Whenever engineers discover a new security issue, the question arises every time: is this an exploit or vulnerability? What is a software vulnerability? How does it differ from an exploit? A vulnerability is a gap in the armor or weakness that allows people to enter. The exploit is the mechanism that someone uses to get in. For example, a door with a fragile lock has a vulnerability. The exploit uses the keys, hammer, or lockpick to break the lock.

The principle of least privilege (PoLP) is a defensive strategy in the software development world. Alternatively called the principle of minimal privilege or the principle of least authority, PoLP ensures that users can only access the systems, processes, networks, and files required to complete their assigned tasks. When properly configured, unauthorized users can’t navigate to restricted application functions or switch roles.

Containers are a standardized software packaging format that provides a predictable, replicable way to run applications. Container isolation is one of the primary benefits of containerized applications. Using containers enables us to isolate our software from its environment, increasing consistency and reliability across our development and staging environments. You’re probably familiar with — or are using — Docker containers.

Most of us already know the basic principle of authentication, which, in its simplest form, helps us to identify and verify a user, process, or account. In an Active Directory environment, this is commonly done through the use of an NTLM hash. When a user wants to access a network resource, such as a file share, their password is hashed and sent over a cryptographically secure channel to the resource.

Creating Java applications is great, and many resources are available. To speed up development, many folks use frameworks and libraries that do some of the heavy lifting. When looking at modern Java applications, almost all of them contain dependencies from libraries developed by someone else. Dependencies take up about 80 to 90 percent of the binary — so, we should take good care of them when creating a Java project.

The Hive Gang is a Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) providers first identified in June 2021. Although relatively new, their aggressive tactics and ever evolving malware variants have made them one of the most successful RaaS groups of its kind. Find out how the group has risen through the ranks with their advanced ransomware kit, API based portal and negotiation services.

A Google remote procedure call (gRPC) is Google’s open source version of the remote procedure call (RPC) framework. It’s a communication protocol leveraging HTTP/2 and protocol buffer (protobuf) technologies. gRPC enables a remote client or server to communicate with another server by simply calling the receiving server’s function as if it were local. This makes communicating and transferring large data sets between client and server much easier in distributed systems.