System Administrator

The problem of system freezes is not new to the world of Windows and this has come to light even in the latest Windows 8 release. In the event that your system freezes, you cannot open your desktop files, some controls stop functioning, or you are unable to launch the start sc ...more

Your social security number, credit card information, and medical history can fall into the wrong hands if you're not careful about how and where you share your data online. If you really care about your data, there are tools and techniques you can utilize to protect yourself ...more

Linux has been one of the most popular desktop operating systems for nearly three decades, ranking fourth in the world behind Windows, macOS, and Google's Chrome OS. The open-source operating system is loved for its quick, powerful, text-based interface and efficient communica ...more

Penetration-testing frameworks can be incredibly useful since they often streamline certain processes and save time by having a lot of tools available in one place. Of course, the most popular pentesting framework is undoubtedly Metasploit, but there are many others out there ...more

Sniffing packets over a network is an easy way for hackers to gather information on a target without needing to do much work. But doing so can be risky if sniffing packets on an untrusted network because a payload within the packets being captured could be executed on your sys ...more

It is said that the best way to avoid detection when hacking is to leave no trace, and often that means not touching the filesystem at all. But realistically, in most cases, it's impossible not to interact with the filesystem in one way or another. The next best thing to do to ...more

With all the web applications out on the internet today, and especially the ones built and configured by novices, it's easy to find vulnerabilities. Some are more perilous than others, but the consequences of even the slightest breach can be tremendous in the hands of a skille ...more

Kali Linux is known as being the de facto penetration-testing Linux distribution but can be a pain to use as an everyday OS — even more of a pain if that means carrying around a second laptop or the constant frustration of using the finicky Wi-Fi on virtual machines. But there ...more

Whether you made the switch from iOS, or you came from a different Android device, there's a lot to learn about your new Galaxy device. Samsung does things a bit differently, and thanks to their TouchWiz interface, there are tons of added features to take advantage of—though s ...more

Since I recently had this problem and fixed it, I might as well share the solution. This is actually REALLY simple to fix but will impact your cards' performance. This tutorial is only tested on Radeon HD 5xxx series. Other cards may vary. It would be appreciated if you would ...more

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! A few years back, Microsoft implicitly recognized the superiority of the Linux terminal over the GUI-based operating system by developing PowerShell. Since Windows 7, every Windows operating system has had PowerShell installed by default, a ...more

If you've been around computers long enough, you've probably heard the phrase "have you tried turning it off and on again?" This trick usually works because it forces your computer to empty out the contents of its RAM and disk caches when you restart. When you run programs an ...more

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Many new hackers come from a Windows background, but seldom, if ever, use its built-in command-line tools. As a hacker, you will often be forced to control the target system using just Windows commands and no GUI. Although we would love to ...more

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Recently, Microsoft released a new patch (September 8, 2015) to close another vulnerability in their Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 operating systems. The vulnerability in question (MS15-100) enabled an attacker to gain remote access to any ...more

Welcome back, my nascent hackers! Although my favorite TV show, Mr. Robot, had completed its first season already, I have not completed demonstrating the hacks that Elliot used in the show. (By the way, I can't wait for season 2!) In several episodes, Elliot was seen sending ...more

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! A number of you have written me telling me how much you enjoy the Mr. Robot series on USA Network. I am also a huge fan! If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It may be the best show on TV right now. Mr. Robot is about a young man with ...more

This how-to is for everybody who faced the problem of intercepting personal data sending through the Internet and is looking for fast and secure method to protect his activity in the global network. For these purposes I recommend VPN connection (creation of special tunnel thr ...more

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! In previous Wi-Fi hacking tutorials, I have shown you ways to create an Evil Twin, to DoS a wireless AP, and to crack WEP and WPA2 passwords, but in this tutorial, I will show you something a little bit different. In many restaurants, hote ...more

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Not too long ago, I showed how to find various online devices using Shodan. As you remember, Shodan is a different type of search engine. Instead of indexing the content of websites, it pulls the banner of web servers on all types of onlin ...more

Welcome back, my rookie hackers! The more we know about a system or network, the better our chances of owning it and not leaving a trace for investigators to follow. One of the often overlooked sources for information is the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Many roo ...more

