IT Managed Services Provider Resource Recommendation Updated on 08 July 2020 – Geek Speak, Console, NetCraftsmen, TCPView, Darknet Diaries podcast, and more

The headline on 08 July 2020

Geek Speak is an IT-focused website hosted by SolarWinds that features a large community of tech-saavy members who share their expertise with one another. Can be a great resource for learning and for getting help with those tricky IT questions.

Console is a modified version of Console 2 that works better with Vista/7/8/10 and offers better visual rendering. Also it’s portable and backwards compatible back to Vista.

NetCraftsmen is a blog on the latest news, items of interest, how-tos and advice on the use of technology in business. The blog is the work of a team of networking masters who kindly share their knowledge to help demystify the topic and share what’s hot in their field.

TCPView shows detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on Windows system, including the local and remote addresses and state of TCP connections. Also reports the name of the process that owns the endpoint on Windows Server 2008, Vista and XP. Provides a simpler, more informative subset of the data from Windows Netstat. vvildcard includes it on the recommended list of “daily go-to’s and must-haves.”

Darknet Diaries podcast relates the fascinating, true stories of hackers, defenders, threats, malware, botnets, breaches and privacy. The show’s producer, Jack Rhysider, is a security-world veteran who gained experience fighting such exploits at a Security Operations Center.

The headline on 01 July 2020

GNU Guix is a Linux package manager based on the Nix package manager, with Guile Scheme APIs. It is an advanced distribution of the GNU OS that specializes in providing exclusively free software. Supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, and more. When used as a standalone distribution, Guix supports declarative system configuration for transparent and reproducible operating systems. Comes with thousands of packages, which include applications, system tools, documentation, fonts, and more.

As of version 1.1.0, the standalone Guix System can be installed on an i686, x86_64, ARMv7, or AArch64 machine. It uses the Linux-Libre kernel and the GNU Shepherd init system. Alternately, GNU Guix can be installed as an additional package manager on top of an installed Linux-based system.

Source code and binaries for the Guix System distribution ISO image and GNU Guix
Older releases of GNU Guix

Crosstalk Solutions YouTube channel is loaded with detailed videos on all sorts of best practice networking, WiFi, VoIP, and PBX topics.

4K Video Downloader is a free downloader for videos, playlists, channels, and subtitles from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and other popular video sites in high quality. 4K Video Downloader available on Windows, macOS, and Linux; and updated regularly.

Nerd Vittles is the tech blog of VoIP expert, Ward Mundy.

PowerShell command to stop all the office programs on the remote computer: Invoke-Command -Session -ScriptBlock {Get-Process|Where-Object {$_.path -like "*office*"}|Stop-Process -Force}

PowerShell command to stop all the office programs on the local computer: Get-Process|Where-Object {$_.path -like "*office*"}|Stop-Process -Force

Cloud Security Tools

kubesec: Kubesec is security risk analysis for Kubernetes resources, as a web service or admission controller. It takes a Kubernetes pod-like resource as input, and returns a score based on the security configuration. If the configuration is too risky and the score too low, the deployment fails. Written by Control Plane & Andy Martin.

Kubernetes Simulator: Simulator is a Kubernetes Security Training Platform. It teaches Red and Blue teams to exploit and mitigate security vulnerabilities in a Kubernetes cluster with real-world infrastructure and configuration, leading to experience usually only found whilst attacking and maintaining production systems. Written by Control Plane & Andy Martin.

Netassert: This is a security testing framework for fast, safe iteration on firewall, routing, and NACL rules for Kubernetes (Network Policies, services) and non-containerized hosts (cloud provider instances, VMs, bare metal). It aggressively parallelizes nmap to test outbound network connections and ports from any accessible host, container, or Kubernetes pod by joining the same network namespace as the instance under test. Written by Control Plane & Andy Martin.

cx-scan: This project helps automate onboarding and scanning in Checkmarx (on-premise only) and enables the use of instance profiles with cross-account access to AWS CodeCommit repositories. This enables organizations to onboard projects without gathering and maintaining credentials for every repository. It also can allow developers to set up webhooks or triggers to kick off incremental or full scans if deployed appropriately. Written by David Hazar.

Security Group Review Tool: A small set of scripts to summarize AWS Security Groups, and generate visualizations of the rules. Written by Ben Allen.

Digital Forensics & Incident Response Tool

pktIntel: Tool used to perform threat intelligence against packet data. Specifically, you compare the IP address, domain names and URLs in your environment, with the associated IoC which can be found on known malicious sites. This is the best way to put your full packet data to maximum use with minimum effort. Written by Nik Alleyne.

Penetration Testing Tools

obscureV4: Obscure an IPv4 address into over 100 different formats that still work for connecting to network resources. Useful for bypassing web application firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Written by Kevin Tyers.

QuantumDuck: Translate Ducky Script into QMK Send_String() macros that can be loaded on QMK compatible PCBs. Allows you to make your own mechanical keyboard with hidden attack macros. Useful for physical pentest (and maybe office pranks too). Written by Kevin Tyers.