The long awaited Diablo III is expected to be released at the end of this year (Dec 2011) or most probably on January 2012. When it will be released though, you will not be able to buy it immediately due to high demand. Stores will run out of stock and it may take weeks to manage to purchase this incredible game.

Amazon however is offering a pre-order option on their online store. For $59.99 you can pre-order Diablo 3 and you will get it as soon as it is officially released by Blizzard Entertainment. You will have it shipped for Free as well. Another great advantage of Amazon pre-ordering is that if the price of the game changes between now and the release date, you will get the lowest price from Amazon. This means that although the price now shows as $59.99, if Amazon offers a lower price in the future, you will get charged with the lower price.

Buy Diablo 3 from Amazon below:

Diablo3 will be the new game from Blizzard which is eagerly expected by millions of players worldwide. Diablo 3 is a role-playing fantasy action game with cooperative multiplayer concept. Its predecessor, Diablo 2, has been the favorite online game for millions of people all over the world, from ages 5 to 90!! So there is no doubt that the new version will be a great success as well.

This game has been in development since 2001 (around 10 years ago) and will be a great fantasy game for the fans of this genre. The developers tried their best to make this game better than the older ones. Blizzard has not stated an official release date, but in May 2011 they announced that Diablo III will be available as beta testing in the third quarter of 2011 (which means around October). However, the official release date to the public has not yet been revealed.

We have researched though through game forums, websites, official reviews etc and we have collected several potential dates which are likely the dates of the official release. From our research it seems that Diablo III most likely will be released on January 2012 . Some other websites say that they will release the game on December 31, 2011 which is a likely option as well.

Whatever the release date will be, you can get Diablo 3 for Free (some details apply) from the banner below (only for USA though):

The new game will be available for both Windows and Mac computers. The company is also working to develop a console version as well, thats why they are hiring programmers for developing the console game.

So to summarize: There is NO official release date of Diablo3 announced yet from Blizzard. However, from our research from reputable gaming sites and forums, it seems that the game will be released most likely on January 2012 and as a second option on December 31, 2011. Time will show!!!.

Improved and faster MacBook Air and Mac mini, new Apple ThunderBolt Display screen and launch of the Mac OS X Lion are the new series of products introduced by Apple.

The new MacBook Air is faster than ever, the brand new Mac mini is very powerful despite its small size, and the new Apple ThunderBolt Display is the first screen in the world with the ThunderBolt technology. Also, Apple’s new operating software is released, called Mac OS X Lion.

The upgraded MacBook Air, offers next-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and is 2.5x faster than the previous generation. It also has a built in ThunderBolt port for fast data transfer. Available in models with 11 inches and 13 inches, it has a backlit keyboard, flash storage and long-lasting battery for up to 7 hours.

Regarding the new Mac mini, it is twice as fast with dual-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, and equipped with the new graphics card AMD Radeon HD which provides sophisticated graphics for more fun. It also has a ThunderBolt port for much more scalability. Finally, it is also available in version with Lion Server installed.

Also, Apple launched its new 27 “LED backlit monitor, the Apple ThunderBolt Display, the first screen in the world with ThunderBolt technology to enable the user to link a Mac that has a ThunderBolt port and create a truly impressive workstation.

Finally, it became available the long awaited Mac OS X Lion, the eighth update of the most advanced operating system for computers in the world. The Lion, which is available through the Mac App Store at a price of 23,99 €, brings over 250 new features to the MAC.

The latest cyber attacks have now hit Sega, another gaming company after Sony and Nintendo.

As BBC, Reuters and AFP reported, Sega announced that data for their users was compromised from their online network, Sega Pass. Confidential information such as names, birth dates, email addresses, passwords etc were stolen, while stating that the credit card numbers remained unaffected. The company admitted that data information were stolen from the database for approximately 1.3 million customers.

The Sega Pass network was shut down in order to mitigate the attack and reinforce the level of security, Sega said, and apologized to customers for the problem. Remains unknown when the network will operate again.

