Jonsdocs (Page 2)

"ISC2 Spotlight" written in white on a green background, with "secure software development" in blue on a white background.

ISC2 Secure Software Development

ISC2 Spotlight: Secure Software Development conference - day one

ISC2 (formerly (ISC)²) ran an online only "spotlight" (conference) on secure software development this week on the 8th and 9th of November. As this directly aligned to my work's industry (I work for a software development company), I took the time to attend this. ISC2 members

A login prompt requesting a username and password. There is an orange alert triangle to the left of the text boxes.

Single sign on: why it's good for account management

Single Sign On (SSO) is a mechanism for authenticating to separate systems using a single identity (you can read the Wikipedia article & definition here). Ever seen the "login with Facebook" or "Sign in with Apple" type buttons on websites? That's SSO at work.

Office block on the left, a house overlaying an office block in the middle, house only on the right.

Starting a job in a hybrid working environment

In 2022 I changed jobs and started working for a company that only opened the office three days a week. Here I reflect on that process after over a year.

A cartoon cat called "Cait", and a watermellon wearing headphones on a bench.

Review: Viewfinder (game)

In Viewfinder you move around the world collecting photographs, and later taking them with a Polaroid camera. You then use the photos in your collection to solve puzzles ranging from "how do I get over there?" to "I need three batteries to power this teleporter, but I

Waveform of a podcast episode.

Podcasts I listen to - 2023 edition

An update on my podcast listening list.

Azure Static Web Apps and HTTP security headers

Azure Static Web Apps is a simple service provided by Microsoft Azure that allows you to serve a website without needing to manage the underlying web server. As the name implies, the website needs to be static, i.e. you can't use PHP or other server-side code to

Photograph of a man holding a tablet with eVitabu and APF logos on it. Africa is shown in the background,

eVitabu dev week

eVitabu dev week, March 2023

Progress made during the eVitabu dev week in March 2023.

Screenshot from the Duolingo website. Text reads "the free, fun, and effective way to learn a language!".

Duolingo: thoughts after over 1,200 days

I've seen a lot of changes in Duolingo over 1,200 days using the app.

Screenshot of Bard's opening prompt. Bard tells you what it is, that it has limitations, and uses feedback to improve.

Playing with Google Bard: writing prose

In a previous post I mentioned my early experiments with Google Bard. In May and July I decided to test Bard when it came to writing some prose. Rest assured though, my blog posts will always be written by me! Note: If I've quoted Bard output I'

Infosec Europe 2023, day 3

Thursday was the final day of the conference and I managed to attend a lot of sessions, some that I hadn't originally planned. Keynote: Malicious Innovation - What We Can Learn From Hackers Our keynote speaker today was Keren Elazari who highlighted to us that hackers force us

Infosec Europe 2023, day 2

Day two consisted of talks rather than workshops, although I had issues attending some of the talks I was after (one was packed, the other had its previous talk overrun). I managed to get to a number of talks that were still useful though, as well as catching up with

Infosec Europe 2023, day 1

This is my first in-person conference since the pandemic and I've been looking forward to it. That said, there's a small amount of nerves too as there's likely to be a lot of people in attendance. Infosecurity Europe is conference / trade show is hosted

A person running towards an open door. Between the person and the door is a white arrow, pointing at the door.

Why I changed jobs

I changed jobs in June 2022, and this post describes why.

Screenshot of some code (described in the post) on a slant, and a screenshot of the result.

Using the Rapid7 InsightVM API with PowerShell

An explanation and some examples for connecting to Rapid7's InsightVM API (version 3) with PowerShell.

Screenshot of a Windows 11 Sandbox running in a window. The "Windows Sandbox" start menu option is overlaid.

Using Windows Sandbox

How to use Windows Sandbox, and how that can help you.

Screenshot of Bard's opening prompt. Bard tells you what it is, that it has limitations, and uses feedback to improve.

Playing with Google Bard: starting out and writing scripts

My first experiment with Google Bard.

Left:Green Android robot.Right:the same robot with its body jumbled up.Centre is a wiggly arrow & the word "Obfuscate..."

Android ProGuard & Serialisation - exempting files from obfuscation

After battling with a problem involving obfuscated variables I wanted to share the solution.

Black and white line drawing of an ancient scribe at work. The man is using a pen to write on an upright parchment.

Changing working practices

Reflecting on some of the things I do while working, and how these have changed over my career so far.

Cartoon image of a penguin sat working at a computer.

Ten months in to being the SISO

Reflections on ten (ish) months into my post as Senior Information Security Officer.

Collage of the Docker, PHP, MariaDB and Nginx logos.

Using Docker for a PHP, MariaDB and Nginx project

Those of you that are regular readers will notice that my posting is waaaay behind schedule, and that my goal of posting once a week has failed again so far. Sorry about that! Hopefully this post will be useful to you. I use my blog primarily for two things: because

Screenshot of the (ISC)2 Security Congress 2022 virtual conference entry hall. There are people walking around.

Security Congress 2022

Catching up: on-demand sessions from (ISC)² Security Congress 2022

(ISC)² make session recordings available after the event, and with a number of sessions of interest going on simultaneously these are invaluable. Any sessions I watched prior to the end of December I received CPE / CPD credits for, but the recordings are around afterward too. Here's some summary

View of my desk (described later in the post)

Things I need on my desk

I saw a tweet from a computer company recently that asked people to name three things they needed on their desk. One person responded "monitor, keyboard, mouse - that was easy", but this got me wondering about what things I need versus the things that I want, or

The number 31 on an upturned page as part of a tear away calendar.

2022 in review

A look at how my 2022 went.

Screenshot showing the icons of some old malware samples.

Playing with some old malware

Malware has been around for ages, but how do some old malware samples work on more modern Operating Systems?

Screenshot of Virus Total saying 14 out of 61 vendors believe the file is malicious.

A QBot near miss, and a look at what might have been

A look at some malware that would have been delivered to a colleague, but they noticed something dodgy was happening!