Nessus iPhone App
Posted on 16 September 2010 | 1 response
Yesterday, Tenable Network Security, Inc. released Nessus for the iPhone.
I’m pretty excited to see more of these types of Apps showing up on mobile devices. The information security sector although very technical by nature seems to have been left behind when it comes to usability and native integration.
Our industry needs and wants more access to this data and it seems the guys over at Tenable feel the same way we do.
The Nessus App along with the Aanval iPhone / iPad App makes mobile network security management that much easier with nessus and snort in your pocket.
If you are a Nessus user, go snag it.
http://itunes.apple.com/app/nessus/id390891776?mt=8
Description (from iTunes App Store)
The Nessus iPhone app, from Tenable Network Security Inc., enables you to log into your Nessus scanners and start, stop and pause vulnerability scans as well as analyze the results directly from your iPhone.
This mobility helps improving the efficiency of your Incident Response process by letting you quickly log into a Nessus scanner from your phone to search previous scan results or check the status of an on-going scan.
(Requires an access to version 4.2 of the Nessus server, or newer)
Enjoy.
~moses
First book, the contract and Wow! This is a lot of work.
Posted on 6 September 2010 | Comments Off
Recently, I dropped my name on a contract with Packt Publishing to author an iPhone development book with a narrow focus on application performance.
I’m very much excited about the opportunity and look forward to the next several months of ‘book author boot camp’. Some close colleagues of mine were kind enough to expose me to a few of their authoring experiences… they weren’t convincing enough, I still signed a contract.
Performance, efficiency, tuning and literally squeezing the most out of an application (on any platform) is something I enjoy quite a bit. Not only am I looking forward to putting this on paper, the research and learning will be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the entire authoring process.
Of course, the excitement wears a bit thin when I think of the potential work load involved with writing a good sized technical book in as little as a few months. This, along with operating Remote Assessment, running Tactical FLEX and driving Aanval will make for some interesting scheduling. Add development projects for a 1/2 dozen languages, speaking engagements, travel, continuing education and of course family and personal life. “This is a lot of work.” — very much sums it up.
The positive is, I’ve always had an interest in becoming an author and educating myself on the publishing process. This is great opportunity to find out just how deep my interests go.
It isn’t too often that you are approached to author a book, well… In my case, it was nil until now. Regardless, it wasn’t an automatic yes. A lot of pondering, prayer and planning went into the decision. Of course, I am not the only one affected by signing such a time consuming contract.
Our little family already exists within a sphere that is unlike any we know. Dynamic may be the best word to describe how we operate and it appears, there won’t be a change for quite some time. It’s tough to balance a schedule like ours and remain productive as well as healthy, but I think we do alright and we’re only getting better.
Without a doubt, I’ll be posting more about the book and the authoring process over the next several months.
And until I know different, some serious thanks and appreciation to Packt and their staff for the opportunity. Here we go.
Enjoy.
~moses
Aanval iPhone App v1.1 submitted to App Store
Posted on 30 August 2010 | Comments Off
This evening, Aanval iPhone App v1.1 was submitted to the Apple App Store.
This update follows along with our feature timeline and extends the basic functionality of the iPhone / iPad App by adding several popular displays that retrieve additional live snort and syslog data from deployed Aanval consoles.
Included is a short list of a few of the changes and further down is a few screenshots of the new version.
Added Frequent Events Display
Added Frequent Offenders Display
Added Sensor Status Display
Added Basic Auth Support
Added Payload to Event Details Display
Added Refresh Button to Live Monitor Display
Added Refresh Timer to Live Monitor Display
Product information is available here:
http://www.aanval.com/iPhoneApp
Aanval iPhone App in iTunes here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aanval/id381007750?mt=8
Enjoy.
~moses
How can you not love Objective-C…
Posted on 26 August 2010 | Comments Off
[[[self navigationItem] rightBarButtonItem] setTitle:[[[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@”%d”, [[NSNumber numberWithFloat:[[liveRepeatingTimer fireDate] timeIntervalSinceNow]] intValue]] autorelease]];
It just makes me so happy!
~moses
Aanval iPhone App – Press Release
Posted on 9 August 2010 | Comments Off
This is just a quick post to consolidate (and create a bit of Google food) for some recent press activity regarding Aanval’s iPhone App.
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS95542+09-Aug-2010+PRN20100809
TecTrends
http://www.tectrends.com/tectrends/news/urn:newsml:prnewswire.com:20100809:SF47279:1.html
TheStreet.com
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10830573/1/ids-vendor-tactical-flex-first-to-offer-iphone-app.html
Puget Sound Business Journal
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/prnewswire/press_releases/national/Washington/2010/08/09/SF47279
If you have questions or comments regarding Aanval, Tactical FLEX or anything related to the two — drop us an email or a call.
