Congrats, MicroJay!

I was a math guy, myself...  so I understand where you're coming from, wholeheartedly!  My emhasis on computers and IT actually came well after my schooling was done, at the urging of my wife, who knew my heart was much more into IT and networking / security than my employment would have ever allowed me to pursue, at that time.  So my props always have to go to her for her support and motivation, behind the scenes!

Hi Sw0rDz, and welcome.

The CS definitely cannot hurt, as ANY experience you can get in the realm of networking and programming will go a long way towards starting you on the path to security.  Telling you what to do to prepare yourself, for the degree, is not something I can definitively help you with, as I've not personally gone down that path.  I've learned what I know through self-study and progressive work experience, over the years.

As far as growing in security, in general, what I can recommend to you is to decide exactly where you want to be headed, both now, and when you graduate with your degree(s).  Do you want to be a penetration tester, a forensics expert, a security manager?  All of these have differing routes to look at, so you have to focus on which direction you want to go and make sure your classes and experiences lead to the end goal you want to achieve. 

Assuming you want to be more of the technical guy, and less mgmt (based on the things you seem to be wanting to study right now), programming knowledge certainly won't hurt in the security field.  You might look into varying languages, such as (not all inclusive, I'm sure):  C/C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, SQL and others.  Knowledge of networks and how the various protocols and OSI model layers will go a long way, as well, towards effective security skill, as you've begun learning with your CCNA, etc.

Keep working hard, and always ask plenty of questions here, and I think you'll be well on your way.

Good luck, and let us know how you progress!

Ditto, and I find performance is generally better doing it that way.  My USB Linksys does a great job with the injection side.

I completely understand and respect the position and comments, Don.  Let's just keep this the right place to be, and I'll just personally make a mental note to ignore the 'junk' that's been hitting lately.  So, let's just stop replying at all, to those we know are posting for the wrong reasons, and we can hope they just go away, peacefully.

Yeah, I've seen it here, before, as well as on other sites.  Not so much a 'problem' as an annoyance.

L-O-L, R-O-F-L, and all that !   

Fully agreed, although, with Google and the search providers indexing like they do, etc, I don't see this ending anytime soon.  Especially now that these people have already stumbled upon the site.  I think best bet would be to have someone(s) monitoring the forums regularly, and deleting such posts / whacking the id's for the folks posting these.  It's getting ridiculous, to be sure.

Don, maybe take a poll of existing EH-Net'ers who spend a lot of time on here, to see if all agree, then a possibly allow a couple of us (I'd be willing, if others would too, since I can't spend my 'entire waking life' monitoring it    ) enough rights to keep tabs on this stuff, and handle the ridiculous ones.

I'll third the posts from awesec and unsupported.

You also have to realize, if someone put malicious code there, to begin with, they could very well be re-populating the code right back on, after you clean it off.  If there's a hole, through which they keep managing to update the code, then THAT hole should be found / fixed, along with cleaning of this code, and a team who is trained to find and remedy such holes should be brought in to do so.

Good luck.

I like Defcon, myself, but can't compare the two, as I haven't been to HOPE.  Maybe I'll check out HOPE when opportunity permits, so that I can give 'experienced' advice on the subject, for next time.

I particularly like the atmosphere at Defcon.  While I'd definitely agree with the comment about it being / feeling more like a 'party atmosphere,' at least in my experiences, it seems like the more laid back the folks are, the better networking and discussions I get out of it all, in the end.  The sessions are always worthwhile, but the opportunity to chat it up with the other attendees is what I value the most, as I always end up getting more from those opportunities, than I do from sitting through talks.  I can't speak for how HOPE caters to that, since I haven't attended, but at least I can explain that as one of the areas I like about Defcon, versus some other events I've been to in the past.

If you do go to HOPE, please drop us some feedback, so I can think on it for next time.  Thanks.

It will warn the user, or at a minimum, prompt the user to accept a new certificate, so a truly 'watchful' end-user would likely catch it.  (Thus I prefer sslstrip, myself, as it's much more stealthy.)  But for spur of the moment needs, ettercap is, at least, a workable / usable solution.  

Edit:  Incidentally, I missed the proper section when I gave steps above.  You don't want the 'SSH downgrade attack.'  But there IS an ssl plugin for attacking ssl, as well.  (Sorry if I confused anyone)  Here's one sample video, where they do some https stuff (later in the video):

http://www.milw0rm.com/video/watch.php?id=49

Cheers!

x3... x4... x5   

* Edited:  Note, the I was half-baked last night, from lack of sleep.  the steps below were for SSH downgrade, not SSL.  See my last post for something more relevant to SSL *

Ketchup and joshboss1234...

ettercap has an ssl man-in-the-middle, which will allow you to catch encrypted usernames and passwords, yes.  I've used it previously.  There is an extra setting that needs to be set / enabled for the ssl piece, though.  You can't simply play 'arp man-in-the-middle'

To step through configuration and attack, using ettercap on linux:

http://openmaniak.com/ettercap.php

then proceed to the next section, about filters:

http://openmaniak.com/ettercap_filter.php

specifically, where it discusses ssh downgrade attacks:

http://openmaniak.com/ettercap_filter.php#ssh-downgrade-attack

Hope this helps.  There are other tutorials about this, but the point being, first you have to configure for the ARP mitm attack, then you have to enable the ssh pieces, to truly get plain-text capture of username and passwords to work from ssl encrypted pages and forms.

GREAT reply, Ryan!  I now, more than ever, am ready to actually schedule to take the course.  (Not that I wasn't before  , but every time I get good feedback, like you've been giving, it's all the more worthwhile!)  I'm just waiting for my approval of funding from work, and I'll be signing up.  I DO think I could squeeze it in the 30 days or less, if it weren't for workload from the job, so I'll happily take the 60-day, and use the extra lab time to really dive deep, anyway.

Much appreciated.

If it's any consolation, I HAVE a Hayabusa, which I'm going to be selling, in a couple of months...  2005, with only a little over 2k miles on it...  work just been way too busy the past few years, and need time and money for family.