AVOID the malicious openew.app website

 

Based on current threat intelligence, I would treat openew.app as malicious and unsafe.

Several independent indicators point to it being a phishing/malware site:

• A recent security scan classified openew.app as a phishing site with a very low trust score and noted that 16 security engines flagged it. The domain was also only a few days old when analyzed, which is a common characteristic of malicious campaigns.
• Researchers at Malwarebytes reported that openew.app impersonates the official ChatGPT download page and delivers malware to both Windows and macOS users. According to their analysis, Windows users receive credential-stealing malware, while macOS users are served Atomic Stealer (AMOS), which targets passwords, browser data, and cryptocurrency wallets.
• Multiple malware sandbox analyses observed malicious behavior associated with downloads from the site and classified activity from the domain as malicious.

If you visited the site

• Simply viewing the page is generally lower risk than downloading and running software.
• If you downloaded and executed anything from the site, assume the computer may be compromised.
• If you entered any passwords, change them immediately from a known-clean device.
• Run a full antivirus scan and consider a second-opinion scanner such as Malwarebytes.
• Check browser-saved passwords, banking accounts, email accounts, and cryptocurrency wallets for suspicious activity.

DHCP Detective: Looking for Sparks Before it Becomes a Fire

If there’s one thing every network admin learns the hard way, it’s that DHCP problems rarely announce themselves politely. One minute everything is fine, and the next users are wandering the office asking why Wi-Fi suddenly stopped working. That’s why proactive DHCP troubleshooting matters. Instead of waiting for a full-blown outage, keeping an eye on your DHCP logs can reveal warning signs long before devices start losing addresses and chaos begins. In this example, I will refer to  Ubiquiti EdgeRouters, since I'm working with them quite a bit lately. One of the best places to start is the trusty command sudo cat /var/log/dhcpmasq.log

FYI.  the same methodology and tips will apply to any DHCP server.  

🚨 17 Million Devices. 200+ Servers. One Major Takedown.

Dutch authorities have successfully taken down a massive botnet that had compromised millions of devices — including computers, tablets, smartphones, and IoT devices — and was being used to carry out malicious cyberattacks. The Dutch Politie and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) confirmed that the network consisted of at least 17 million infected devices, with more than 200 servers based in the Netherlands serving as its backend infrastructure. 

Click, Script, Boom from thenetworkdna.com

If network changes still involve enough copy-and-paste to make your Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keys beg for mercy, this article is your official intervention. Network Automation Roadmap: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide lays out a practical path for taking your network from “mostly manual and mildly chaotic” to streamlined, automated, and actually manageable. It breaks down the automation journey into clear phases, making the whole process feel a lot less like decoding ancient router hieroglyphics and more like a plan you can actually execute. 

Why iPerf3 Should Be in Every Network Engineer’s Toolkit

There’s something deeply satisfying about proving your network is actually fast instead of just hoping it is. That’s where iPerf3 comes in. Setting up a simple performance test from a Windows 10 laptop to a Ubuntu 26 server gives you a real-world way to validate throughput, latency behavior, packet loss, and overall network stability. Better yet, throwing a Windows 11 VM into the mix inside that Ubuntu host adds another layer of realism that mirrors modern production environments where virtualization is everywhere.

Sunday/Funday - This is what happens when Bacteria meets whisky 🦠🥃

 Video from https://x.com/HowThingsWork_

Whiskey has a funny relationship with bacteria. On one hand, a strong enough alcohol concentration can absolutely ruin a bacterium’s day. That’s why alcohol is used in disinfectants and hand sanitizers. But before anyone starts pouring whiskey on every scrape like an old-timey cowboy doctor, most whiskey sits around 40% alcohol — good for cocktails, not exactly hospital-grade sterilization. So while whiskey might make some bacteria uncomfortable, it’s not marching into battle like a tiny microscopic action hero.

Why Python Is Becoming Every Network Engineer’s Secret Weapon - thenetworkdna.com

If you’ve ever spent hours hopping from one device to another just to push the same config change, this article is a great reminder that there’s a smarter way to work. The piece breaks down network automation with Python in a really approachable way, showing how engineers can move beyond repetitive manual tasks and start using code to handle configurations, monitoring, and troubleshooting at scale. It takes what can feel like a complicated topic and makes it practical, focusing on real-world use cases instead of drowning readers in theory. 

Why Network Alerts Are Your First Line of Defense

One of the easiest ways to level up your network management game is by enabling alerts—yet it’s also one of the most commonly overlooked steps. Whether it’s a syslog message, an SNMP trap, or a simple email notification, alerts turn your equipment from passive hardware into active participants in your operations. Instead of waiting for users to complain or stumbling across issues during routine checks, alerts give you real-time visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes. In short, they close the gap between “something broke” and “you know about it.”

How to text with a $30 Radio Board

Imagine sending a text message to someone hundreds of miles away — no cell towers, no Wi-Fi, no cloud servers, no monthly bill. Thanks to the convergence of affordable hardware and open-source ingenuity, this isn't science fiction anymore. A cheap radio board, small enough to fit in your palm, is all the hardware you need to step completely outside the bounds of traditional telecommunications infrastructure.

