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Internet Productivity Suite: Open Source Security - Trust Internet Productivity Suite's open source architecture to give you the best security and productivity applications available. Collaborating with thousands of developers, Guardian Digital security engineers implement the most technologically advanced ideas and methods into their design.
LINUX ADVISORY WATCH - This week, perhaps the most interesting articles include ethereal, prozilla, smartlist, kdewebdev, wireless-tools, gimp, bootparamd, tcpdump, kdelibs, vte, php, words, util-linux, lapack, gnuutils, and glibc. The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, and Red Hat.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Introduction: Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities - 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.

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.

The Tao of Network Security Monitoring: Beyond Intrusion Detection - The Tao of Network Security Monitoring is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date sources available on the subject. It gives an excellent introduction to information security and the importance of network security monitoring, offers hands-on examples of almost 30 open source network security tools, and includes information relevant to security managers through case studies, best practices, and recommendations on how to establish training programs for network security staff.


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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.

Review: Deep Inspection Firewalls
6th, May, 2005

If it were on public display, this portion of our Firewall Blowout would be the geek equivalent of the Chicago Auto Show. Our Chicago Neohapsis partner labs focused on the muscle cars: enterprise-class, gigabit-capable network firewall appliances and turnkey systems that support high-availability stateful failover, VPNs and centralized management as well as DI (deep inspection), which we define as having the ability not only to perform stateful packet filtering, but also to inspect packet payloads higher up the OSI model using specific attack signatures and Layer 7 protocol engines.

news/firewall/review-deep-inspection-firewalls
In praise of Gentoo
2nd, May, 2005

On the server end, you get the best release schedule in the business for security updates and bug fixes. On the desktop, you get the latest and greatest packages (if you enable 'beta' packages to be used) like KDE 3.4 (which I'm running), X.org with awesome openGL support, and a nicely compiled nvidia driver. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

From Operating System to Application: Web Survey Looks at Malware Trends
5th, May, 2005

"Two years ago, this list was dominated completely by weaknesses in operating systems," said SANS Institute Director of Research Alan Paller. "Now we're seeing more and more vulnerabilities in applications being exploited." The data also reveal that, for the first time, some security Latest News about Security and anti-virus software is vulnerable to hackers, creating a dangerous high-level backdoor into users' systems.

Report: IT shops lax about logging
3rd, May, 2005

If a new report from the SANS Institute is any indication, enterprises are jeopardizing security by taking a sloppy approach to log keeping. As a result, the report recommends some companies abandon home-grown logging systems in favor of commercial tools or simply outsource the task.

Why Snort makes IDS worth the time and effort
5th, May, 2005

The decision of whether to implement an intrusion-detection system (IDS) is a complicated one. Unfortunately, IDS has a well-deserved reputation for requiring a lot of "care and feeding" and commercial systems can be very expensive. However, there is an enterprise-grade open source IDS called Snort that may tip the scales over to a "can't lose" position.

BlueCat Networks Previews its Proteus Enterprise IP Address Management
3rd, May, 2005

Networks, Inc., a leading provider of simple, secure and affordable network security appliances, today announced that it is previewing Proteus, its new enterprise class Internet protocol (IP) Address Management (IPAM) system at Networld+Interop in booth # 1124. Proteus, the first dedicated IPAM appliance of its kind, is a self-managed, turnkey design and management tool created to help enterprises design, deploy and manage their IP-based networks. Its unique design combines the features of an enterprise class IPAM software application with the security and manageability of a network appliance.

news/vendors-products/bluecat-networks-previews-its-proteus-enterprise-ip-address-management
Linux Labs International consolidates SELinux with Bproc
6th, May, 2005

Linux Labs International, Inc. ( LLII ), the world leader in Linux-based clustered supercomputer engineering, announced today a key milestone for security in supercomputing technology. With today's release of Nimbus 4.0, its out-of-the-box Linux cluster distribution, the leading Single System Image cluster architecture ( bproc ) is now seamlessly integrated with SELinux, the Security Enhanced Linux platform ( SELinux ).

Backups tapes a backdoor for identity thieves
2nd, May, 2005

Large companies are reconsidering their security and backup policies after a handful of financial and information-technology companies have admitted that tapes holding unencrypted customer data have gone missing.

Last week, trading firm Ameritrade acknowledged that the company that handles its backup data had lost a tape containing information on about 200,000 customers. The financial firm is now revising its backup policies and, in the interim, has halted all movement of backup tapes, a spokesperson said this week.

Netcraft Phishing Site Feed Available
2nd, May, 2005

Netcraft launched an anti-phishing system at the start of 2005: people install a toolbar and effectively become part of a giant neighbourhood watch system whereby the most experienced members of the community can report phishing sites and effectively block them for the rest of the community.

Some 5,400 unique phishing sites have been detected and blocked to date [late April 2005] and the community has been widely featured in the media from the Washington Post & Wall St. Journal through to Slashdot.

Infosecurity Europe 2005 Interviews
3rd, May, 2005

Rootsecure.net recently recorded a series of interviews with attendees at ‘Infosecurity Europe 2005’, “Europe's number one, dedicated Information Security event