The violation in security was found last Thursday by the European Sega subsidiary company and was not revealed until recently. The hacker group Lulz Security, which has claimed responsibility for many of the recent major cyber-attacks, but not for the last one, voluntarily offered to help Sega to discover the culprit and punish him.

In this post we will configure Site-to-Site IPSEC VPN between a Cisco IOS Router and ASA Firewall. ASA configuration is not much different from Cisco IOS with regards to IPSEC VPN since the fundamental concepts are the same. Let’s start our LAB example and we’ll see how it’s done.

Consider the following diagram. The first site (Remote1) is equipped with a Cisco ASA firewall (any model) and the second site (Remote2) is equipped with a Cisco Router. Remember that a Cisco ASA firewall is by default capable to support IPSEC VPN but a Cisco Router must have the proper IOS software type in order to support encrypted VPN tunnels.

Equipment Used in this LAB:

• ASA 5510 – Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software Version 8.0(3)

• Cisco Router 2801 – C2801-ADVIPSERVICESK9-M Version 12.4(9)T4

Scenario:

LAN of Remote1 must be connected to LAN of Remote2 via VPN Tunnel. The most usual scenario is that the WAN cloud is the Internet, so secure connectivity shall be provided between the two LAN networks over the Internet.

First of all we shall make sure that the outside interfaces of ASA and router must be reachable over the WAN. Now let’s start IPSEC VPN configuration.

Cisco ASA Configuration

First I started ASA configuration.

I’ve created an Access list, which will match the interesting traffic which is the traffic to be encrypted. If source is 192.168.3.0/24 and destination is 192.168.4.0/24, then traffic will be matched by the access list as “interesting traffic” and will be encrypted and pass through the tunnel.

ASA(config)# access-list vpn extended permit ip 192.168.3.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.4.0 255.255.255.0

!IKE PHASE #1
! I’ve created a phase1 policy. This policy provides secured process of exchanging Keys.
ASA(config)# crypto isakmp policy 1

! For authentication I used Pre-shared. This method is most frequently used today.
ASA(config)# authentication pre-share

!For encryption I used 3des.
ASA(config)# encryption 3des

! Hashing md5.
ASA(config)# hash md5

! I used second group of diffie-hellman. Group1 is used by default. The most secured is Group5.
ASA(config)# group 2

! configure crypto key. The keys must match to each other between peers. Otherwise Phase1 will not be completed.
ASA(config)# crypto isakmp secretsharedkey address 192.168.2.2

NOTE: Crypto key is hidden in ASA configuration. If we look at configuration, it will be shown in following way.
tunnel-group 192.168.2.2 ipsec-attributes
pre-shared-key *

! Activate policy on Outside interface.
ASA(config)# crypto isakmp enable outside

! IKE PHASE #2- VPN Tunnel is established during this phase and the traffic between VPN Peers is encrypted according to the security parameters of this phase.

! I created Transform-set, by which the traffic will be encrypted and hashed between VPN peers.
ASA(config)# crypto ipsec transform-set ts esp-3des esp-md5-hmac

! Apply the access list created earlier for matching the interesting traffic.
ASA(config)# crypto map vpn 10 match address vpn

! I indicated address of Remote2 peer public outside interface.
ASA(config)# crypto map vpn 10 set peer 192.168.2.2

! Apply also the transform-set.
ASA(config)# crypto map vpn 10 set transform-set ts

! Attach the already created Crypto-map and VPN to outside interface.
ASA(config)# crypto map vpn interface outside

ASA configuration is completed here (regarding the VPN config of course). Now let’s start Router Configuration below.

