Showing posts sorted by date for query Secure Boot. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Secure Boot. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Debian Linux 7.0 Code Named 'Wheezy' Released & Available For Download

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/09/2013 04:30:00 pm

Debian Linux 7.0 Code Named 'Wheezy' Released & Added  Multiarch Support, Several Specific Tools

Once it was one of the most popular Linux distribution which have drawn the maximum attention, yes you are right I am talking about none other than Debian Linux. Now a days the craze of this flavor has became little fade but as the foundation for other, more popular Linux distributions, such as Mint, Ubuntu and few Pen Testing Distro, still the value of Debian exist. So the up-gradation and new release of this Linux flavor is  still very much important. And today I will talk about the new release of Debian Linux version 7.0 code named 'Wheezy'. After many months of constant development, the developers at Debian project proudly announced the general availability of the next version of this major Linux which is Debian 7.0 aka 'Wheezy'. According to the release note - This new version of Debian includes various interesting features such as multiarch support, several specific tools to deploy private clouds, an improved installer, and a complete set of multimedia codecs and front-ends which remove the need for third-party repositories. Multiarch support, one of the main release goals for Wheezy, will allow Debian users to install packages from multiple architectures on the same machine. This means that you can now, for the first time, install both 32- and 64-bit software on the same machine and have all the relevant dependencies correctly resolved, automatically. The installation process has been greatly improved: Debian can now be installed using software speech, above all by visually impaired people who do not use a Braille device. Thanks to the combined efforts of a huge number of translators, the installation system is available in 73 languages, and more than a dozen of them are available for speech synthesis too. In addition, for the first time, Debian supports installation and booting using UEFI for new 64-bit PCs (amd64), although there is no support for Secure Boot yet. 

This Release Includes Numerous Updated Software Packages, Such as:-
  • Apache 2.2.22
  • Asterisk 1.8.13.1
  • GIMP 2.8.2
  • An updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 3.4
  • GNU Compiler Collection 4.7.2
  • Icedove 10 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird)
  • Iceweasel 10 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox)
  • KDE Plasma Workspaces and KDE Applications 4.8.4
  • kFreeBSD kernel 8.3 and 9.0
  • LibreOffice 3.5.4
  • Linux 3.2
  • MySQL 5.5.30
  • Nagios 3.4.1
  • OpenJDK 6b27 and 7u3
  • Perl 5.14.2
  • PHP 5.4.4
  • PostgreSQL 9.1
  • Python 2.7.3 and 3.2.3
  • Samba 3.6.6
  • Tomcat 6.0.35 and 7.0.28
  • Xen Hypervisor 4.1.4
  • The Xfce 4.8 desktop environment
  • X.Org 7.7

Along with these more than other 36,000 ready-to-use software packages, built from nearly 17,500 source packages also included in Debian Linux 7.0. So after reading all those cool features, what you are waiting for lets download the installation image via bittorrent (the recommended method), jigdo, or HTTP. 




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Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 8 Codenamed “Apollo”

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/22/2012 01:19:00 am

Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 8 Codenamed “Apollo”

Few days ago in a report we have said that Microsoft is expected to launch it's own tablet (Microsoft Surface) while aiming to compete with iPad. Redmond based software and hardware giant just unveiled the next big step in its mobile software, Windows Phone 8 codenamed “Apollo” Windows Phone 8 brings the platform in line with other mobile OSes by adding support for muti-core processors, higher screen resolutions and newer wireless technologies like near field communication (NFC). Importantly, Microsoft has re-coded Windows Phone from the ground up for the new version. Previous versions of Windows Phone were based on Microsoft’s old mobile OS, Windows CE, but now the platform will share the same source code as the company’s coming desktop OS, Windows 8. That has big consequences for developers and consumers. For developers, it will be extremely easy to create a Windows Phone app if they already have a Windows 8 app that runs in the Metro environment (and vice versa). For consumers, it means more apps and better hardware to run them. It also has the effect of rendering every current Windows Phone obsolete, since those phones won’t be able to run the new software. They will, however, get an upgrade to Windows Phone 7 to 8. Windows Phone 8 adds support for many new hardware features. The most anticipated is support for multi-core devices, which have become common on both Android and iOS platforms. There’s also support for better screen resolutions, including 720p and 1,280 x 768 (WXGA). That’s not quite retina, but it’s better than the 800 x 480 screen of the Nokia Lumia 900, one of the current leading Windows Phones.

