Lulzsec has now disbanded

Hello Everybody,

..It looks like Lulzsec in under control.

“ British police have arrested a teenager suspected to be a part of online hacker group Anonymous.

The Scotland Yard said that 18-year-old Jake Davis has been charged with a series of cyber crimes including hack attack on the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) that took place a month ago.

Davis is also believed to be the spokesman for the hacker groups Lulz Security (Lulzsec) and Anonymous said police.

The arrest took place in a “pre-planned intelligence-led operation” on the Shetland Islands on Wednesday.

At present, Davis is with the cybercrime unit in London for questioning. He is the third Briton to have been arrested as part of the recent crackdown on online hacker groups in the US and Europe.

Last month, police had arrested another teenager Ryan Cleary in Essex. And last week, a 16-year-old boy was arrested from south London. So far, there have been at least sixteen arrests in the US and four in the Netherlands in a coordinated action against online hacker groups.

Meanwhile, reports say that Anonymous has targeted the network of US government contractor Mantech International Corp. The hacker group also posted some NATO-related correspondence online, according to Reuters.

Mantech has not commented on the matter so far.

LulzSec — infamous for its attacks on sonypictures.com, Nintendo and FBI associate websites — had recently claimed that it would be disbanding to avoid a crackdown on members and heightened scrutiny by authorities”

http://lulzsecurity.com/   ….. not available any more.

The parting shot:

http://pastebin.com/1znEGmHa

…. a good time to invest in security training

Grant

Core Knowledge Questions Removed for CCIE Security and CCIE Storage Networking Lab Exams

Effective August 15, 2011, CCIE Security Lab Exam and CCIE Storage Networking Lab Exam, in all global locations, will no longer include the four open-ended Core Knowledge questions.

The content of the lab exams remain based on the current CCIE Security Lab Exam Topics and CCIE Storage Networking Lab Exam Topics. The removal of Core Knowledge questions allow candidates to utilize the total lab time for configuration and troubleshooting.

The total lab time will remain eight hours.

A new Ethernet standard – 802.3ab has been ratified by the IEEE. It details a migration from a speed of 40Gbits/sec all the way up to a very impressive 100Gbits/sec. It is intended as a response to the growing demands on bandwidth resulting from ever more popular technology adoptions such as IP Convergence, social networking, video services and integrated applications. All of which require higher data through put speeds. This new standard will enable manufactures to produce higher performing networking equipment.

Let’s address the first issue first, do you intend to sit the relevant exam after completing your Cisco course? Why wouldn’t you? You have given up your time to attend a course, your company has paid for it, and you have been paid wages while on it. I always find it a little disheartening when delegates tell me they have no intention of taking the exam. In today’s economic climate and all the uncertainty that goes with it, your CV is more important than it has ever been. The world has changed. You will not get a job based on experience alone. If you don’t have the qualifications on your CV, you will not even get the interview, sad, but true.

So, are Cisco certification exams difficult? Yes they are. But that’s a good thing; otherwise they wouldn’t be worth having. I always say, ‘how well you do in an exam is largely just a reflection of how much preparation you have put in’. If you prepare and know your stuff, then an exam can almost be described as a pleasurable experience. It’s only a bad experience when you have inadequately prepared.

Here are some useful pointers on how to go about preparing for you exam:

1. Leave a gap between finishing the course and sitting the exam. I usually find 2 weeks is about right. The Cisco courses are intense and we cover a lot of material. You need time to go over your notes, revisit the topics and practice your lab exercises.
2. Book your exam date. Get a date in the diary, this gives you a deadline to work towards. Why not book your exam before you finish the course? You need to go to www.pearsonvue.com
3. Visit Cisco website: www.cisco.com/go/certifcation where you will find a detailed breakdown of all the subject areas in your exam. You can then study these topics and tick them off as you go.
4. We recommend you consider using the resources at www.boson.com. This is a Cisco sponsored site where you can purchase practise questions. Practise questions are an essential part of your preparation. With Boson, you can run it in learning mode which gives you a detailed explanation of the answers given. You can also purchase simulations for lab practise. Beware of sites that offer actual exam questions, this material is illegal and Cisco regularly change the exam questions which can leave you badly prepared. Also, passing your exam by cheating will not help you on the first day of your new job.
5. Stick to the course ware for revision. If it is not mentioned in those books it will not be in the exam. Don’t waste time revising related material that’s not going to be in the exam.
6. Don’t skip any topics thinking they are unlikely to be covered in the exam. If it was covered on the course, it can be in the exam.
7. If there are any topics you really don’t understand, discuss these with other people, colleagues that can help. Use the internet, there are plenty of chat forums where you can post questions.

Last thing, they take your photo before the exam and then print it out on your certificate. So, make an effort with your appearance. You will then be able to put your certificate on the wall and show it to your friends and family when they visit. How cool?