Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Boot your USB..
Installing Windows from a USB flash drive has several advantages – First of all, the overall speed of the installation process will increase significantly, carrying a USB stick is much more convenient than a DVD, and finally it becomes possible to install the OS even on those systems that do not have a DVD drive, such as a netbook.
In this post, I will show you how to load the Windows installation on to your USB flash drive and make it bootable just like the DVD.
Tools Required:
1. USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.
2. Windows 7 set-up DVD.
Step-1: Plug-in your USB flash drive and backup all the existing data in it.
Step-2: Open the command prompt. If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights*.
* Goto Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.
Step 3: In the command prompt, type in the following command:
DISKPART
This will start the Microsoft DiskPart utility as shown below:
Now issue the following command:
LIST DISK
This will show you a list of available disks on your system. Disk 0 is usually the hard disk. In my case, Disk 5 is the USB drive (this can be a different one in your case). Now issue the command as shown below:
SELECT DISK 5
NOTE: In the above command, 5 is the USB drive number on my system. If you have a different number on your system, then you need to replace 5 with that number.
Step-4: Now issue the following list of commands one by one as shown below:
CLEAN CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SELECT PARTITION 1 ACTIVE FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK ASSIGN EXIT
Minimize the command prompt and proceed to the next step.
Step 5: Insert the Windows 7/Vista installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my case, it is “H:”. Now type the following list of commands as shown below:
H: CD BOOTCD BOOTBOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 M:(NOTE: M: is your USB drive letter)EXIT
Step-6: Copy the contents of your Windows 7/Vista installation disk into the USB flash drive.
That’s it! Your USB stick is now ready to boot and install the OS for you. Don’t forget to enable the “USB Boot” option and change the “boot priority to USB device from hard disk” in your BIOS settings.
I hope you like this post. Pass your comments to express your opinion.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
ANDROID SECURITY ALERT......!
Android handsets 'leak' personal data..
The data being leaked is typically used to get at web-based services such as Google Calendar.
The discovery was made by German security researchers looking at how Android phones handle identification information.
Google has yet to comment on the loophole uncovered by the team.
ID attack
University of Ulm researchers Bastian Konings, Jens Nickels, and Florian Schaub made their discovery while watching how Android phones handle login credentials for web-based services.
Many applications installed on Android phones interact with Google services by asking for an authentication token - essentially a digital ID card for that app. Once issued the token removes the need to keep logging in to a service for a given length of time.
Sometimes, the study says, these tokens are sent in plain text over wireless networks. This makes the tokens easy to spot so criminals eavesdropping on the wi-fi traffic would be able to find and steal them, suggest the researchers.
Armed with the token, criminals would be able to pose as a particular user and get at their personal information.
Even worse, found the researchers, tokens are not bound to particular phones or time of use so they can be used to impersonate a handset almost anywhere.
"[T]he adversary can gain full access to the calendar, contacts information, or private web albums of the respective Google user," the researchers wrote in a blog post explaining their findings.
Abuse of the loophole might mean some people lose data but other changes may be harder to spot.
"...an adversary could change the stored e-mail address of the victim's boss or business partners hoping to receive sensitive or confidential material pertaining to their business," the team speculated.
There is no suggestion that attackers are exploiting the Android loophole at the moment.
Almost all versions of the Android operating system were passing round unencrypted authentication tokens, found the researchers. It was fixed in version 2.3.4 but, suggest Google figures, only 0.3% of Android phones are running this software.
Some Google services, such as image sharing site Picasa, are still using unencrypted authentication tokens that can be stolen, found the team.
They urged Android phone owners to update their device to avoid falling victim to attacks via the loophole. Google is also known to be working with operators and handset makers to get updates to people faster than at present.
More than 99% of Android phones are potentially leaking data that, if stolen, could be used to get the information they store online.
The data being leaked is typically used to get at web-based services such as Google Calendar.
The discovery was made by German security researchers looking at how Android phones handle identification information.
Google has yet to comment on the loophole uncovered by the team.
ID attack
University of Ulm researchers Bastian Konings, Jens Nickels, and Florian Schaub made their discovery while watching how Android phones handle login credentials for web-based services.
Many applications installed on Android phones interact with Google services by asking for an authentication token - essentially a digital ID card for that app. Once issued the token removes the need to keep logging in to a service for a given length of time.
Sometimes, the study says, these tokens are sent in plain text over wireless networks. This makes the tokens easy to spot so criminals eavesdropping on the wi-fi traffic would be able to find and steal them, suggest the researchers.
Armed with the token, criminals would be able to pose as a particular user and get at their personal information.
Even worse, found the researchers, tokens are not bound to particular phones or time of use so they can be used to impersonate a handset almost anywhere.
"[T]he adversary can gain full access to the calendar, contacts information, or private web albums of the respective Google user," the researchers wrote in a blog post explaining their findings.
Abuse of the loophole might mean some people lose data but other changes may be harder to spot.
"...an adversary could change the stored e-mail address of the victim's boss or business partners hoping to receive sensitive or confidential material pertaining to their business," the team speculated.
There is no suggestion that attackers are exploiting the Android loophole at the moment.
Almost all versions of the Android operating system were passing round unencrypted authentication tokens, found the researchers. It was fixed in version 2.3.4 but, suggest Google figures, only 0.3% of Android phones are running this software.
Some Google services, such as image sharing site Picasa, are still using unencrypted authentication tokens that can be stolen, found the team.
They urged Android phone owners to update their device to avoid falling victim to attacks via the loophole. Google is also known to be working with operators and handset makers to get updates to people faster than at present.
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