Ramblings on IT and Security

Category: Cryptography (Page 4 of 4)

How to: Build a PKI with PowerShell – Part 1 – Preparation

Other parts in this series

How to: Build a PKI with PowerShell – Part 2 – IIS WebServer

How to: Build a PKI with PowerShell – Part 3 – Offline Root CA

How to: Build a PKI with PowerShell – Part 4 – Enterprise CA

Over the last couple of years, I’ve written a lot about Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Not the “click next, next, finish” type of posts, but the deeper stuff, why you’d pick one design over another, and what trade-offs you’re really making.

Even so, I still see people struggling with PKI. Sometimes even setting up a relatively simple environment turns into a painful mix of conflicting guides, half-implemented best practices, and “set it and forget it” assumptions. The reality is: PKI quietly underpins almost everything we trust in modern IT environments, but it’s often poorly documented, inconsistently implemented, and rarely treated like the living service it actually is.

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Secure LUKS containers on Linux

Lately, I’ve been refining parts of my Linux workflow to make them both more secure and practical. One of those improvements came from something simple but powerful, using encrypted containers instead of relying solely on full-disk encryption.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how I built a secure, self-contained LUKS container on Linux, explain what’s really happening behind the scenes, and share a few lessons learned along the way, including troubleshooting tips and two small Bash scripts that make mounting and unmounting effortless.

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PKI – Part 5: Creating Unique Object Identifiers (OIDs)

Introduction: Why OIDs matter in PKI

When building or managing a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), precision and uniqueness are not optional, they’re very essential. Don’t be one of many, be your unique self! One key element that reflects this is the Object Identifier (OID). OIDs are globally unique values used to identify everything from certificate policies and application purposes to custom certificate extensions and cryptographic algorithms.

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How FIDO2 works, a technical deep dive

Earlier this year, I completed my bachelor thesis in Cybersecurity, diving into one of the most exciting developments in the world of authentication (well, that’s my personal opinion anyways), FIDO2 and Passkeys. My research focused on how passwordless authentication can reshape the way we secure digital identities, not only from a technical point of view, but also in terms of user experience, adoption , and the shift in mental models required to move beyond passwords.

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