For over a year now I have been writing and bringing you tools that are Open Source, Cross Platform, inexpensive or just absolutely great for making the life of an IT professional easier and more productive. I have been able to bring you everything from Enterprise class solutions to tools that you can use on a thumb drive.
In fact today I was planning on writing about three tools that are portable and pretty powerful. That is until I started to launch one of them and my anti-virus software went crazy and threw up a warning message something to the effect of “Are you CRAZY… this is a hackers tool”. Now I am not sure I have ever seen an antivirus warn me about software containing hacking tools before. I am not even sure that it did but it certainly threw up some red flags and I scrapped all three tools from my review.
It bummed me out because I spent half the morning testing and writing about two of the three tools I had downloaded. I HATE wasting my time… I really, really HATE IT! In fact I would love to drag out the name of the company that makes the tools and blast here in my blog. There are two problems with that though, I am quite certain my editors would not like the idea too much. These days you can be held libel for breathing the wrong way especially when you have a lot of people reading about it, and we have quite a nice following here at “A Better Windows World”. Secondly (and I doubt it) it could have been a misinterpretation on the part of my antivirus software. I could have found a file in the zip that did not look right.
Either way it cost me time and left me with nothing to write today except a warning to beware of malicious tools in sheep’s clothing. Sometimes a good thing is nothing more than a trap. Which we fully expect from certain sources, if you are playing around with password sites, warez, torrents or such you know there is a risk (not that we would ever do such a thing that stuffs illegal). This brings me to my point that is the stuff usually experienced by our end users. Not usually what you find in a legitimate open source tool …not usually.
Well have a great Wednesday and I will return tomorrow with some more legitimate tools that can make your world… A Better Windows World!
Ron Barrett, Director of e-Strategy for ClipTraining , is an independent trainer, author and consultant. He has been a technology professional for over 12 years, working for several major financial services firms and dotcoms. Ron is a specialist in network infrastructure, security, and IT management. He is the author of Office Communications Server 2007 R2: How-To , as well as co-author of Windows Server 2008: How-To and The Administrator’s Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers. Ron has been a co-author or technical editor for several other books on Windows administration. Along with book writing, Ron has contributed to several industry magazines such as Redmond, Datamation and Windows IT Pro. Beyond writing, Ron has spoken at several technology conferences for CPAmerica, AICPA and MCP’s TECHMENTOR. Recently Ron has joined ClipTraining as the Director of e-Strategy in an effort to further the company’s presence via the Internet and social networking channels.
Ron's latest book, Windows Server 2008 How-To has been selected as the September 2009 book giveaway on Microsoft Subnet. To enter the monthly book giveaway, visit the Microsoft Subnet home page.
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Don't be too hasty
did you contact the tool's creator and notify them? Almost every software project I've followed has generated a false positive in some virus scanner at some point in time. If the author is innocent, they should have the chance to appeal to the virus scanner that reports the problem.
What is the difference?
It depends on what tools you were using, but I have often made use of "hacker tools" in troubleshooting, repairing, or testing my network.
Packet sniffers can help you acquire private information illegally or help you determine why there is so much noise on your network and what is causing it.
I keep a rainbow table password cracking disc in my toolbox because it has saved me and others lots of headaches.
Antivirus keeps flagging the Product Key retrieving software on my thumbdrive, but it is invaluable when rebuilding someone's system.
I would be interested in knowing the primary function of the tools you examined. It would keep reading this article from being a waste of my time.
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