Digital Technology World

The network adapter is a card or built-in port on your computer’s motherboard that allows you to connect your computer to a network with a network cable. Like other hardware devices in your computer, the network adapter may require you to install updated drivers for better performance. You can download these drivers from the network adapter’s manufacturer website. Depending on the format of the driver, you may be able to automatically install the update or you may need to update through your computer’s device manager. Step 1 Click the “Start” button from your computer’s desktop. Step 2 Right-click “Computer” and choose “Properties” from the menu. Step 3 Open the “Hardware” tab if you are using Windows XP and click “Device Manager.” Windows Vista and 7 users can click “Device Manager” from the menu in the left panel. Step 4 Click on the arrow next to “Network Adapters.” Your device information, such as model number and make, will appear below the entry. You wi...

CrackStation uses massive pre-computed lookup tables to crack password hashes. These tables store a mapping between the hash of a password, and the correct password for that hash. The hash values are indexed so that it is possible to quickly search the database for a given hash. If the hash is present in the database, the password can be recovered in a fraction of a second. This only works for "unsalted" hashes. For information on password hashing systems that are not vulnerable to pre-computed lookup tables, see our hashing security page. Crackstation's lookup tables were created by extracting every word from the Wikipedia databases and adding with every password list we could find. We also applied intelligent word mangling (brute force hybrid) to our wordlists to make them much more effective. For MD5 and SHA1 hashes, we have a 190GB, 15-billion-entry lookup table, and for other hashes, we have a 19GB 1.5-billion-entry lookup table. Read more :  lm hash gener...

A nice feature of the Windows operating system is the ability to network computers together. The default network for the Windows operating system is called "Workgroup." Often a user will set up a new network of computers, name it something else and then have difficulty deleting the original default Workgroup. Step 1 Go to the Windows desktop and click on the "Start" button. Step 2 Select "Control Panel," then "System." Step 3 Select the tab labeled "Computer Name," and then take note of the name that is next to the word Workgroup. Step 4 Close this window, go back to the Windows desktop and click "Start" again. Select "My Network Places." Step 5 The icons showing the workgroups will appear, one of them being the new one you created. Go back to the Control Panel and click on "System" and "Computer Name" again. Step 6 Click on "Change" and then cha...

ASA uses a security level associated with each interface. It is a number between 0 to 100 that defines the trustworthiness of the network that the interface is connected to; the bigger the number, the more trust you have in the network. For example, the most secure network, such as the inside LAN, should have the security level of 100. The outside network connected to an untrusted network (such as the Internet) should have the level of 0. The interface connected to the DMZ should have the security level set to somewhere between 1 and 99 (usually 50). Security levels are used to define how traffic initiated from one interface is allowed to return from another interface. By default, the higher level security interfaces can initiate traffic to a lower level. The stateful inspection determines whether the reply traffic is allowed to make it back through. The following picture illustrates the concept: level 100 for the inside network level 50 for the DMZ network level 0 for ...

To buy a personal computer, we know that there are desktops, business books, game books, but occasionally have seen workstations. If you are working in the enterprise also know that there are servers. What are the differences of workstations, servers and PC? In essence, whether it is a desktop or a notebook, a game book, a workstation or a server, it can be collectively referred to as a computer. And in the hardware configuration, it is also composed of the chassis, power supply, motherboard, processor, graphics card, memory, hard disk, etc. From the operating system, currently mainly Windows 10, Linux and so on. Therefore, we first understand the difference between these two types of computers from both hardware and software. The other is the demand, that is, the use. You can not buy a server for browsing the web, watching videos. If you are a professional e-sports player, it is impossible to buy a thin business book for playing games. It should be noted that the se...

On occasion, you may find yourself in a situation where you need your computer to start up in a different way than it usually does. Whether you're troubleshooting to find the source of an issue with your computer or upgrading your computer's operating system to the latest version, you'll sometimes need to load data directly from a CD, a flash drive, secondary hard drive or even a second operating system installed on your computer. Luckily, you don't have to be a tech professional to do this: you can easily accomplish this task by using the Windows Boot Manager, accessed through your computer's startup sequence or through a menu option inside your Windows operating system's settings. What Is Windows Boot Manager? The Windows Boot Manager is a small piece of utility software installed to your boot volume – the small amount of space reserved on your hard drive that controls the way your computer starts up. Usually, Boot Manager works in the background when...

