So recently I've gotten a bit more serious about my internet security, and made some changes. Here's a short list of what I've done, but I'm wondering if I'm missing anything important:

• Moved from Brave to Firefox
• Bought my own domain for my email (so I can switch email providers at any time)
• Switched to Duck Duck Go from google (It's gotten worse anyways)
• Bought the Proton package (VPN, Encrypted email, etc...)
• Installed Thunderbird (instead of microsoft mail app)
• Installed uBlock Origin
• Installed Bitwarden for password managing (My passwords are also no longer all the same)

Is there anything that I have missed that should be a priority for internet security?

For the first time in the history of Microsoft, a cyberattack has left hundreds of executive accounts compromised and caused a major user data leak as Microsoft Azure was attacked.

According to Proofpoint, the hackers use the malicious techniques that were discovered in November 2023. It includes credential theft through phishing methods and cloud account takeover (CTO) which helped the hackers gain access to both Microsoft365 applications as well as OfficeHome.

Interesting view on this situation.

So I've been trying to create more secured passwords now that I have employment where I have responsibility. They require us to change our passwords every 3 months. I used to use the same passwords for multiple sites. Then I used a password manager and got rid of those memory passwords. With this job I don't want to mix my personal password manager with my work computer and I also don't want to remember a complicated 15 character long password to log in every day.

That brings me to my question. I've been using Yubikeys for years. I store a challenge response, use it for 2FA on all sites that allow, and I use it for TOTP on most sites (there's a limit to how many entries in the Yubikey 5). You can also store a password in one of it's two slots. My thinking is this: Is it secure to store a base password that is long and complicated, say 40 characters long with all the characters, and use a different "prefix" for each application? Example: On my banking site I type in "bank" then press the Yubikey to type the rest. Same thing with social media and other accounts. Each one has a prefix and I don't know the actual password. Of course I store all passwords, including the Yubikey, in a password manager that's backed up in the cloud (I use KeePassXC).

Your thoughts? Is this secure or stupid?

Microsoft reported a breach by Russian group 'Midnight Blizzard,' which accessed internal systems and source code using stolen authentication secrets from a January cyberattack. The unauthorized access was facilitated by a compromised non-production test account lacking multi-factor authentication and linked to an OAuth app with elevated privileges. Microsoft is contacting affected customers and has ramped up security measures to counter the persistent threat.

I contacted Proton VPN about the TunnelVision exploit and I got a response. I feel great about it, thank you Proton!

Hi,

Thank you for your patience.

Our engineers have conducted a thorough analysis of this threat, reconstructed it experimentally, and tested it on Proton VPN. Please note that the attack can only be carried out if the local network itself is compromised.

Regardless, we're working on a fix for our Linux application that will provide full protection against it, and it'll be released as soon as possible.

If there's anything else that I can help you with in the meantime, please feel free to let me know.

Have a nice day!

Was digging through my draws and found these gems.

Over 15 free VPN apps on Google Play were found using a malicious software development kit that turned Android devices into unwitting residential proxies,

I know it's an odd question, but where I live phones get stolen often. My phone doesn't have the option for an eSim, which is a problem because 90% of the time when a thief steals a phone they take out the SIM card immediately, meaning I wouldn't be able to remotely lock or wipe my phone.

Should I consider glueing the SIM tray shut? Or are there alternative less permanent measures I can take to keep my device secure?

They're blaming customers for not having good cybersecurity practices instead of themselves for not having good cybersecurity practices.

I would love if just once an admin of a fedi host under #DDoS attack would have the integrity to say:

“We are under attack. But we will not surrender to Cloudflare & let that privacy-abusing tech giant get a front-row view of all your traffic (including passwords & DMs) while centralizing our decentralized community. We apologize for the downtime while we work on solving this problem in a way that uncompromisingly respects your privacy and does not harm your own security more than the attack itself.”

