What are Exploits? How important are Exploits for Hacking ?

Ref- itpro.co.uk

A tool developed by hackers that is used to perform malicious attacks on computer systems. They are usually scripts that are designed to exploit weaknesses in software over a network, most commonly the Internet.
        "Zero-Day" is a common type of exploit.You can hack in many different ways with many different procedures. Kevin Mitnick created hacking history with just a phone and a dream. Hackers, Exploit writers and Defacers are always the challenge for Security Experts and Compa-
nies.An attacker can write exploits because of some misconfiguration, unsecure development and is lacking IT management.
                 
There are various Exploit Database sites available with thousands of Exploits.

For example:
 

What is NAGIOS ?

Nagios is a system and network monitoring application. It watches hosts and services that you specify,alerting you when things go bad and when they get better. Nagios was originally designed to run under Linux, although it should work under most other unices as well. 
                                                                                                                           Nagios is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation. This gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it under certain conditions.

Some of the many Features of Nagios include:

1) Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)

2) Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)

3) Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks.

4) Parallelized service checks.

4) Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and 
     distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable.

5) Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email,  
    pager, or user-defined method) .

6) Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive 
     problem resolution.

7) Automatic log file rotation.

8) Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts.

9) Optional web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem 
     history, log file, etc.

System Requirements : 

                            The only requirement of running Nagios is a machine running Linux (or UNIX variant) and a C compiler. You will probably also want to have TCP/IP configured, as most service checks will be performed over the network. 
                                 You are not required to use the CGIs included with Nagios. However, if you do decide to use them, you will need to have the following software installed...

1) A web server (preferrably Apache).

2) Thomas Boutell’s gd library version 1.6.3 or higher (required by the statusmap and
      trends CGIs)


Downloading The Latest Version

You can check for new versions of Nagios at http://www.nagios.org.

What is a Content Management System?

A content management system is software that allows you to create and manage webpages easily by separating the creation of your content from the mechanics required to present it on the web.
In this site, the content is stored in a database. The look and feel are created by a template. Joomla! brings together the template and your content to create web pages.

Logging in

To login to your site use the user name and password that were created as part of the installation process. Once logged-in you will be able to create and edit articles and modify some settings.

Creating an article

Once you are logged-in, a new menu will be visible. To create a new article, click on the "Submit Article" link on that menu.
The new article interface gives you a lot of options, but all you need to do is add a title and put something in the content area. To make it easy to find, set the state to published.

You can edit an existing article by clicking on the edit icon (this only displays to users who have the right to edit).

Template, site settings, and modules

The look and feel of your site is controlled by a template. You can change the site name, background colour, highlights colour and more by editing the template settings. Click the "Template Settings" in the user menu. 
The boxes around the main content of the site are called modules.  You can modify modules on the current page by moving your cursor to the module and clicking the edit link. Always be sure to save and close any module you edit.
You can change some site settings such as the site name and description by clicking on the "Site Settings" link.
More advanced options for templates, site settings, modules, and more are available in the site administrator.

Site and Administrator

Your site actually has two separate sites. The site (also called the front end) is what visitors to your site will see. The administrator (also called the back end) is only used by people managing your site. You can access the administrator by clicking the "Site Administrator" link on the "User Menu" menu (visible once you login) or by adding /administrator to the end of your domain name. The same user name and password are used for both sites.

14 Tips & Tricks To Get More Out Of Google Drive

There are many cloud storage services out there, one of which is Google Drive. We’ve pitted it against Dropbox and SkyDrive, another two crowd favorites and each cloud storage service have their strengths and limitations that would cater to a wide range of customer needs. But if you have decided on Google Drive, here are some handy tips to help you work better with them.
                                          The good thing about Google Drive is that it’s linked to your Gmail account and of course, the 5 GB free storage space. It also supports basic document editing through web browsers. But we have found 15 more tips and tricks that to get more out of Google Drive.
    

Attach files directly to your mail.

1. Attach Google Drive Files On Gmail

Because Google Drive is linked to your Google account, you can attach files stored in Google Drive directly to your Gmail.
Unlike traditional attachments where you first have to upload an attachment, attaching a file through Google Drive does not require you to re-upload the file. The filesize limit does not apply since a link is given for the email receiver to download.

Nano Linux.. ! A very tiny Linux distribution with GUI,,, SIZE UPTO approx 14 MB

Nanolinux is a very tiny Linux distribution based on MicroCore Linux with busybox.

It uses Nano-X instead of X11. FLTK 1.3.x is used as the GUI toolkit. The window manager is SLWM.

The following applications are included:

1) Dillo browser.

2) FlWriter text processing program.
 
3) Sprsht spread sheet program.

4) FLTDJ personal information manager.

5) Antipaint paint program.

6) Fluff file manager.
 
7) NXterm terminal emulator.

8) Flcalc calculator.

9) FlView image viewer.

10) Fleditor.

11) Games: Tuxchess, NXeyes, Checkers, Blocks, Mastermind.

12) Truetype fonts, UTF08 support.