Welcome back, my budding hackers! In my continuing series on Linux basics for aspiring hackers, I now want to address Loadable kernel modules (LKMs), which are key to the Linux administrator because they provide us the capability to add functionality to the kernel without hav ...more

Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! One of the areas that often gives Linux newcomers problems are the environment variables. Although Windows systems have environment variables, most users, and for that matter, most administrators, never manage their environment variables. To ...more

Welcome back, my nascent Hackers! In my last blog, we looked at a passive way to gather information necessary for a hack. The advantage of using passive recon is that it's totally undetectable, meaning that the target never knows you're scouting them and you leave no tracks. ...more

Apple may have made Mavericks more accessible to Mac users everywhere at the fair price of zero dollars, but unfortunately, they made it trickier to create a bootable install drive of the Mac OS X 10.9 operating system. Don't Miss: How to Create a Bootable Install Drive of 10 ...more

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Many of you have probably heard of a man-in-the-middle attack and wondered how difficult an attack like that would be. For those of you who've never heard of one, it's simply where we, the hacker, place ourselves between the victim and the ...more

There are countless tutorials online that show how to use Netstat and Tasklist to find an intruder on your computer. But with a few PowerShell functions, it's possible for a hacker to evade detection from the almighty command line. Before we dive into the technical sections, ...more

Post-exploitation is often not quite as exciting as popping the initial shell, but it's a crucial phase for gathering data and further privilege escalation. Once a target is compromised, there's a lot of information to find and sift through. Luckily, there are tools available ...more

File permissions can get tricky on Linux and can be a valuable avenue of attack during privilege escalation if things aren't configured correctly. SUID binaries can often be an easy path to root, but sifting through all of the defaults can be a massive waste of time. Luckily, ...more

If you find yourself with a roommate hogging limited data bandwidth with video games or discover a neighbor has invited themselves into your Wi-Fi network, you can easily take back control of your internet access. Evil Limiter does this by letting you control the bit rate of a ...more

Passwords and data stored in web browsers are extremely valuable to hackers. If not for financial gain, black hat hackers may still leak your passwords and personal information for amusement. Never undervalue what you're worth to a hacker. While I'm definitely no black hat, d ...more

The misconception that macOS is more secure than the Windows operating system is far from the truth. With just one small command, a hacker can completely take over a MacBook and control it remotely. The sheer volume of Windows computers currently in operation around the world ...more

Deleted bank statements and private photos are still within an attacker's grasp, so don't think that emptying your recycling bin is enough to keep your files from coming back to life. It's possible for a hacker to recover compromising files and images from a backdoored compute ...more

For years, PuTTy has reigned supreme as the way to establish a Secure Shell (SSH) connection. However, those days are numbered with the addition of the OpenSSH server and client in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which brings Windows up to par with macOS and Linux's abili ...more

OpenVAS is a powerful vulnerability assessment tool. Forked from Nessus after Nessus became a proprietary product, OpenVAS stepped in to fill the niche. OpenVAS really shines for information gathering in large networks where manual scanning to establish a foothold can be time- ...more

Earlier this year, NASA reported on findings that might point to water, and microbial life, on moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Named Europa and Enceladus, those moons contain large oceans under their icy surfaces, which many speculate could hold microbial life. On Earth, l ...more

Augmented and mixed reality developer Arvizio is working on a suite of software solutions for enterprises that will extend HoloLens capabilities as a full-fledged collaboration and conferencing tool. The company will demonstrate its Mixed Reality Studio suite to attendees at t ...more

Backdoors are convenient to leave behind once you've already found a way into a server, and they can come in handy for a variety of reasons. They're good for developers who want a quick way into machines they're working on, or for systems administrators who want similar access ...more

An average user's smartphone tinkering doesn't go much further than taking their phones out of the box, signing into their account, and installing apps. But some of us want more functionality and customizability than the basic experience provided by Android and iOS. Thankfull ...more

Greetings my fellow aspiring hackers, Android Development like other programming languages requires the use of some basic essential components, programs and configurations to get started. Android Development requires a little bit of knowledge of the Java language which means ...more

When using Linux, we often need to install new software, a script, or numerous large files. To make things easier on us, these files are usually compressed and combined together into a single file with a .tar extension, which makes them easier to download, since it's one small ...more

