Did you know that from Vista onwards full format zero wipes too?

On March 27, 2010, In Forensics, Windows, By Shinnok

This time for good!

Yep it’s true.

As you probably already know previous versions of Windows a full format did not wipe in any way, all it did is a quick format(resetting the MFT) plus bad sector error checking and correction(1).

So from Vista onwards to Windows 7 full format also zeroes the entire disk, thus making the full format process a lot more secure then before.

I found out the hard way while playing with some recovery tools. 🙂

Random garbage would have been better, but not that needed really, since i don’t believe in recovering, after zero only wipe, strings of more then 5 bytes from 10(0) or so megs, even if doing that magic magnetic polarization thing experts were boasting a couple of years ago. From my experience zero wipe is more then enough, and why bother with dozens of passes of all kinds of garbage that lasts for ages, when people don’t even zero wipe.

So if you ask me, this is nothing but good news from Microsoft. ^^

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Microsoft Windows 7/Vista Forensics Guides for LE

On March 4, 2010, In Forensics, Windows, By Shinnok

On 25 Feb. a nice set of documents used by Microsoft in aiding the law enforcement authorities with forensics related to Windows Vista and Window 7 were leaked and first published on Public Intelligence.

They are a good read and explain a lot of what Microsoft does and does not do to keep your privacy in place and what kind of risks you are exposed when using these two operating systems and with a little background in security you can start defending your privacy better.

The documents provide a great forensic insight and if you do care about your privacy then you should read them.

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Did you know…

On March 14, 2009, In Trunk, Windows, By Shinnok

madewithnotepad

That there are 2 copies of notepad.exe in Windows? Yes that’s true! Check out Windows\ and Windows\System32 directories and you will see a copy of notepad.exe in each directory! \o/

Conclusion: Microsoft knew all the way that Notepad is the most valuable and appreciated default tool on Windows and put two copies of it in Windows just to make sure.

Notepad FTW!!!

designedwithnotepad

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ESET SysInspector – A tool you must have on Windows

On January 27, 2009, In Hacking and Pentesting, Windows, By Shinnok

eset-sysinspector

ESET SysInspector is a free diagnostic tool for Windows which takes a snapshot of your core Windows system components and then applies some analysis and heuristics on the data gathered, assigns a risk level of each object in every component and then presents you with the results. It’s good both for security and general system analysis.

I use it plenty and i admit it is a very useful tool to have.

➡  ESET SysInspector

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