# iosec.in ## Posts - [CSSLP: A Journey of Relearning How Security Should Be Built](https://iosec.in/csslp-a-journey-of-relearning-how-security-should-be-built/): When I saw the “Pass” result for the CSSLP exam, my first reaction wasn’t excitement. It was relief. And then — clarity. CSSLP wasn’t just another certification to add to my profile. It was a mirror held up to my career, forcing me to confront how often security is treated as an afterthought, a patch, or a gate — instead of a design principle. This is the story of why I pursued CSSLP, how I prepared for it, and what it quietly changed in the way I think about software and security. - [Dissecting Akira Ransomware: Techniques, Payloads, and Lessons Learned](https://iosec.in/akira-ransomware/): Introduction We will move our discussion ahead from our last topic on Ransomware and will go through a ransomware Akira. In the crowded and ever-evolving ransomware landscape, Akira has quickly established itself as one of the most disruptive players. Emerging in March 2023, Akira targets organizations with a double extortion playbook — exfiltrating sensitive data before encrypting systems, forcing victims into a pay-or-leak dilemma.Its cross-platform capabilities (Windows, Linux, ESXi) and rapid evolution, including a Rust-based variant dubbed Megazord, have made it a growing concern for sectors worldwide. Akira is a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) family first observed in 2023 and highly active… - [Ransomware 101: Understanding the Threat](https://iosec.in/ransomware-101-understanding-the-threat/): Introduction Ransomware has evolved from being a nuisance for individual computer users to one of the most damaging threats to modern organizations.It’s not just about encrypting files anymore — the latest ransomware operations have become full-fledged criminal enterprises, combining data theft, extortion, and public shaming into a single high-pressure attack model. In this blog, we’ll establish a baseline understanding of ransomware — what it is, how it works, the different types, and why it remains a critical threat.This foundation will set the stage for our upcoming deep dives into specific ransomware families and practical detection techniques. - [Insecure Deserialization in .NET: Risk and Fixing Legacy Code](https://iosec.in/insecure-deserialization-in-net-risk-and-fixing-legacy-code/): Introduction We have discussed in the previous post regarding the introduction, basically Insecure deserialization is a critical vulnerability that often lurks in legacy systems and internal applications. Serialization and deserialization are foundational operations in modern software development, enabling communication between systems, data storage, and object persistence. However, improper use of deserialization—particularly with unsafe serializers like .NET’s BinaryFormatter—can open the door to severe vulnerabilities, including remote code execution (RCE). This blog post will unpack the risks associated with insecure deserialization, illustrate real-world vulnerable patterns, and explore multiple remediation strategies. We’ll focus especially on the dangers of the legacy BinaryFormatter class and… - [Insecure Deserialization: A Silent Killer in Modern Applications](https://iosec.in/insecure-deserialization-a-silent-killer-in-modern-applications/): In the realm of cybersecurity, one vulnerability that continues to haunt developers and security professionals alike is insecure deserialization. This seemingly innocuous process, crucial for transferring data between systems, harbors a myriad of risks when implemented carelessly. We delve deep into the intricacies of insecure deserialization, uncover its potential threats. I will also demonstrate practical examples in PHP, Java, and Python. What is serialization Serialization is the process of converting complex data structures, such as objects and their fields, into a “flatter” format that can be sent and received as a sequential stream of bytes. Serializing data makes it much simpler… - [Appsec Automation : Why we need this hot cake](https://iosec.in/appsec-automation/): Hello guys !! Hope all good at your side of the screen. Today we will discuss about the topic which everybody is talking about. I am sure we all have a same answer if someone asks how we will if our all tasks will get automated and we can sit back and relax. A big Yes, right ? But yeah, we need lots of effort and money to complete that part. Application security automation is no different from this. Appsec automation has gathered all the limelight and has a tremendous exposure since past a year or so. What is Appsec Automation… - [AWS S3 Bucket Discovery](https://iosec.in/aws-s3-bucket-discovery/): Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leading cloud computing platform that provides organizations. It has a wide range of services to build and deploy applications, store data, and manage infrastructure. One of the core services offered by AWS is Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), a scalable object storage solution designed to store and retrieve data securely. However, misconfigurations or oversights can lead to the exposure of sensitive data stored in S3 buckets, posing significant risks to organizations. In this blog post, we’ll delve into what AWS and S3 buckets are, why they’re important, and how to identify open S3 buckets… - [Navigating the Cyber Landscape: Top Security Trends for 2024](https://iosec.in/navigating-the-cyber-landscape-top-security-trends-for-2024/): As we stride into the future, the digital landscape continues to evolve, presenting new challenges and opportunities in the realm of cybersecurity. With cyber threats growing in complexity