Author: Benjamin D. Thomas
postgres, evolution, mailman, hztty, hwbrowser, cups, hotplug,
xpdf, kdegraphics, gallery, perl, and squirrelmail. The
distributors include Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, Red Hat,
and SuSE.Are Your Servers Secure?
By Blessen Cherian
In a word, No. No machine connected to the internet is 100% secure.
This doesn’t mean that you are helpless. You can take measures to
avoid hacks, but you cannot avoid them completely. This is like a
house — when the windows and doors are open then the probability of
a thief coming in is high, but if the doors and windows are closed
and locked the probability of being robbed is less, but still not
nil.
What is Information Security?
For our purposes, Information Security means the methods we use
to protect sensitive data from unauthorized users.
Why do we need Information Security?
The entire world is rapidly becoming IT enabled. Wherever you look,
computer technology has revolutionized the way things operate. Some
examples are airports, seaports, telecommunication industries, and
TV broadcasting, all of which are thriving as a result of the use
of IT. “IT is everywhere.”
A lot of sensitive information passes through the Internet, such
as credit card data, mission critical server passwords, and
important files. There is always a chance of some one viewing and/or
modifying the data while it is in transmission. There are countless
horror stories of what happens when an outsider gets someone’s
credit card or financial information. He or she can use it in any
way they like and could even destroy you and your business by
taking or destroying all your assets. As we all know “An ounce of
prevention beats a pound of cure,” so to avoid such critical
situations, it is advisable to have a good security policy and
security implementation.
Read complete feature story:
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/118211/49/
LinuxSecurity.com
Feature Extras:Getting
to Know Linux Security: File Permissions – Welcome to the first
tutorial in the ‘Getting to Know Linux Security’ series. The topic explored
is Linux file permissions. It offers an easy to follow explanation of how
to read permissions, and how to set them using chmod. This guide is intended
for users new to Linux security, therefore very simple. If the feedback is
good, I’ll consider creating more complex guides for advanced users. Please
let us know what you think and how these can be improved.The
Tao of Network Security Monitoring: Beyond Intrusion Detection
– To be honest, this was one of the best books that I’ve read on network security.
Others books often dive so deeply into technical discussions, they fail to
provide any relevance to network engineers/administrators working in a corporate
environment. Budgets, deadlines, and flexibility are issues that we must all
address. The Tao of Network Security Monitoring is presented in such a way
that all of these are still relevant.Encrypting
Shell Scripts – Do you have scripts that contain sensitive information
like passwords and you pretty much depend on file permissions to keep it secure?
If so, then that type of security is good provided you keep your system secure
and some user doesn’t have a “ps -ef” loop running in an attempt to capture
that sensitive info (though some applications mask passwords in “ps” output).
Take advantage of our Linux Security discussion
list! This mailing list is for general security-related questions and comments.
To subscribe send an e-mail to security-discuss-request@linuxsecurity.com
with “subscribe” as the subject.
Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com
weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers
with a quick summary of each week’s most relevant Linux security headline.
| Debian | ||
| Debian: New Python2.2 packages fix unauthorised XML-RPC internals access |
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4th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New squid packages fix several vulnerabilities |
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4th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New php3 packages fix several vulnerabilities |
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7th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New emacs20 packages fix arbitrary code execution |
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8th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New PostgreSQL packages fix arbitrary library loading |
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4th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New xemacs21 packages fix arbitrary code execution |
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8th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New xview packages fix potential arbitrary code execution |
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9th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New evolution packages fix arbitrary code execution as root |
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10th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New mailman packages fix several vulnerabilities |
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10th, February, 2005
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| Debian: New hztty packages fix local utmp exploit |
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10th, February, 2005
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| Fedora | ||
| Fedora Core 3 Update: system-config-printer-0.6.116.1.1-1 | ||
4th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: hwbrowser-0.19-0.fc3.2 | ||
4th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: python-2.3.4-13.1 | ||
4th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: postgresql-7.4.7-1.FC3.2 | ||
7th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: postgresql-7.4.7-1.FC2.2 | ||
7th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: cups-1.1.20-11.11 | ||
8th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: cups-1.1.22-0.rc1.8.5 | ||
8th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: hotplug-2004_04_01-1.1 | ||
8th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: emacs-21.3-21.FC3 | ||
8th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: xpdf-3.00-3.8 | ||
9th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: xpdf-3.00-10.4 | ||
9th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: kdegraphics-3.3.1-2.4 | ||
9th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: kdegraphics-3.2.2-1.4 | ||
9th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: gpdf-2.8.2-4.1 | ||
9th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: gpdf-2.8.2-4.2 | ||
9th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: mailman-2.1.5-30.fc3 | ||
10th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: mailman-2.1.5-8.fc2 | ||
10th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 2 Update: mod_python-3.1.3-1.fc2.2 | ||
10th, February, 2005
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| Fedora Core 3 Update: mod_python-3.1.3-5.2 | ||
10th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo | ||
| Gentoo: pdftohtml Vulnerabilities in included Xpdf |
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9th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: LessTif Multiple vulnerabilities in libXpm |
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6th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: PostgreSQL Local privilege escalation | ||
7th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: OpenMotif Multiple vulnerabilities in libXpm |
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7th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: Python Arbitrary code execution through SimpleXMLRPCServer |
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8th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: Python Arbitrary code execution through SimpleXMLRPCServer |
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10th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: Mailman Directory traversal vulnerability | ||
10th, February, 2005
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| Gentoo: Gallery Cross-site scripting vulnerability |
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10th, February, 2005
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| Mandrake: Updated perl-DBI packages | ||
8th, February, 2005
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| Mandrake | ||
| Mandrake: Updated perl packages fix | ||
8th, February, 2005
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| Red Hat |
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| RedHat: Updated Perl packages fix security issues |
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7th, February, 2005
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| RedHat: Updated mailman packages fix security |
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10th, February, 2005
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| RedHat: Updated kdelibs and kdebase packages correct |
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10th, February, 2005
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| RedHat: Updated mod_python package fixes security issue |
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10th, February, 2005
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| RedHat: Updated emacs packages fix security issue |
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10th, February, 2005
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| RedHat: Updated xemacs packages fix security issue |
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10th, February, 2005
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| RedHat: Updated Squirrelmail package fixes security |
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10th, February, 2005
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| SuSE | ||
| SuSE: kernel bugfixes and SP1 merge | ||
4th, February, 2005
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| SuSE: squid (SUSE-SA:2005:006) | ||
10th, February, 2005
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