New Features At a Glance :-
  • Support for multi-core processors. Existing support for single core has been a major concern for some high-end users wanting faster processing ability.
  • Two new high-definition screen resolutions for the coming OS. They are 1280 x 768 and 1280 x 720.
  • Removeable micro-SD support for the first time to allow expansion of base storage.
  • A busier start screen with room for more live tiles than in Windows Phone 7.5. Today's Windows Phones have room for up to eight live tiles and WP8 will have room for up to 32 live tiles, which can be sized differently.
  • IT support. Adminstrators will see some gaps in the existing OS filled, including support for encryption and secure boot in WP8, as well as the ability to allow IT to deploy apps without going through Windows Marketplace.
  • Built-in Nokia Navteq map technology, with turn-by-turn driving instructions in many countries.
  • Full Internet Explorer 10 support with more features of HTML 5 added. Belfiore said that Windows Phone 8 with IE10 will download Web pages slightly faster than three other popular smartphones on the market.
  • Native code support, a feature seen as useful to developers eager to move their apps from iOS or Android to Windows Phone. 


-Source (Mshable & CW)




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Fedora 18 Added UEFI Secure Boot (Security-Key Purchased From Microsoft)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/04/2012 02:08:00 pm

Fedora 18 Added UEFI Secure Boot (Security-Key Purchased From Microsoft)
 
Many of us knows that Microsoft has been pushing hardware vendors for Secure UEFI as part of Windows 8. The tldr version of UEFI is that it's secure encryption on the physical hardware at the pre-boot layer. Basically in order to boot the hardware will have to have a secure key. But while making UEFI a very basic problem arose and that is it won't easily allow people to load Linux. To get rid of this burning issue Red Hat's Fedora Linux has a solution and it's not one that is entirely satisfactory. Fedora will buy a key via Microsoft that will enable it to run. This is the solution now being offered up by Fedora developer Matthew Garret (and his blog post has fantastic details about the whole concept and the deliberation)
The key costs $99 and the funds go to VeriSign (though hardware signing is done via Microsoft). The problem of course is that Fedora will perhaps be tied to Microsoft's Secure UEFI efforts in order to enable Linux on new hardware. The bigger problem would be if Secure UEFI wasn't dealt with and Linux wouldn't run on new hardware at all.
After eliminating options of creating their own Fedora key or an overall Linux key as too complex or costly, Garrett says they have decided to opt for the "least worst" option; have Microsoft sign Fedora. So for $99, Microsoft offer a signing service and this should ensure compatibility with a wide range of hardware. "If there are better options then we haven't found them" he added.




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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.8 Released

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/23/2012 06:44:00 pm

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.8 Released 

Red Hat announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 operating system with new and improved functionality for enhanced performance, flexibility, and security. The release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 is part of the ongoing value delivered to customers during the recently-extended 10 year life cycle. With this release Red Hat has provided customers with the eighth "minor release" of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 Include:-

Virtualization
  • KVM scalability enhancements increasing the maximum supported virtual guest size from 128 to 256 virtual CPUs furthering the reach of virtualization deployments to large-scale workloads.
  • KVM enhancements include improved guest boot times and improved clock and timer support. The KVM hypervisor has updated real time clock (RTC) support to improve the performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guests on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 KVM hosts.
  • Additional KVM improvements increase the manageability and stability of KVM hosts and Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests. Many of these enhancements are in support of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0.
  • Xen enhancements provide improved guest performance, improved logging for debug, and virtual disk re-sizing while a guest is running.