and sophistication, it’s crucial for organizations to stay abreast of the latest trends to safeguard their assets effectively. In this article, we’ll delve into the top security trends anticipated to shape the cybersecurity landscape in 2024, empowering organizations to fortify their defenses and stay ahead of emerging threats. - [Context Triggered Piecewise Hashes (CTPH) and SSDEEP](https://iosec.in/context-triggered-piecewise-hashes-ctph-and-ssdeep/): It has been a while since I posted anything here, but then life had another plans for me in past three years. Anyways cutting short the crap, today I will discuss about hashes. To be more precise, CONTEXT TRIGGERED PIECEWISE HASHES (CTPH). This term came into my mind when I was going through the Pyramid of Pain, which happens to be a simple diagram that shows the relationship between the types of indicators you might use to detect an adversary’s activities and how much pain it will cause them when you are able to deny those indicators to them. We… - [Advanced Exploitation with Sqlmap](https://iosec.in/sqlmap-4/): We have learnt the basic exploitation of Sql Injection with the help of Sqlmap in our previous posts. But there is always a step further. In this post we will see most advanced exploitation with Sqlmap. Once again 3 cheers to Kunal for helping me out for this post. In our first post of Sqlmap, we have explained few basic options of Sqlmap. We will see some more. Advanced Exploitation with Sqlmap Whenever I meet people and talk about any vulnerability, my first and final ask remains the same what is most extreme thing we can do by exploiting that… - [Form based SQL Injection with Sqlmap](https://iosec.in/sqlmap-3/): In previous post we have seen the basic tutorial of Sqlmap and the exploitation. The exploitation was about the GET request or where the vulnerable parameter is passing in the URL. There is another aspect of Sql Injection where it happens in form based submissions. In more technical terms a POST request where the certain parameters are being sent to server. In this post we will exploit form based SQL Injection with Sqlmap. This post could have been delayed without the help of Kunal Pachauri, so just a shoutout for him before I start this post. - [Sqlmap tutorial for beginners – hacking with sql injection](https://iosec.in/sqlmap-2/): As I discussed in my previous post that we can exploit Union Based SQL Injection with the help of manual SQL queries. now we will do the same exercise with a Python based tool SQLMAP. Note:- This tutorial is being carried out on demo test site provided by ACUNETIX, You can also try on the same website. Sqlmap Sqlmap is arguably the most popular and powerful sql injection automation tool available and it is completely open-source. All it needs is the vulnerable URL in case of get request or a text file in case we want to perform it on a post request.… - [Install Sqlmap on Windows](https://iosec.in/sqlmap/): Sqlmap is arguably the most popular tool for exploitation of sql injection vulnerability and database takeover. It is completely automated and customization depending upon the server or database configurations. This tool provides wide ranges of flags which can be used to trigger an attack in an effective manner. It is completely open-source in terms of license. Its written in python. Now as I am going to discuss more and more about sqlmap it’s usage and tutorials in my forthcoming blogs so we need to know how to install and start sqlmap for further uses. If you use Kali, Backtrack or any… - [OS Command Injection : Simple yet effective](https://iosec.in/os-command-injection/): What is OS Command Injection OS Command Injection is a vulnerability which describes improper neutralization of special elements. It can result in modification of the intended OS command that is sent to a downstream component. So, OS command injection weaknesses can expose an environment to an attacker even if he does not have direct access to the operating system. Also, if the application is running with higher privilege, it may allow an attacker to specify commands that may not be available otherwise. Running OS commands is very useful functionality but it can equally trigger a vulnerability if not used correctly. Types of OS… - [Kernel bridge is melting down - Meltdown Vulnerability with POC on Ubuntu/Kali(Intel)](https://iosec.in/meltdown/): Hello folks ! I know it has been a long while since I wrote on this weblog. But the start of this year was much enthusiastic in terms of newly discovered vulnerabilities. Yes I am talking about Spectre and Meltdown So today we will discuss about Meltdown.  What the heck it is ! Spectre and Meltdown are the different variants of the same fundamental underlying vulnerability that affects nearly every computer chip manufactured in the last 20 years. If exploited, it allows attackers to get access to data previously considered completely protected. These vulnerabilities involve a malicious program gaining access to… - [Traceroute : How it works](https://iosec.in/traceroute-how-it-works/): Traceroute is a computer network diagnostic tool for displaying the route (path) and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It utilizes the IP protocol’s time to live (TTL) field and attempts to elicit an ICMP TIME_EXCEEDED response from each gateway along the path to the host. This tool verifies the path by which our packet should reach the destination, without actually sending the data. This post is not anything about how this tool works it’s rather about the concept this tools uses for fulfilling our purpose. We can always refer the Linux man and info… - [Back Refresh Attack Vulnerability on QualysGuard- Your browser's back button can