Featured Linux Articles - Page 16
Need an in-depth introduction to a new security topic? Our features articles will bring up up-to-date on everything from buffer overflows to SE Linux policy development.
Need an in-depth introduction to a new security topic? Our features articles will bring up up-to-date on everything from buffer overflows to SE Linux policy development.
Digest AuthenticationDigest Authentication hashes the password before transmitting over the wire. Essentially it sends a message digest generated from multiple items including username, realm and nonce value. If you want to know more see (RFC 2617).
This is perhaps the easiest authentication helper to configure in Squid, but also the most insecure. The biggest problem with Basic is it transmits username and password in clear text, hence very susceptible to network sniffing or man in the middle type attacks. The only reason I
An Interview with a Member of the Chown Group (COG) about the billion dollar hacking business in China
The Survivability and Information Assurance (SIA) course was originally developed by a team at Carnegie Mellon, led by Lawrence Rogers (/about/divisions/cert/index.cfm). Back in 2010, I requested a license to continue the development of the course because it provides useful information on Information Assurance. Also, this course will always be freely available for anyone to use in the classroom or self-study. There are three parts to the LearnSIA curriculum.
This article full of examples will show you various ways to test services secured using sec-wall, a feature-packed high performance security proxy. We'll be using cURL, a popular Linux command line tool and PycURL - a Python interface to cURL. As of version 1.0, sec-wall supports HTTP Basic auth, digest auth, custom HTTP headers, XPath-based authentication, WS-Security & SSL/TLS client certificates and each of the options is being shown below.
sec-wall, a recently released security proxy is a one-stop place for everything related to securing HTTP/HTTPS traffic. Designed as a pragmatic solution to the question of securing servers using SSL/TLS certificates, WS-Security, HTTP Basic/Digest Auth, custom HTTP headers, XPath expressions with an option of modifying HTTP headers and URLs on the fly.
Having a great defense involves proper detection and recognition of an attack. In our security world we have great IDS tools to properly recognize when we are being attacked as well as firewalls to prevent such attacks from happening. However, certain attacks are not blindly thrown at you - a good attacker knows that a certain amount of reconnaissance and knowledge about your defenses greatly increases the chances of a successful attack. How would you know if someone is scanning your defenses? Is there any way to properly respond to such scans? You bet there is...
Thanks to Anand Jahagirdar for this feature! As the variety of attacks and threats grow, you need to be prepared. In this HOWTO, get a feeling for the Fork Bombing Attack, what it is, how it works, where it comes from, how to deal with it and more.
We are happy to announce a new addition to the Linux Security Contributing Team: Gian G. Spicuzza. Currently a Graduate Student pursuing a Masters Degree in Computer Security (MSIA), Gian is a certified Linux/Unix administrator, the lead developer for the OSCAR-Backup System (at Sourceforge.com) and has experience in a variety of CSO, Management and consulting positions. His first topic is a quick foray into the world and psychology of Social Engineering: All the security in the world isn't going to stop one of your employees or coworkers from giving up information. Just how easy is it? Craig never worked for Linda's company, nor did he call from IT. Craig was an unethical hacker who just gained unauthorized access to her account. Why? Because a phone call is simple. Read on to see just how easy businesses can be exploited.
If you're reading LinuxSecurity.com then it's a safe bet that you are already using SSH, but are you using it in the best way possible? Have you configured it to be as limited and secure as possible? Read on for my best practices for using Secure Shell.
Lets take a look at the security features of Firefox 3. Since its release, I have been testing it out to see how the new security enhancements work and help in increase user browsing security. One of the exciting improvements for me was how Firefox handles SSL secured web sites while browsing the Internet. There are also many other security features that this article will look at. For example, improved plugin and addon security.
The Internet has made the world smaller. In our routine usage we tend to overlook that "www" really does mean "world wide web" making virtually instant global communication possible. It has altered the rules of marketing and retailing. An imaginative website can give the small company as much impact and exposure as its much larger competitors. In the electronics, books, travel and banking sectors long established retail chains are increasingly under pressure from e-retailers. All this, however, has come at a price – ever more inventive and potentially damaging cyber crime. This paper aims to raise awareness by discussing common vulnerabilities and mistakes in web application development. It also considers mitigating factors, strategies and corrective measures.
Nagios is a monitoring software designed to let you know about problems on your hosts and networks quickly. You can configure it to be used on any network. Setting up a Nagios server on any Linux distribution is a very quick process however to make it a secure setup it takes some work. This article will not show you how to install Nagios since there are tons of them out there but it will show you in detail ways to improve your Nagios security.
Setting up a web server with Apache on a Linux distribution is a very quick process, however to make it a secure setup takes some work. This article will show you how to make your Apache web server more secure from an attack by effectively using Access control and authentication strategies.
There are already tons of written Snort rules, but there just might be a time where you need to write one yourself. You can think of writing Snort rules as writing a program. They can include variables, keywords and functions. Why do we need to write rules? The reason is, without rules Snort will never detect someone trying to hack your machine. This HOWTO will give you confidence to write your own rules.
Buffer overflows are a leading type of security vulnerability. This paper explains what a buffer overflow is, how it can be exploited, and what countermeasures can be taken to prevent the use of buffer overflow vulnerabilities.
This article presents part II of a case study related to a company network server compromise. Lessons on designing and implementing security are drawn from the case.
In the First part of Network Security we had a brief overview of the areas that are to be considered on accessing a network's security and also we looked into a few points in each of Management and Administration areas.
In a time where budgets are constrained and Internet threats are on the rise, it is important for organizations to invest in network security applications that will not only provide them with powerful functionality but also a rapid return on investment.