Let’s start by defining defense in depth. To understand defense in depth, picture a castle from medieval times. Think of all the security measures they put in place. First, you had the moat and only a single retractable bridge across it. If you somehow made it across the moat, you had to deal with the wall. So, you made it across the moat and scaled the wall? Now the castle is at the top of the hill, you’re wearing 100 pounds of armor and weaponry, walking uphill, sometimes several miles. Some castles even had interior walls that forced you to take a certain, often very narrow, path. But you have to do all of that while archers are shooting at you, they’re rolling huge boulders down the hill at you, they’ve probably dumped something on the ground to make it slick, the list goes on and on and on. And then, when you finally breach the castle, you have to climb a whole host of stairs, usually fighting (fully rested) enemy soldiers as you go. For this reason, many would-be attack...

During the early stages of the internet, organizations assigned IP addresses like crazy until we nearly ran out. Luckily, the designers of IP addressing came up with a way to end this wasteful practice: Dividing networks using subnetting. The process of taking an extensive network and splitting into smaller networks is known as subnetting — and it’s freeing up more public IPv4 addresses. There are two parts to an IP address: The network portion and the host portion. It’s like the address for a house. The network portion is like the city, state, and zip code. The host portion is like the house and street number. A subnet defines the number of bits, out of 32, used for the “network portion” of the address. Subnet masks can also be defined in a more common ‘slash’ representation, known as CIDR notation. In the following table, the red digits represent the bits used for the network. The black digits will be used for device IP addresses. Note that the 255.0.0.0 mask can a...

A lot has changed with wireless networks this past decade. Smart devices with built-in wireless network capabilities are all around. This makes Wi-Fi quality and availability a critical resource at home and at work. But troubleshooting is an often overlooked area. Knowing how to check for interference between channels or what your Wi-Fi coverage looks like is handy. We rounded up some of the best wireless analyzer tools for 2019 that allow you to do all of this and more. Some of these tools are free, while others require a license or subscription. Let’s take a look. Wireshark: Packet Analysis Wireshark is an impressive packet-sniffing tool for general network analysis and troubleshooting. It is equally great when you need to deep-dive into wireless networking issues as well. Wireshark allows you to search through all of the traffic on your wireless network and sift through packets and headers to see what is happening. Wireshark is used primarily by professionals that know ...

Let’s start by defining defense in depth. To understand defense in depth, picture a castle from medieval times. Think of all the security measures they put in place. First, you had the moat and only a single retractable bridge across it. If you somehow made it across the moat, you had to deal with the wall. So, you made it across the moat and scaled the wall? Now the castle is at the top of the hill, you’re wearing 100 pounds of armor and weaponry, walking uphill, sometimes several miles. Some castles even had interior walls that forced you to take a certain, often very narrow, path. But you have to do all of that while archers are shooting at you, they’re rolling huge boulders down the hill at you, they’ve probably dumped something on the ground to make it slick, the list goes on and on and on. And then, when you finally breach the castle, you have to climb a whole host of stairs, usually fighting (fully rested) enemy soldiers as you go. For this reason, many would-be attackers...

Software defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) is a new approach to multisite network connectivity that lowers operational costs and improves resource usage. Currently all the rage in IT, large corporations are buying up established players to integrate as part of their core offerings at an alarming rate. Often buzz words and IT concepts aren’t well explained, but instead assumed understood. Therefore, I’d like to step back in order to explain and explore SD-WAN. Before we get bogged down with terms like QoS, MPLS and packet-based routing, let’s first review some general networking concepts and terms to build off of : A local area network (LAN) is a private collection of devices in a small geographic location (i.e. your office building or home) connected together in a network in order to share resources. A wide area network (WAN) works much the same way, but for devices geographically diverse. In order to ensure private and consistent communication between WAN locations, a...

Imagine a scenario in which one of your employees is sitting at their desk, diligently working on a document when they receive an urgent call. From the “IT Department.” They’re told that their system has been compromised, and they need to take immediate corrective action to save their company (and their job) from ruin. So the employee dutifully handles over highly confidential information like IP addresses and passwords, for how could they not trust the IT Department in an emergency? This results in a malicious and devastating cyberattack on the company’s core assets. Think of this as examining the two great physical assets most organizations possess: their systems and their people. Examine systems (on-site or off) to document what assets you manage. Many IT managers are shocked at what they find (e.g., applications that are not currently in use; servers that are extremely under allocated). As the MSP or IT provider, you need this information, and it will likely enlighten your client ...