A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the leak of data from the Red Cross' Blood Service down here in Australia [https://www.troyhunt.com/the-red-cross-blood-service-australias-largest-ever-leak-of-personal-data/] . Many people were shocked that you could have a situation where troves of personal data were obtainable not through any advanced hacking technique, but by merely downloading a database backup from the website it had been published to. It's literally that simple and it's shockingly commo...

I've had this blog post in one form or another of draft for several years now. I hesitated to complete it, in part because at the best of times cultural observations can easily be misinterpreted and also in part because of the role I had in working with many outsourcing vendors across Asia. Whilst the former hesitation has in no way changed, the latter has and I think it's a genuinely interesting topic worth sharing, particularly before my outsourcing memories fade too far. One thing before I b...

Apparently, after doing several weekly updates from different locations across the globe, last week's one from my home office was rather boring. Now maybe that was just a noisy minority saying that, I don't know, but I thought I'd test the theory and this week I headed out on jet ski to one of my favourite little island spots. I still got all the same content in, albeit from a more interesting spot. If you love or hate this approach, let me know, I'm still seeing what resonates and what doesn't...

I'm increasingly of the view that both my time and my sanity are worth more and more as the years progress. Particularly in my independent life, it really can be that black and white - if I can't work, it costs me money. Plus, I want to be happy and few things make me less happy than computer bits going wrong: > Really disappointed with the @Linksys [https://twitter.com/Linksys] WRT1900AC wireless routers I bought a year ago, continually degrade speed and need a reset pic.twitter.com/TsEzdiHLM...

Here's a little-known fact for folks that have only tuned in more recently: I had a life before doing security things. I know, it seems like a long time ago now, but there was a time where all the other things that go into the software development process were highly topical for me. In fact, some of the most popular content on my blog over the last 7 years has been the You're deploying it wrong series [https://www.troyhunt.com/you-deploying-it-wrong-teamcity/] where I walk through the setup of T...

We're now going on almost 3 years since I introduced the Have I been pwned (HIBP) API [https://www.troyhunt.com/have-i-been-pwned-you-can-now-ask-api/]. In fact it was one of the first things I did after creating HIBP in the first place because I wanted to make the data as accessible as possible and create an ecosystem of third party apps. However, over time I've also had to deal with the API being used in ways I never intended. For example, I recently introduced the rate limit [https://www.tro...

My son turned 7 earlier this month. I've been getting him into coding [https://www.troyhunt.com/kids-and-code-simple-programming-on/] and teaching him the fundamentals of using a PC which I reckon is a pretty essential life skill these days. Part of that is helping him to understand the principle of secrets, namely that he should protect the PIN he's using to sign in to his Windows 10 machine. He's good at it too, being sure to shield the little laptop from view whenever he uses it with others a...

I'm home! Ideally, I'd be home recovering from travel but it hasn't quite worked out that way, particularly with the Red Cross Blood Service having a massive data leak. I blogged abut that in some detail yesterday, but I wanted to talk about it in this week's update video and give some more context as to what went on and why I made some of the decisions I did. Plus, there's the mega-trip wrap up, a quick preview of some upcoming stuff on my Ubiquiti network setup and my thoughts on how the web i...

I don't give blood as much as I should. My wife has a much better track record than me, regularly donating not just blood but plasma and platelets as well. I know this not just because it's the sort of thing we talk about, but because her data - along with mine - has been leaked publicly in what I believe is the largest ever leak of Aussie data from a local service. Because of the coverage this incident will inevitably receive, I'm writing this piece in advance of them publicly disclosing it in...

International travel can look pretty glamorous from the outside and certainly it has its moments. But what many people don't tend to see (and indeed what's less interesting to share in 140 char tweets), is just how arduous it can be. So instead of just showing the good bits, I thought I'd jot down a bit more about just how much stuff I fit into one of these trips, my fifth (and last) big international one for 2016. If you think it's all fun and games or if you're just curious about what on earth...