Cisco Router Configuration

ISAKMP Phase 1

! Enter crypto-isakmp policy configuration mode for configuring crypto isakmp policy.
Router(config)# crypto isakmp policy 10

! Turn on 3des as an encryption type.
Router(config)# encr 3des

! I indicated MD5 as a hashing type.
Router(config)# hash md5

! I indicated pre-share authentication.
Router(config)# authentication pre-share

! I used second group of diffie-hellman. group1 is used by default.
Router(config)# group 2

! I defined peer key same as ASA site.
Router(config)# crypto isakmp secretsharedkey address 192.168.1.2

It’s not necessary to match policy numbers. The most important is to match corresponding parameters of policy. Otherwise negotiation of Phase1 will not be successful.

! Access list for matching interesting traffic.
Router(config)# ip access-list extended vpn
Router(config)# permit ip 192.168.4.0 0.0.0.255 192.168.3.0 0.0.0.255

ISAKMP PHASE 2
!
! Create IPSEC transform-set, by which the mechanism of hashing and encryption is determined, by which the traffic will be hashed/encrypted in VPN tunnel later.
Router(config)# crypto ipsec transform-set ts esp-3des esp-md5-hmac

! Enter into crypto-map configuration mode.
Router(config)# crypto map vpn 10 ipsec-isakmp

! Indicate IP address of peer.
Router(config)# set peer 192.168.1.2

! Indicate IPsec transform-set created above.
Router(config)# set transform-set ts

! Apply access list created above.
Router(config)# match address vpn

! Apply crypto-map to interface.
Router(config)# interface FastEthernet0/0
Router(config)# crypto map vpn

With this, VPN configuration is completed so let’s start verification.

! In the output below it is shown that ISAKMP PHASE1 is active, which means that negotiation of PHASE1 is completed successfully.

ASA# show crypto isakmp sa

Active SA: 1
Rekey SA: 0 (A tunnel will report 1 Active and 1 Rekey SA during rekey)
Total IKE SA: 1

1 IKE Peer: 192.168.2.2
Type : L2L Role : initiator
Rekey : no State : MM_ACTIVE

Router# show crypto isakmp sa
dst src state conn-id slot
192.168.1.2 192.168.2.2 MM_ACTIVE 1 0

! Checking ISAKMP PHASE2. Here we see that IPSec is working and the interesting traffic flows in VPN Tunnel.

ASA# show crypto ipsec sa
interface: outside
Crypto map tag: vpn, seq num: 10, local addr: 192.168.1.2

access-list vpn permit ip 192.168.3.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.4.0 255.255.255.0
local ident (addr/mask/prot/port): (192.168.3.0/255.255.255.0/0/0)
remote ident (addr/mask/prot/port): (192.168.4.0/255.255.255.0/0/0)
current_peer: 192.168.2.2

#pkts encaps: 344, #pkts encrypt: 344, #pkts digest: 344
#pkts decaps: 344, #pkts decrypt: 344, #pkts verify: 344
#pkts compressed: 0, #pkts decompressed: 0
#pkts not compressed: 344, #pkts comp failed: 0, #pkts decomp failed: 0
#pre-frag successes: 0, #pre-frag failures: 0, #framents created: 0
#PMTUs sent: 0, #PMTUs rcvd: 0, #decapsulated frgs needing reassembly: 0
#send errors: 0, #recv errors: 0

Router# show crypto ipsec sa

interface: FastEthernet0/0
Crypto map tag: vpn, local addr 192.168.2.2

protected vrf: (none)
local ident (addr/mask/prot/port): (192.168.4.0/255.255.255.0/0/0)
remote ident (addr/mask/prot/port): (192.168.3.0/255.255.255.0/0/0)
current_peer 192.168.1.2 port 500
PERMIT, flags={origin_is_acl,}
#pkts encaps: 344, #pkts encrypt: 344, #pkts digest: 344
#pkts decaps: 344, #pkts decrypt: 344, #pkts verify: 344
#pkts compressed: 0, #pkts decompressed: 0
#pkts not compressed: 0, #pkts compr. failed: 0
#pkts not decompressed: 0, #pkts decompress failed: 0
#send errors 0, #recv errors 0

VPN Tunnel is established and works.