This is inspired by the recent move of #LemmyWorld joining Cloudflare’s walled garden to thwart a DDoS atk.

So of course the natural order of this thread is to discuss various Cloudflare-free solutions. Such as:

1. Establish an onion site & redirect all Tor traffic toward the onion site. 1.1. Suggest that users try the onion site when the clearnet is down— and use it as an opportunity to give much needed growth to the Tor network.
2. Establish 3+ clearnet hosts evenly spaced geographically on VPSs. 2.1. Configure DNS to load-balance the clearnet traffic.
3. Set up tar-pitting to affect dodgy-appearing traffic. (yes I am doing some serious hand-waving here on this one… someone plz pin down the details of how to do this)
4. You already know the IPs your users use (per fedi protocols), so why not use that info to configure the firewall during attacks? (can this be done without extra logging, just using pre-existing metadata?)
5. Disable all avatar & graphics. Make the site text-only when a load threshold is exceeded. Graphic images are what accounts for all the heavy-lifting and they are the least important content (no offense @jerry@infosec.exchange!). (do fedi servers tend to support this or is hacking needed?)
6. Temporarily defederate from all nodes to focus just on local users being able to access local content. (not sure if this makes sense)
7. Take the web client offline and direct users to use a 3rd party app during attacks, assuming this significantly lightens the workload.
8. Find another non-Cloudflared fedi instance that has a smaller population than your own node but which has the resources for growth, open registration, similar philosophies, and suggest to your users that they migrate to it. Most fedi admins have figured out how to operate without Cloudflare, so promote them.

^ This numbering does /not/ imply a sequence of steps. It’s just to give references to use in replies. Not all these moves are necessarily taken together.

What other incident response actions do not depend on Cloudflare?

Im looking to create a real looking .cvs or .json file as if it was exported from a password manager.

• E-Mail should always be the same and of my choice. Username should not be weird/random letters.
• Websites should be real, random standard websites like facebook, twitter, instagram etc. no weird stuff.
• bonus if it has credit cards or notes like "bitcoin wallet".

I found mockaroo, but the stuff it generates is too random. Any other tools that are suitable for this and can be used by a noob?

Many thanks!

cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/1308742

Hey guys, first post here and on an alt, I hope I don't get flamed. If there's not enough info I'll post another thread tomorrow.

Its been ~5-7 years since using Linux (Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Debian/Mint/Fedora/etc) as my daily driver. Windows since then for dev and games with kids,, but now I have a laptop that can run my dev env in a VM.

I'm an advocate for privacy and security, but I'm also at the "config once, mostly work for a while" camp... I don't like spending a ton of time fixing things. I don't need Whonix or QubesOS-level compartmentalization (unless it runs Barbone's now), but I tried OpenSuse Tumbleweed on a recommendation and the fine-tuning of flatpak controls seemed really nice. I'd love to be able to sandbox as much as possible without breaking things. Memory and exploit-hardened kernel/apps is a huge plus. Basically GrapheneOS as a Linux distro would be fantastic, even though it comes with its own issues.

Am I overthinking here? Should I commit to Debian, Fedora, or OpenSuse and learn to sandbox and harden properly (if so which has best docs and community)?

I forgot the copy-paste specs my laptop hardware info to my phone earlier, but its an HP Victus 15-fa0032dx

HP Victus 15.6" 144Hz FHD IPS Gaming Laptop (Intel i7-12650H 10-Core, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, RTX 3050 Ti 4GB GDDR6), Backlit KYB, WiFi 6, BT 5.2, HD Webcam

I don't use the Bluetooth or webcam, so those drivers aren't necessary. Does Wayland work for this, and is that really necessary?

Sorry for the noob questions. Mid-30s guy with kids wanting to get this done this week if possible. Please excuse spelling and grammar mistakes.

SIDE NOTE: NOT AT ALL opposed to learning new systems, especially for security, as long as it doesn't require hunting down obscure undocumented commands.

Thanks all