News

I thought I had seen the end of this issue, but a user reported to me the other day that AVG was flagging QuickHash as being infected with FileRepMetagen malware. Thankfully the user contacted me and we established that the issue was a false positive with AVG. This is not uncommon and I have seen reports of even mainstream hardcore forensic tools sometimes being flagged, falsely, by AV software. I have no idea for sure how AV software works other than besides searching for know virus executables it also conducts heuristic scanning of files that MAY be suspicious based on [...]

A user has notified me that I forgot to update the version number to 3.0.2. from 3.0.1 inside the Windows executable. So if you right click the exe and view the details, v3.0.2 will report to be v3.0.1. Don't worry! It's perfectly fine. I just forgot to increment the number when building. If the caption in the top title bar of the program says v3.0.2, it's v3.0.2.

Users are asked to be aware of a newly identified bug where, it transpires, the display grids of the FileS and Copy tabs are being truncated for the filename and/or path values are being truncated if the content exceeds 128 characters. It does not impact on the tools ability to find and hash files, but it does render some of the display output and saved CSV files as lacking full details. I have identified the problem and working on a fix. It will be corrected with v3.0.2 and I will try to get that released as soon as I [...]

For a few months in 2017 I cast a poll to determine how interested users would be in a digitally codesigned version of Quickhash, in exchange for a small fee. In recent years, IT security has got serious! Especially with Apple Mac OSX, iPhones, and with the introduction of Windows 10 a couple of years ago. No longer can you just download and launch any program you like on a modern computer operating system. If you are able to launch it at all, even on a domestic computer, you often have to click several "Are you sure?" and "Are [...]

UPDATE : 3rd Feb 2018 : V3.0.1 is out now So it's only been 36 hours since releasing v3.0.0, and despite 4 months of development, some bugs are surfacing that I need to address for v3.0.1. My thanks to my collaborator DaRealShinji for bringing some to my attention, and also to some users who have done the same. Firstly, there is an issue on OSX when trying to copy the grid content of the FileS tab to the clipboard. This is because it tries to create a temporary file in the root of where the program is running, and [...]

As the popularity of QuickHash has gradually risen over the years, I sometimes drop into conversation about this "program that I make for people" or am I asked about it. When I reply, my friends and family usually reply with "Oh...what is data hashing?" followed by "but thats just something for geeks, digital forensics folk and tech guys, isn't it?". Well lets explore that. It's 2018 and pretty much everyone everywhere has access to a computer, the Internet, and a mobile phone, or at least just a mobile phone. Data is now a valuable commodity. Cybercrime is spreading like [...]

So on Sunday 17th Dec I was going about my normal daily duties and I noticed I had an e-mail from one of the security related monitoring systems (GravityScan) that periodically scan my site, to report the site could not be reached. So like all web site administrators, I immediately went to check, and I did indeed find my beloved projects website to be offline! Firstly, sorry to any users who found the site in that condition, especially users of Zorin OS who are sent here to help verify their downloads of Zorin OS ISO. This website gets a [...]

I found an article recently that showed the use of QuickHash to check password strings and then using the resulting hash in one of the many sites that store hashes of passwords from data breaches. I then also found this article by The Register titled 'Crypto-busters reverse nearly 320 MEELLION hashed passwords' that talks about the same thing in a lot more detail : https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/04/cryptobusters_reverse_nearly_320_meellion_hashed_passwords/ You can read more about Troys work and the concept of password hashes and their availability here : https://www.troyhunt.com/introducing-306-million-freely-downloadable-pwned-passwords where he continues to talk about using the SHA-1 hash of a password to check [...]