Week 12: Reading, In The News, and Question

Reading: Aircrack-ng Tutorial: Getting Started,  I followed this tutorial, and Tutorial: Is My Wireless Card Compatible referenced, did some additional research and confirmed that my old LINKSYS WUSB600N was compatible with Kali Linux.  Referencing our KISMET class notes I was able to access the card from Kali Linux and searched for WiFi access points – and could not find any.  This is likely a result of my use of more modern WiFI access points running the WAP2 protocol, and my lack of forethought to purchase a more powerful WiFi antenna like the Alfa cards introduced in class which might have enabled me to find other WiFi access points in my neighborhood.  I did run through the injection test and followed the Simple WEP Crack Tutorial, but without a WiFi access point my progress was blocked.

In the News: Node Package Manager (npm) Fails to Restrict Actions of Malicious npm Packages
The CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute reports that a new security vulnerability in the default node package manager (npm) for the Node.js JavaScript runtime server-side web application environment allows packages to take actions that could enable a malicious npm package author to create a worm that can spread as users install node packages and compromise the majority of the npm ecosystem. CERT Vulnerability Note VU#319816 (March 25, 2006) describes the security issue, how the worm works, and provides reference to Sam Saccone’s original research into the vulnerability. While a practical solution to the problem has not yet been formulated, three risk-reduction workarounds are provided which should be considered by application developers using npm in node.js based web application systems they are developing for their clients or organizations.
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/319816

Question for Class:  Does someone with some relevant work experience have interest in helping me develop and deliver a 1/2 day workshop for the Urban Regional Information Association introducing Cybersecurity to managers of Geographic Information Systems at their October conference in Toronto?