~moses
Aanval iPhone App; Come and get it!
Posted on 13 July 2010 | Comments Off
First, what a huge relief it is to smoothly sail through Apple’s App review process and land an App in the App Store.
We are extremely excited to have published the very first App of this kind, as well as firmly step once again, ahead of Aanval competitors by providing our customers and users with native iPhone and iPad access to live Snort and Syslog intrusion detection events.
Aanval iPhone is available in the iTunes App Store and is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
iTunes > Aanval iPhone direct link
Aanval iPhone functions for both the free limited version of Aanval as well as commercially licensed versions. It does require the latest release of Aanval 5.5 to function properly, so ensure you are up to date.
We have an extremely long list of features and enhancements planned for Aanval iPhone and customers should expect rapid updates over the next several weeks.
If you are a current Aanval user or customer, grab this little App and enjoy live event data on the go.
If you are not yet using Aanval… then go download and install it. It is available as a free single sensor version, or a fully licensed and supported commercial version.
Additionally, we sincerely appreciate all beta testers who took the time and effort to participate in testing Aanval iPhone prior to release.
Thanks again and enjoy.
~moses
Aanval iPhone App on its way!
Posted on 5 July 2010 | 3 responses
This isn’t the official announcement, but I wanted to drop a quick note and toss up some screenshots of the Aanval iPhone App that will be out of beta and released just around the corner.
With the release of this App, Aanval will be the first intrusion detection console / system with an accompanying iPhone / mobile device application.
Aanval iPhone will currently function on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, although a very advanced and highly specialized iPad version will be available later this year.
The App integrates into Aanval’s backend system and provides real-time access to snort and syslog intrusion and correlation data. This allows analysts and administrators to access intrusion data from the convenience of their mobile device.
Seriously… snort and syslog events right in your pocket. How cool is this?
Here are a few screenshots of the Aanval iPhone App
We are wrapping up a final round of beta requests and will be releasing a stable version shortly thereafter.
The initial version of the App will be quite basic, with the ability to very much only view live events and event details, however we have a full feature and product timeline already laid out for both the iPhone and iPad versions of Aanval.
Enjoy.
~moses
iPhone 4 poor signal quality with and without case
Posted on 23 June 2010 | 9 responses
Well as most have recognized and read about by now, the poor signal and call quality has very much to do with the metal band that wraps the iPhone 4 and is used as part of the antenna array.
This has been quite frustrating over the past 24 hours or more, so I thought to create a couple of quick videos to show the signal strength issues both with and without a skin / case.
Video example of iPhone 4 and poor signal strength
Notice how quickly signal strength disappeared… some calls I have received are dropped before the first words are spoken, other times it can be as long as a few minutes before the other party tells me they can’t hear me, then it’s dropped.
Video example of iPhone 4 with a 3GS case I had laying around
Signal strength remains at 3 bars, but at least it remains rather constant and is good enough for making calls and general purpose use.
In any event, this is not good for Apple and rather frustrating for us iPhone 4 users, and hopefully (fingers crossed) this is going to be an algorithm, calculation or some other issue that can be solved with a software update and not actually a defective hardware situation.
I’ll post some links to other sites with relative content to this issue here momentarily.
~moses
iPhone 4 with Real Racing
Posted on 23 June 2010 | 4 responses
Wanted to drop a quick thank you to Alex at Firemint for providing a promotional code for Real Racing…
I put together a quick little video recorded from a 3GS of some game play of Real Racing on the new iPhone 4. It’s pretty basic and I apologize in advance for the horrible glare and reflections… I am definitely not a cinematographer and my lack of natural ability in this theater is quite obvious.
Essentially, if you can’t say something nice… well, your mother probably told you the rest.
I’ve been told this will be the first gaming video on the iPhone 4, so ha! 
Enjoy.
Xcode 3.2.3 and iPhone 4 running iOS 4
Posted on 22 June 2010 | Comments Off
I’ve been very much waiting to get my hands on the iPhone 4… for a lot of reasons, but mostly to start pushing out some code on the new device.
After the excitement of this morning / afternoon (FedEx delivering the iPhone 4, 2 days early) and the craziness of snapping a dozen pictures and videos for all to see, I jumped into Xcode and pushed out some test App’s to the new iPhone 4.
Increased memory and processor along with the new screen makes for a fun new playground! 
And as you would expect, debugging and deploying to the new device went as smooth as it could have. Just a few clicks to kick the 3GS out of the system and we were deploying.
Now to get back to being productive and wrap up a beta of this Aanval iPhone App.
~moses
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