Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Using Snadboy's Revelation

Using Snadboy's Revelation can help you in some situations, but it doesn't always work.

Just a quick update on my A+ Certification training, because I couldn't think of which blog to put it in!

Last week I began my A+ Certification training which my company is paying for. I'll blog more about that in a different post. Anyway, the instructor showed us a tool for recovering passwords that a client/user has forgotten because it has been automatically saved into their software.

Scenario: You have been asked to move the email for your client from their old computer to the new computer and finish setting up the software. Problem is, the client doesn't remember the password.

Solution: With Snadboy's Revelation, you can reveal the password that is hidden in a password text box (hidden by asterisks). Its quite a simple tool, accept I haven't got it to work yet.

The demonstration in class was simple enough. Very handy. Last night at home I downloaded and installed it on a USB key (the only files you need are the .dll and .exe). I tried it on my Google Notify window, but it would reveal the password. Ok, so its not perfect.

I tried it at work this morning because I have another actual use for it.

Scenario
: I have a number of websites configured in Dreamweaver, and they all have the password save into the server settings. One site I haven't updated in a long time and I recently started updating it and I wanted to be able to update it from home. Except I don't remember the password. So that would leave me with only being able to update it at work, which isn't too useful. (The story is more complicated than that but I'll leave it at that.)

So I installed my USB drive to try and run the program and a dialog box said "File not found" appeared. I checked behind the dialog box after closing it and sure enough it was gone. Turns out my Symantec Antivirus deleted the file off my USB key because it treats it as a Hack Tool!

I went into settings and the default action for HackTools is to Quarantine the file. I tried changing it to "Leave Alone". Then I installed the utility again on my hard drive, and again Symantec deleted the file!

Luckily, I just tried playing with Symantec again and I was able to restore the file, but who knows if it will get deleted again.

(NOTE: I don't have full control over Symantec, its installed remotely be our IT people)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I've used Revelation for years. I tried using it at work today, when I forgot my password for an application. I keep it in a zip file, so Symantec AV doesn't usually notice it, but it deleted it as soon as I tried extracting it. In my case, Symantec AV settings are locked down by IS, and it doesn't just delete Revelation; it notifies IS that a virus was found on my computer, and just where it was found. Fun!