Based in San Francisco Bay Area, Securesql is a blog by John Menerick. His insights dissect complex systems, offering a masterclass in cyber guardianship through expert analysis and cutting-edge protective strategies.

Random thought for an exploding honey token

I remember when Nuxi and I would create computationally compact compressed files and see which mail servers would attempt to inspect the contents.  Typically, the MTA would fail over due to lacking heap space, heavy swapping, insanely large disk IO, and other resource utilization problems.  Besides, during the school year, exploding the mail gateways was a great way to cause the university’s mail server to go down and buy a few day’s extra time.  So why not cause the same reckless behavior, but cause a large blip to happen when an inside actor attempts to inspect a honey token? 

Name the compressed file CreditCard_Customers.zip , <insert juicy file name>.zip, etc…. Then place it somewhere available for the intended audience.  Or somewhere not available.  For instance, put it in the confidential file share.  Then watch asset’s system logs for resource utilization errors related to unpacking a 35 PB zip file.  Or see if someone attempts to email it to their personal email address (assuming the MTA will cough and die when inspection occurs.)  You did make your MTA rugged, right?

Here are two test files.  Modify to your liking. 

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Vulnerability assessment vs. penetration test

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