Hardware Support and Streamlined Installation
  • Support for Power Management Quality of Service (QoS) provides automatic power management at the device level for managing latency and throughput based on QoS needs. During critical production windows, system administrators can enforce a high-performance, low-latency mode.
  • New iotop support enables the monitoring of I/O resources, such as storage devices, at the process level, providing insight into potential performance issues.
  • PCI-e 3.0 enablement provides support for new and emerging PCI-e 3.0 adapters.
  • Network, storage and graphic driver enhancements for recent hardware.
  • The configuration of IP over Infiniband (IPoIB) adapters is now supported by the system installer, making installation of Infiniband adapters easier.

Security Management
  • OpenSCAP (Open Security Content Automation Protocol) support is now compliant with the SCAP 1.1 (Security Content Automation Protocol) specification, the most recent standard framework defined by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for creating a standardized approach for maintaining secure systems.
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has been tested to the United States Government Configuration Board (USGCB) baseline and now meets the USGCB recommendations for government agencies following USGCB guidance for secure configuration policies.


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Mac OS X Lion Said Good-Bye to Analog Communications (Modem)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 8/17/2011 03:57:00 am


Mac OS X Lion has killed off a number of things including, but not limited to Rosetta, visible scrolls bars, Quicken (see Rosetta), and unnatural scrolling. Now another casualty is the venerable analog modem.
According to users on MacRumors Forums it is true that Apple has killed off support for the analog Apple USB Modem in Mac OS X Lion since the device is no longer working after they upgraded from Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
When you will try to plug your Apple USB Modem into an available USB port on your iMac and MacBook Air (both running Mac OS X Lion) we will receive the following error message.
"You can not use Apple usb Modem withn this computer"
The problem is being blamed on two issues: the required modem drivers are missing and the drivers only work when your Mac kernel is running in 32-bit mode. Since Lion generally runs in 64-bit kernel mode by default the drivers will not work unless you boot your machine into 32-bit mode. A lively discussion about 32 vs. 64-bit mode can be found here.
The forum discussion included a work around that required modification of your system files and instructions on starting your Mac in 32-bit kernel mode. Unfortunately at press time I wasn’t able to get the suggested work around to work on either of my Macs.
One person, HellDiverUK, on the forum made a comment that I can agree with when they asked, “Modem?” followed by “Last millennium is calling, it wants its outdated technology back. ”  We think Apple agrees and that they are telling you that it looks like it is time to say good-bye to the analog modem and look to alternatives like encrypted email, zip files, PDFs, or secure FTP.

For more information and help to resolve this click Here

-News Source (Culture Of Mac)

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RHEL 5.7 adds OpenSCAP

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/28/2011 10:12:00 pm


With all the excitement around Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 last week, it's important to remember that most RHEL users are still likely on RHEL 5. RHEL 5 debuted in March of 2007 and has been updated with 6 incremental updates over the last four years. The last major update, RHEL 5.6 came out in January of 2011. With RHEL 6.x now in market, I would have guessed that RHEL 5 at this point would be just about bug, stability and driver updates, but that's not the case. Red Hat is still adding FEATURES to this distro. In RHEL 5.7, which is now in Beta, Red Hat is adding support for OpenSCAP which is a big win for security. OpenSCAP is an open source implementation of the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) framework for creating a standardized approach for maintaining secure systems. Red Hat's Fedora community Linux distro has included OpenSCAP since the Fedora 14 release in October of 2010. Typically it takes longer for a Fedora technology to land in RHEL, but OpenSCAP is just one of those things that makes so much sense (and clearly is already enterprise ready) that Red Hat is electing to get it into RHEL now -- at least in beta. RHEL 5.7 also provides improved capabilities for the Xen Hypervisor, which is not something that Red Hat has continued into RHEL 6.  




According to the release notes for RHEL 5.7:

  • The performance of Xen guests in 32-bit domains is improved.
  • The maximum amount of disks that can be attached to a Xen guest has been increased from 100 to 256.
  • The time needed to boot Xen guests is reduced.
  • Xen guests now support up to 4 serial ports.
  • xz compression support is now available in Xen pygrub.
All good news for RHEL 5.x users that intend for whatever reason  to stick with the platform instead of moving to RHEL 6. That's not to say that RHEL 6.x isn't more robust overall, but hey big mission critical systems aren't things that are easily migrated from one version to another.