Top 10 Most Notorious Hacker Groups Ever!

Yes, a 'hacker' is a person who has extraordinary knowledge of computers and is skilled at exploiting weaknesses in computer networks. Yes, it is not the perfect definition, but the basic idea is, the 'term' hacker doesn't automatically mean criminal. While some are activists (hacktivists), others are ethical. Then there are those who do use their skills for criminal activities. In any case, one thing that is certain is that a hacker is a person who possesses extraordinary grasp over computers and deserves some respect for the same. When a few of them get together, well, that is indeed a scary proposition!

Here are the 10 most notorious hacker groups to have ever touched a keyboard.

1. Chaos Computer Club: This group made a name for itself by hacking the Bildschirmtext computer in Germany and taking 134,000 Deutsch Marks from a bank in Hamburg. They did this to prove that the security system was flawed and returned the money they took the next day. They also protested against the French nuclear testing using hacking, by exposing a Trojan horse spyware device being used by the Germany government. The group was formed on 12 September 1981 in Berlin.



2. Global kOS: Pronounced Global Chaos, this group created as much of it as they could, that too on a global scale. Their members included AcidAngel, Shadow Hunter, The Assassin etc. and the group has been credited with providing a number of automated hacker tools to the world. One of the most famous out of these tools was ‘Up Yours’, which was used to bring down the websites of 40 politicians, MTV and the Ku Klux Klan. There are also tools like kOS crack and BattlePong.

3. The Level Seven Crew: This hacker crew took its name from the seventh level of hell, as depicted in Dante’s Inferno. In this, the seventh level is ‘the violent’ level. In 1999, the first crew hacked into 60 high profile computer systems. These included names like NASA, Sheraton Hotels and The First American National Bank. They are believed to be the first group to have hacked into a Moroccan domain. The group was known for their hacktivism and disbanded in 2000.



4. globalHell: This group was co-founded by Patrick Gregory, a street-gang member from Houston, Texas. It has been said to be behind the destruction of data on 115 websites, information trafficking and millions of dollars worth of damages. Ironically, Gregory had turned towards computers to escape his gang life. Rather, he ended up creating a 60 member crew of hackers, who treated the internet like their streets and wreaked havoc. 

Gregory’s crew has also been credited with online extortion and defacing the United States Army’s website when they wrote “global hell will not die”, on it. Interestingly, Chad Davis, another co-founder for the group, was arrested in 1999 and sent to prison for six months, along with a fine of $8,054, became an independent security consultant later.

5. TeaMp0isoN: This group was started in 2010 by a 16-year-old hacker with the alias TriCk. TeaMp0isoN was responsible for hacking into NATO, Facebook and the English Defense League. In addition, this group stole personal data from Tony Blair by hacking into his email account. They also attacked Research In Motion, the company that developed the BlackBerry, in 2011, by defacing their blog. They did this because the company planned to help the police during the England riots that year. The group wrote on the blog, “We are all for the rioters that are engaging in attacks on the police and government.”

10 Tech Job Interview Questions Asked By Real Companies..!

Interviews can be very interesting sometimes. No matter how many books you read, some interviews will still surprise you. The good folks over at CIO.com compiled this list of odd questions that were asked at real interviews for tech jobs. Take a look and see if you have any answers for them...

1. “If you were a pizza delivery man, how would you benefit from scissors?”

This question was asked at an Apple interview for the position of Specialist.

2. “Why is a tennis ball fuzzy?”

This was an interview question asked to a candidate trying for the position of client manager for Xerox.

3. “If you could throw a parade of any caliber through the Zappos office, what type of parade would it be?”

Employer Zappos asked this question off a candidate interviewing for Customer Loyalty Team Member.

4. “How does the Internet work?”

Akamai asked this question to a candidate applying for the position of Director.

7 Facts About CentOS That You Should Know

What do you do when you want to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) without paying for it? The answer is simple, you use CentOS. This is a Linux distribution that is derived from RHEL, but is available for free. But, while this distro is available for free, you have to sacrifice on some aspects. One of these is the fact that the CentOS team doesn’t offer any support services. Still, CentOS is amongst the most popular Linux distros today, which makes these facts about the OS all that more important to know. If you’re going to choose a distro for your projects, then you might as well know as much as possible about it.

1. The CentOS team, which makes this repackaged version of RHEL, is a volunteer group. The team takes the source packages from RHEL that are publicly available and repackages them into binaries. They distribute this software through public mirrors and Red Hat itself has no partnership with CentOS. 

2. No Support: This is actually quite surprising for a popular Linux distro. While CentOS has been used commercially by many companies, no support is provided by the team yet. So, you’re basically depending on IT consultants for support purposes.

3. Major releases come a little later: The time difference between the release of a major version for RHEL and CentOS has been increased considerably over the years.

4. Catching up to Red Hat: Being what it is, CentOS can not overtake Red Hat. This is because the team always has to wait for the company to release the packages before it can repackage them. So, if there is a critical security issue that has been discovered, RHEL will get the solution much faster than CentOS.