding process, and has become one of my favorite topics to speak about.

topics i covered included the basics/easy stuff:

  • anti-virus
  • content filtering
  • password policies
  • firewalls

all the way to the not so common or more complex:

  • egress firewall rules
  • patching (system & OS)
  • running with user rights
  • software restriction policies/GPO’s

here is the prezi from the talk:

extreme makeover: network edition 01 on prezi

vlan abuse

 backtrack, security  No Responses »
Feb 132012
 

this is a quick post about vlan hacking abuse.

specifically, this post will cover how to abuse cisco switches and the DTP (dynamic trunking protocol).

why is this important? typically, most environments segment out servers, workstations, management, etc, into different vlans. if they (mis)configure the switch, you could potentially jump onto the management subnet (where things are usually much less protected) from a user subnet.

in a nutshell, we are taking advantage of a misconfigured switch, not really doing any “hacking”.

Continue reading »

truncating/shrinking microsoft sql logs

 sql server  No Responses »
Feb 082012
 

every once in a while i run into an issue where i have some log file on a microsoft sql server that has not been properly configured and is taking up a hundred gigs.

and inevitably, i end up spending the next 20 minutes to find a proper example of how to truncate the logs. so, instead of searching again, i am posting it on my site ;)

WARNING: don’t do this unless you have backups or you really, really don’t want to roll your database back. your deleting transaction logs, so while it won’t hurt your working database, it will prevent you from rolling back to yesterday. ye be warned.

in this case, i am running these commands on a microsoft sql server 2005 install, but i would presume it to work on sql 2008 or 2012, although i haven’t tested it.

here is the code:

-- specify database and show database & log statistics
USE dbname
EXEC sp_helpfile
 
-- truncate the log
USE dbname
GO
BACKUP LOG dbname WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE (dbname_log, 1)
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE (dbname_log, 1)
GO
 
--show statistics after truncating
EXEC sp_helpfile

reference/disclaimer: this code is from http://www.sqlcleanup.com/2008/sql-2005-truncating-log-files-and-recovering-space/ and is not my work, i just can’t always find it in a pinch.