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Going Mobile: Security in the Age of Ubiquity

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/11/2011 11:19:00 pm



This isn’t an official rant, but there’s one thing that drives me completely insane.  It’s a link in a message in my email.
As you might imagine, there are many touch points running a $2 billion security business. A lot of that gets manifested in Web-based applications that get issued for everything that happens within the organization: ordering prototype equipment, managing travel, hiring, and promotions. All of these apps generate an email. Any given day, I get 20 of these emails, and I have to respond to every one of them.
While all that’s expected is a review of the data and a simple click for approval, I’m often traveling and mostly working on a traditional email-only device, and so this simple task is impossible. Within a few hours these requests pile up and everyone’s freaking out, “Tom, you didn’t approve this yet?” My solution: I call my admin and go over each one of these decisions on the phone, often at odd hours. It’s ridiculous.
I find myself fantasizing about the ability to have just one device that I hold in my hand that allows me make all the important decisions I have to make every five minutes. Back to reality: I log onto my laptop, boot up, find a hot spot, launch the VPN, generate a token, connect, sync my mail, find the link, and then comes the magic “click.” Or I wake up my executive assistant.
Why the trouble? Simple: the enterprise needs to have security.  But this security blanket must extend beyond traditional corporate PCs to include the new consumer end point as well. A new study by Deloitte shows that companies will buy more than 10 million tablet computers this year and that for the first time, sales of personal computers will represent less than half of the total computing device market. And yet, for many of us, today the security blanket doesn’t cover the device du jour.  It needs to.  In a new world of myriad mobile devices, cloud-based apps and increasing rich media, we need to rethink security. Three major trends sweeping through the enterprise—the rapid rise of the consumerized end point , the adoption of cloud computing, and growing use of high definition video conferencing —are transforming business and demanding a fundamental shift in how security is developed and deployed. 
It’s time for a change. Security was developed when the enterprise network was relatively static and the Internet experience was totally different. Users came to work and sat at a desk that had a PC that rarely moved. It was connected by a wire to a port in the wall and it had a controlled set of software—the “corporate image,” which included security scanning and configuration.  This corporate end point was one of the primary places that security was enforced. The other place security was injected was at the edge of the corporate network.  Branch and remote traffic was backhauled to a small number of egress points where the corporate network met the Internet. Known as the DMZ, this is the place where network security traditionally resides: firewalls, IPS systems, Web and email gateways.
But today, as we work in a more distributed, mobile and cloud-oriented world, this traditional “hub and spoke” model of the network no longer makes sense. A vast array of consumer devices have flooded into the enterprise and blown the end point into a million pieces.  Furthermore, DMZ is becoming less relevant because the Internet touches the network in thousands of places, not ones or tens of places.
Additionally, companies engage in increasingly complex business relationships with contractors, partners, and suppliers, and often the number of non-traditional employees that need to access corporate assets exceeds the number of employees that need access! A new era of mobile computing and the modern, global, outsourced business has yielded a dynamic, uncontrolled, highly mobile user community.  And it’s not just users that are on the move, but corporate data is as well.  With the rapid onset of data center virtualization, cloud computing, and SaaS, it’s getting quite difficult for the IT team to point a finger and say, “my data resides here.”   
We need a new architecture to provide security in this type of world. Security solutions based on physical infrastructure, and policy expressed in terms of a particular device, the corporate PC, an IP address, network port, or application protocol are becoming useless in a mobile, borderless world. The new security architecture needs to have higher-level constructs so that a policy can be expressed in terms of the who, what, where, when, and how of security as opposed to the IP address. It needs to be separated from the physical infrastructure underneath it and instead, have security flow through it. And, it needs to be highly distributed so it can be deployed in hundreds of locations around the world—wherever the borderless enterprise touches the unwashed Internet.
The security architecture of tomorrow is no longer at the beginning or the end. It’s in the middle; it’s everywhere. In the future, security is a fabric that permeates the network, both within the corporate WAN and in the public cloud.
The good news for me is that within Cisco we have deployed our next gen security system.  “Eating our own caviar” as John Chambers likes to say.  So now I can read my email on my iPhone, and with our secure mobility solution, I can just click right through to my enterprise apps and approve away.  Huzzah!

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