Understanding the Digital World, and Staying Safe on Cyberspace!
(This isn’t a cybersecurity blog post. This is just some thoughts of a patriotic citizen on National Day.) I remembered ever writing my thoughts when the late LKY passed away in 2015 in a post as part of being a socio-political writer. Those were times when, as a student, one could flirt with many different…
“Minimum 8 characters, minimum 1 upper case, 1 lower case, 1 number and 1 special character.” Sounds familiar? Yes, this is a fairly common password policy. Users found the shortest password that could meet these requirements, “P@ssw0rd” and used it so widely that one of the biggest data breaches in Singapore documented how the use…
Recently, I finished reading a book at the intersection of behavioural economics and psychology, and will be embarking on yet another book on behavioural economics. For someone who graduated from a hard science degree, I think this qualifies as “reading some fluff” to pass time. They make for interesting reads to suggest that humans are…
Is cybersecurity merely only for technically gifted people? Well, not quite. With the advent of the digital world (think Smart Nation), there has been an increasing need for cyber literacy and awareness. Yet, there exists a gap between cyber professionals and laypeople in terms of cyber awareness and literacy. Hence, one short way of addressing…
(If you have not read Part 2, please click here.) Let us now extend what we did in Parts 1 and 2 to more than one machine. After all, one machine teaches one set of skills; multiple machines can cover a range of skills. This, in effect, is building a cyber range. Before we jump…
While preparing for a cybersecurity 101 community talk that I would give in the next month as part of a volunteer community outreach programme, I felt somewhat concerned about how far behind the layperson is in catching up with the digital world. I never expecting doing cybersecurity half a decade ago. Then, I was an…
(If you have not read Part 1, you should have a look at it here.) DISCLAIMER: If you would like to try the TORMENT machine and root it (this is currently pending Vulnhub publication), please download a copy of the machine here. Do NOT read beyond this disclaimer because this will be a full post…
Apologies for the delay; I have been away on a “pseudo-holiday”, or “service break” — I’ve been wanting to write something security-related this month, but found myself a little out of time. This series will be broken into three parts. Part 1: General Design Principles Part 2: Building a Machine (with an example) Part 3:…
It’s Total Defence Day in Singapore today. And for the first time in thirty-five years, there has been an update to the framework. Introduce Digital Defence. This was probably much called for, considering how the theatre of warfare has transcended physical space into the digital space. The subject of digital warfare is too complicated to…
It was Lunar New Year festivities, once again. For Kate and her brother, Charles, it was a festive occasion once again. Kate could return to her grandmother’s home to show her her latest single. Charles wanted to gorge on as much food as possible, and collect as many angpows as he could. The family soon…