do more than you think !!](https://iosec.in/back-refresh-attack/): Hello Guys !! Hope the new year started good for you all. Continuing my previous statement of “sometimes functionality leads to vulnerability..”, I am gonna start discussing this another feature of the browser which can lead to leaking sensitive information like your passwords and sometimes even you complete Credit Card details. Definitely there are scenarios and certain dependencies which we will go through in later in the post. What Actually this vulnerability is !! As you have already noticed the back and forward buttons of the browsers. These buttons simply navigate you to through the pages you have visited during your… - [CSV Macro Injection](https://iosec.in/csv-macro-injection/): CSV Macro Injection : It’s rather a trick to abuse the functionality… Application security is quite a tricky domain. Just imagine for all those years when you thought something as a functionality of the application and suddenly it turns out to be a vulnerability which can be exploited to take down your system completely. CSV Macro Injection/Formula Injection is also one of those. We will look into it in detail that how a simple and such useful feature can become vulnerable and abuse the complete CIA triangle. We can’t deny the usefulness of spreadsheets in our daily IT/Non-IT life. If… - [Is your CAPTCHA Strong enough !!](https://iosec.in/is-your-captcha-strong-enough/): We have seen a lot of DoS (Denial of Service) attacks in recent times. An old but promising solution to DoS attacks in web applications is to have CAPTCHA implemented in the publicly available form/pages.  However, all CAPTCHA implementations are not quite safe, and some implementations would give the user a headache. There are recent developments on simplifying CAPTCHA- But on simplifying, some developers forget the purpose of CAPTCHA. Well, what is the purpose of using CAPTCHA? In simple words CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a program to ‘ensure’ that the user is… - [iOS Mobile Application Security Assessment for Beginners](https://iosec.in/ios-application-testing/): Why Mobile Application Security? With the ever increasing penetration of Mobile apps into our day to day life, it’s imperative that Mobile Applications will be at the behest of hackers and Security professionals likewise. Thanks to phenomenal advances in mobile device capabilities, everything from shopping, banking, recharge, booking tickets and many such activities are performed with the help of a smart phone alone. Hackers are finding more ways to steal data through mobile applications.  - [Understanding and Testing Web Services - Part 1](https://iosec.in/testing-web-services-1/): Most of the time folks find it really difficult to test web services. It is because we don't have proper knowledge of web services. Before any testing it is important to understand the system, we should know what can be the positive and negative sides of the technology and implementations of that application. Lets dive into the depth of web service testing. To provide a better security solution to the web service we should  have a brief understanding of web services, their architectural styles, their constraints and their characteristics that are responsible for their strength as well as weakness. - [Shadows are there to protect your Passwords (How Shadow-Utils is storing your password in Linux)](https://iosec.in/linux-password-storage/): Our world would have been exponentially more peaceful if there was no fear of theft. We would’ve left our doors open but still enjoyed our privacy and security. Unfortunately looking at the current scenario, that’s a rather impossible fiasco. And hence the need for doors and locks. A similar case is applicable for the digital world where we have to assure complete data security. The simplest yet most important way to protect ones data even today remains with the use of passwords and robust access management systems. - [No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA](https://iosec.in/no-captcha-recaptcha/): How many times you feel affronted while reading those stupid numbers or words and re-entering it just to prove that you are a human. We call them CAPTCHA(Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) and recommend it to avoid several kind of flooding attacks, brute force attacks and sometimes even for CSRF attacks. It's time-consuming as well as frustrating. - [SQL Injection- Not a Cup of Cake](https://iosec.in/sql-injection/): What is SQL Injection: I have gone through many SQL Injection tutorials before writing this post. One thing was common at every place, the queries coming from the readers. Many people don’t know what actually SQL Injection is. They think that they can easily enter into the database and make some changes, or they can simply inject some query and will have the username and password of the administrator. Well !!! Till some extent the concept is true but it is not that much easy. ## Pages - [About Me](https://iosec.in/about/): I am Shekhar Suman — a Security Advisor by profession, and a poet by passion.By day, I work with Schneider Electric, guiding teams through the Secure Software Development Lifecycle, ensuring our products are safe, compliant, and resilient. Over the years, I have honed my skills in application security, penetration testing, threat modeling, and security architecture through roles at Informatica, Oportun, Aujas Networks, and more. My work is about precision, detail, and protecting what matters. By night — and often in the quiet spaces between — I am the voice behind खामोश दिल की सुगबुगाहट…, my Hindi blog where I write… [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)