I am very new to Null Byte but I find much of its content and community incredibly interesting. I spent quite a bit of time just chronologically going through the posts and I noticed a common theme in many of the beginner posts. Many people seem to want to know the 'secret' or ...more

Android 5.0 "Lollipop" has only existed for a few months, but a leaked version of Samsung's take on the firmware has already been spotted in the wild. This update came straight from Samsung, and brings with it a plethora of new features, including greatly improved performance ...more

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Every so often, a MAJOR vulnerability appears that makes millions of systems vulnerable to attack. The most recent, named Shellshock, basically leaves every Mac OS X, Linux, and UNIX system on the planet vulnerable. As nearly two-thirds of ...more

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! When we are trying to find vulnerabilities in a website to attack, we need a solid web server vulnerability scanner. Internet-facing web apps can open enormous opportunities for us as they are often riven with vulnerabilities and can often ...more

As with most OEMs, HTC would like you to think that you can do virtually anything with your new HTC One M8, but as a softModder, you know that isn't true. To actually unleash the full potential of that device, you need access to the whole system, not just the parts that HTC de ...more

Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! Those of you who've been reading my tutorials for some time now know that I am adamant regarding the necessity of learning and using Linux to hack. There is no substitute, period. In this tutorial, though, we will be setting up a system to ...more

Welcome back, my hacker apprentices! Although there is a multitude of different hacker types, the one target they all share is the database. I often refer to the database as the hacker's Holy Grail, or the ultimate prize for an effective hack. That's because the database—alm ...more

Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive. End ...more

Windows 10 passwords stored as NTLM hashes can be dumped and exfiltrated to an attacker's system in seconds. The hashes can be very easily brute-forced and cracked to reveal the passwords in plaintext using a combination of tools, including Mimikatz, ProcDump, John the Ripper, ...more

Search engines index websites on the web so you can find them more efficiently, and the same is true for internet-connected devices. Shodan indexes devices like webcams, printers, and even industrial controls into one easy-to-search database, giving hackers access to vulnerabl ...more

With a tiny computer, hackers can see every website you visit, exploit services on the network, and break into your Wi-Fi router's gateway to manipulate sensitive settings. These attacks can be performed from anywhere once the attacker's computer has been connected to the rout ...more

Complex shell scripts can be implanted into photo metadata and later used to exploit a MacBook. In addition to obfuscating the true nature of an attack, this technique can be used to evade network firewalls as well as vigilant sysadmins. In this attack scenario, a malicious c ...more

MacOS isn't known as an ideal operating system for hacking without customization, but it includes native tools that allow easy control of the Wi-Fi radio for packet sniffing. Changing channels, scanning for access points, and even capturing packets all can be done from the com ...more

The conversation of which operating system is most secure, macOS vs. Windows, is an ongoing debate. Most will say macOS is more secure, but I'd like to weigh in by showing how to backdoor a MacBook in less than two minutes and maintain a persistent shell using tools already bu ...more

Coinhive, a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner, was reportedly discovered on the BlackBerry Mobile website. It was placed there by hackers who exploited a vulnerability in the site's e-commerce software that allowed them to anonymously mine cryptocurrency every time the website w ...more

SSH is a powerful tool with more uses than simply logging into a server. This protocol, which stands for Secure Shell, provides X11 forwarding, port forwarding, secure file transfer, and more. Using SSH port forwarding on a compromised host with access to a restricted network ...more

Ransomware is software that encrypts a victim's entire hard drive, blocking access to their files unless they pay a ransom to the attacker to get the decryption key. In this tutorial, you'll learn how easy it is to use the USB Rubber Ducky, which is disguised as an ordinary fl ...more

Tor is an excellent obfuscation network for web traffic, and while instant messaging over the network is very useful, it can be relatively difficult to configure. In this guide, we'll look at two synchronous communications platforms (instant messengers) which can be routed ove ...more

PowerShell Empire is a post-exploitation framework for computers and servers running Microsoft Windows, Windows Server operating systems, or both. In these tutorials, we will be exploring everything from how to install Powershell Empire to how to snoop around a target's comput ...more

Imagine for a moment that a VPN is like putting on a disguise for your computer. This disguise works to change your IP address, secure your traffic with encryption, and mask your location to bypass regional restrictions. This makes it a helpful tool for both whistleblowers and ...more