Ah, sorry to hear about that. This exam is about as polar opposite from the CISSP as you can get. Doing well in one will do little to help you with the other.

What general areas do you feel weak in?

Aren't you done yet?

http://www.amazon.com/Security-Engineering-Building-Dependable-Distributed/dp/0470068523/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365205823&sr=8-1&keywords=security+engineering is pretty solid. There's also a free version online: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html

All of Bejtlich's other books are pretty good reads as well. I'm not sure how much the new one will encompass the other material.

A great way to learn would be to setup vulnerable systems in a virtual lab, exploit them, and harden them. Capture and review all the logs, network traffic, etc.

Secure tunneling protocols are designed so an attacker can observe the handshake but not use that information to decrypt the encrypted data in transit.

It's possible to man-in-the-middle these connections, but the success depends on the user ignoring warnings and proceeding without caution. These attacks work when an attacker can intercept communications, not just observe them.

In such cases, there are actually two connections, one between you and the attacker, and one between the attacker and the intended destination. Both of these connections and valid and secure; it's just that the attacker controls these channels, so the data can be decrypted and collected, and then reencrypted and retransmitted to the intended recipient. There are tools that make this process fairly transparent and effortless.

However, most applications will warn you that something odd is going on. SSL/TLS will warn you that the certificate isn't valid (which is why it's important to use a valid certificate; otherwise you will become accustomed to ignoring this warning), SSH will tell you that the server's fingerprint has changed, and so on.

If you just want to encrypt web traffic on public networks, and this ties into your other thread about VPNS, look at setting up an SSH SOCKS proxy. You can even configure your browser to send DNS requests through the proxy (at least with Firefox), so anyone sniffing traffic won't even see what websites you're requesting. I hit my VPS, but you could just as easily set it up at home. With keys-based authentication, it's easy and secure.

Really? All four of your first posts are links to ISI articles? Spam like this only deters me from visiting your site. Purchase ad space if you're not going to contribute anything more than blog spam.

Also http://www.counterhack.net/permission_memo.html

However, if you're serious, I'd recommend having legal counsel, who is familiar with this type of service, put something together for you. You should also get the proper insurance. Doing this wrong can ruin your career.

If anyone's interested, send me a PM, and I'll put you in touch with the guy I used. I think it was around $1000-1500 for the SoW template and contract. It's not cheap, but these are critical items to get right, and the cost of things going wrong will be substantially higher.

Yep. If I'm at a coffee shop and need to hit the restroom, I pack everything up and bring my bag with me. Everyone else probably thinks I need a porn break, but that's better than leaving my system unattended, even for a few minutes.

I've completed what I set out to for 2012/2013, except for my undergrad degree, which seems to have become an on-going joke at this point. Maybe Spring 2014...

Now I've signed up for OffSec's AWE course at BlackHat. I also have a SANS on-demand course coming to me, and I am leaning towards GXPN.

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-34-rev1/sp800-34-rev1_errata-Nov11-2010.pdf

Also, this is a great book: http://www.amazon.com/Business-Continuity-Disaster-Recovery-Professionals/dp/1597491721/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1364666643&sr=8-4&keywords=disaster+recovery

VMware has excellent hardening guides available: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/security?view=documents

Those are what I've used when performing ESX/vSphere assessments.

file <filename> should tell you what type of file it is. It would be odd to see .gz be something other than gunzip though.

You're not going to be able to just rename it.

Are you passing JTR the compressed file? You need to extract it first.

The problem with a lot of offensive positions is that you often have to be willing to relocate and/or travel. We've struggled filling the couple positions we've opened over the last year, and I know many other organizations are having the difficulty. MaXe literally moved halfway around the world for the gig he's at now. Working out the logistics may be more challenging than actually finding a position.

Any interesting highlights?