Tag: Tech Tips

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Public IP Address Changes Alert – PowerShell

PowerShell Logo

Receive an email notification every time your Public IP Address changes. The Public IP Address Check script is a free and easy to use PowerShell script that can be ran as a schedule task using Task Scheduler within Windows.

Why would I use this?
Most Public IP Addresses for home broadband connections are normally dynamic IP Addresses and depending on the ISP they can change frequently. While there are solutions such as Dynamic DNS, In some cases it can’t be used.

This is a quick and easy way to be notified if your IP Address changes, if you need to be notified when your IP address changes as you might be unable to use Dynamic DNS or would prefer not to.

Included in the download is a template which you can import in the Task Scheduler within Windows.

The Public IP Address Check has been written and developed by Woodward.Digital and is distributed freely under the MIT License.

Please contact me if you have any comments or suggestions: [email protected]

Download – The Public IP Address Check
GitHub – Repository

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2021 woodward.digital

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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Network Monitor – PowerShell Ping Script

Network Monitor - PowerShell Ping Script
Network Monitor a Network Monitoring Tool - PowerShell Ping Script

The Network Monitor is a simple PowerShell Ping Script that acts as a Network Monitoring Tool. That imports a CSV file which contains a list IP address and the names of the devices you would like to monitor. The script runs every 60 seconds, importing the list and testing the connection of every device to ensure it is online. Alerting you to any devices which are unavailable.

The Network Monitor has been written and developed by Woodward.Digital and is distributed freely under the MIT License.

Please contact me if you have any comments or suggestions: [email protected]

Download – The Network Monitor
GitHub – Repository

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2021 woodward.digital

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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Infection Monkey – Network penetration testing

Infection Monkey Logo

Infection Monkey is a free open-source, network penetration testing tool. It is a breach and attack simulator that uses real-world attack techniques and known vulnerabilities.

Evaluating your security is easy with Infection Monkey and takes 3 simple steps:

Step 1 – Simulate
Download and run Infection monkey from a machine. Installation is simple, to download Infection Monkey please complete the download request form located: https://www.guardicore.com/infectionmonkey/

The download link is then emailed to you. Once downloaded, run the installation.
Note: Depending on your Anti-Virus solution, you may need to disable it in order to run Infection Monkey. Dissapointily during my Tests, Windows Defender was oblivious to Infection Moneky and didn’t detect or stop any of the exploits on the local machine I was running it from.

Once installed open Infection Monkey and review the configuration. A key area is to add your internal IP Range which is located under Configuration > Network.

Now that Infection Monkey is configured and installed, you can run it from the Machine it is installed on by selecting “From Island”.

Run Infection Monkey

Step 2 – Evaluate
Watch as Infection Monkey runs and tests your network for any weakness. While it is running, Infection monkey will start to draw out a diagram detailing its “Victims” and whether it was able to exploit the victim.

Infection Monkey, Infection Map

Step 3 – Remediate
Act on the reports that Infection Monkey provides you with. If Infection Monkey reports that it wasn’t able to carry out any known exploits. You can use the information and its recommendations it provides to secure your network further. For example, you may want to consider segregating your network into separate VLANs or implementing an isolated guest network.

Using infection monkey correctly and on a regular basis can assist in securing your network. From my experience using Infection Monkey, I have found it works best by trying different scenarios. For example, Connected to a Guest network to simulate a visitors device that is infected and to confirm that the Guest network is correctly isolated.

Hopefully, you have found this to be a useful tool, I have only just scratched the surface explaining Infection Monkey. If you would like to know more please visit the official documentation: https://www.guardicore.com/infectionmonkey/docs/

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Arduino – Elegoo Starter kit

Arduino Digital Thermometer

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform. It is a perfect way to make an introduction to electronics and coding, a good way to get started is with a starter kit like the Elegoo Starter kit contains everything you need.

You might think that there is just one type of Arduino broad. No, there are tons the choice can be overwhelming, an official branded board currently costs around £23. With Arduino being an open-source electronics platform, they make their PCB designs freely available, so it is possible to get a generic Arduino board for much less.

I choose the ELEGOO UNO R3 Project Super Starter Kit as a good all-around kit at a low price, it has everything you need to get started and is great for beginners young and old who are interested.

Amazon Affiliate Link (Paid) – ELEGOO UNO R3 Project Super Starter Kit: https://amzn.to/2QUPxKt

ELEGOO UNO R3 Project Super Starter Kit

The included instructions and tutorials which are included on the disk are also available to download, by visiting: https://www.elegoo.com/pages/arduino-kits-support-files

Before you get started you will also need to install the Arduino IDE which is available for Windows, Mac or Linux. Arduino IDE Download: https://www.arduino.cc/en/software

You will quickly find yourself with a good understanding of the basics of electronics and coding by experimenting with an Arduino.

Arduino Digital thermometer
Digital thermometer
Joystick controlled servo motor
Joystick controlled servo motor

As this kit contains a wide variety of components, you can browse the Arduino Project Hub for more ideas and free tutorials.

Arduino Project Hub: https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub

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Caffeine – Stop your computer from sleeping or locking

Coffee Cup

Caffeine is a free tool by Zhorn Software that prevents your windows computer from sleeping or locking. Caffeine works by simulating a keypress once every 59 seconds.

Caffeine is designed to be simple to use, simply download caffeine here: https://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/#download

Once downloaded, unzip and double click on Caffeine64.exe.
Note: If you have a 32bit Computer you will need to double click Caffeine32.exe instead.

When Caffeine start, it starts “enabled” and works by pressing the “f15” key every 59 seconds. When Caffeine is “enabled”, the tool will display a Coffee Jug icon. As shown below in the taskbar and prevent the computer from locking.

Caffeine Running Example - Stop computer from sleeping or locking

To stop Caffeine, right-click the icon and select exit.

By default, Caffeine works by simulating an F15 key up event every 59 seconds. Of all the keypresses available, F15 is probably the least intrusive, and least likely to interfere with your work. However, Caffeine might interfere with the following apps:

# PowerPoint uses the F15 keypress to pause the video in a slide
# Google Docs/Sheets
# Smartsheet
# Terminal emulation, e.g. Putty

Caffeine also has command-line switches available to alter its behaviour. To find out more or to support the developer please visit:
https://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/

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How to delete stubborn folders – Windows

PowerShell Hero

How to delete stubborn folders using Robocopy in Windows. By using Robocopy to “mirror” an empty folder using the /MIR command.

What is RoboCopy? Robocopy is a free command-line file copy utility that has shipped with Windows since Vista.

To delete a stubborn folder and all its subfolders and files:

1) Create an empty folder.

2) Open PowerShell.

3) Run the following command:
Robocopy /MIR “<Path to empty folder>” “<Path to delete>”
Note: This will delete all files and folders within the folder path that you specify.

Example:

Robocopy /MIR "C:\Empty" "C:\Stuck\Stubborn\Folder"
RoboCopy Mirror Example - How to delete stubborn folders

To find out more about RoboCopy please visit:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1073.robocopy-and-a-few-examples.aspx