The DNS Security Deep Dive You Didn't Know You Needed (Chris Greer)

DNS is the internet's phone book, and attackers have been exploiting it for decades — yet most professionals still aren't sure how to properly defend it. In this eye-opening interview on Chris Greer's channel, host Chris sits down with Ross Gibson, an engineer at Infoblox and contributor to the latest NIST guidance on DNS security, to cut through the confusion and explain what modern DNS protection actually looks like in practice.

AI Tools For Packet Analysis - webinar with Betty

 

Join the inspiring community at Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu

 for an exciting cybersecurity event designed to empower, educate, and connect professionals at every stage of their cyber journey. This dynamic experience brings together students, seasoned practitioners, and industry leaders for a day packed with hands-on learning, engaging discussions, and valuable networking opportunities. From expert-led sessions to interactive challenges, attendees will gain practical skills while exploring the latest trends shaping today’s cybersecurity landscape.

Optimizing your WiFi Network with the NetAlly AirCheck G3

 

We’ve all heard that transforming a sluggish Wi-Fi network into a high-performance powerhouse requires meticulous planning and a sharp strategy. 

This is where you, the Wi-Fi engineer must perform a thorough analysis. This begins with a comprehensive site survey to identify legacy 802.11b devices—such as industrial barcode scanners or outdated medical equipment that may still be active on the Wi-Fi network.

By ditching the dead weight and turning off 802.11b legacy data rates you essentially clear slow-moving tractors off a racetrack. These airtime vampires (1, 2, 5.5, and 11 Mbps) force your modern APs to broadcast essential management frames at a snail's pace.  By removing these ancient speeds, you slash overhead, reclaim massive amounts of airtime, and force your Wi-Fi network into a high-performance lane where only the fast survive! 

Lab - WAN port testing

There’s a big difference between hoping new gear will behave the way you want and knowing it will. That’s where lab testing earns its keep. Before rolling out the Ubiquiti UISP Router Pro into production, taking the time to validate its behavior in a controlled environment gives you the confidence to push boundaries without risking downtime. In our case, we’re not just swapping hardware—we’re transitioning from tried-and-true EdgeRouters to a newer platform, and that means assumptions need to be tested, not trusted.

Trust, But Verify: Lab Router Failover Testing

 There’s a special kind of confidence that comes from being told “it should just work”—especially when it comes to networking gear. In this case, the guidance was simple: adjust the routing table distance value on a Ubiquiti UISP Router Pro and failover would behave exactly as expected. But as any seasoned network engineer knows, “should” and “does” don’t always live in the same neighborhood. That’s where lab testing proves its worth. By recreating real-world conditions in a controlled environment, you move from assumption to certainty, validating not just configuration changes but the actual behavior of the system under stress.

woo hoo - the Youtube channel just hit 14,000 subscribers

 Thank you for all you support, likes and shares.

https://www.youtube.com/user/thetechfirm

Networking Advice.. Cover up!

If you’ve ever unboxed new network gear, you’ve probably noticed all those tiny plastic caps covering ports—especially on fiber modules. Most people toss them aside without a second thought. But those little covers actually play a bigger role than you might expect. In my video, I demonstrate putting the SFP dust cover back on a Ubiquiti UISP Router Pro after removing my sfp to copper transciever Its a simple habit that can save a surprising amount of trouble down the road.

Why Every Wireshark User Needs to Update Right Now

If your network toolkit depends on Wireshark — and chances are it does — a critical new security update demands your immediate attention. Wireshark, the world's most widely used open-source network protocol analyzer, has released a major security update addressing over 40 vulnerabilities, several of which enable arbitrary code execution through malformed packet injection or malicious capture files. The tool trusted to keep networks safe has itself become a target, and the scope of this disclosure is unlike anything the project has seen in recent memory.

Clean Up Your Wireshark .. Ads??

If you’ve ever opened a packet capture in Wireshark and felt like you were staring into a noisy mess of irrelevant traffic, this Chappell University tip hits home. The article focuses on a simple but powerful idea: not all traffic deserves your attention. By removing the new ad , analysts can dramatically declutter their view and zero in on what actually matters. It’s less about “blocking ads” in the traditional sense and more about stripping away distractions so your analysis becomes faster and more precise.

From Wires to Wi-Fi: A Laid-Back Look at How the Internet Grew Up

This issue of The Internet Protocol Journal (Vol. 29, No. 1) is a really enjoyable read if you’re into how the Internet became what it is today. Geoff Huston’s Internet Evolution article does most of the heavy lifting, but in a way that doesn’t feel overly academic. It walks through everything from the early days of slow terminals and simple networks to the massive, high-speed systems we rely on now. The way it ties Moore’s Law into all of this makes it easy to see why things scaled so quickly—and why the Internet feels so different compared to even a couple of decades ago.

Survey Says: Your Wi-Fi Might Be Lying to You 📡

This Ekahau webcast dives into one of the most overlooked truths in networking: designing Wi-Fi is only half the battle—proving it works in the real world is where the magic (and mistakes) happen. The session breaks down how accurate site surveys act as the “scientific method” of wireless networking, validating designs against real-world conditions and ensuring performance before deployment or major changes. From pre-deployment checks to ongoing health validation, the webinar emphasizes that skipping this step is basically gambling with your network’s reliability.