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Linux Security Week: December 8th, 2008
Source: LinuxSecurity.com Contributors - Posted by Benjamin D. Thomas
This week, perhaps the most interesting articles include "Confused by WEP, WPA, TKIP, AES and Other Wireless Security Acronyms," "Linux And Unix Internet Users And Site Security," and "Set Up a SSH-Based Point to Point Connection."
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A Secure Nagios Server - 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.
Never Installed a Firewall on Ubuntu? Try Firestarter - When I typed on Google "Do I really need a firewall?" 695,000 results came across. And I'm pretty sure they must be saying "Hell yeah!". In my opinion, no one would ever recommend anyone to sit naked on the internet keeping in mind the insecurity internet carries these days, unless you really know what you are doing.
Read on for more information on Firestarter.
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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.
EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.21 Now Available (Oct 7)
Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.21 (Version 3.0, Release 21). This release includes many updated packages and bug fixes and some feature enhancements to the EnGarde Secure Linux Installer and the SELinux policy.
In distribution since 2001, EnGarde Secure Community was one of the very first security platforms developed entirely from open source, and has been engineered from the ground-up to provide users and organizations with complete, secure Web functionality, DNS, database, e-mail security and even e-commerce.
Confused by WEP, WPA, TKIP, AES & Other Wireless Security Acronyms? (Dec 5)
I found an interesting article today which sums up most of the acryonyms involved in wireless networks and wireless security and explain them all in brief. It may clear things up for some people who get overwhelmed by all the jargon, especially with the recent news hitting the mainstream about WPA being partially cracked.
There are so many wireless protocols out there that it can be confusing to know which one to use. This article will clear up the confusion. What is your favorite wireless protocol?
Linux And Unix Internet Users And Site Security - How Much Is Too Much? (Dec 4)
As we all know, maintaining a decent level of personal and professional site security on the Internet is possible to a degree. Unfortunately, as long as there's profit in breaching that security, building industries devoted to thwarting those breaches or some interdependent mish-mosh of the two, there's no way to achieve absolute security on the Internet unless you opt not to use it.
Recently we posted a poll regarding security policies, and the highest poll went to "When it suits them". This article also talks about the security in reference to deal with site, and user, security on the Internet. To what percentage do you think can we keep ourselves secure?
Keeping an Eye On Your Network with PasTmon (Dec 4)
The PasTmon passive traffic monitor keeps an eye on your network, recording which clients are interacting with which services, when and how long things took. You can then use the application's PHP Web interface to investigate these figures to see if any host is connecting to Web services that it shouldn't, or is contacting services suspiciously more frequently than you would expect for normal operation, or when response times become excessively long.
Knowing what traffic is going on your network is an important security practice. This article looks at the traffic monitoring software called PasTmon. Do you have any favorite security tools that you use on your network?
In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring how to encrypt emails using the popular Ubuntu distribution. In the previous article we looked at the basics of using PGP, creating and backing up PGP keys and using them to encrypt files locally. Now we'll look at how to send someone an encrypted email.
This article will show you ways to encrypt your email communication. Do you use any software to keep your email private?
Set Up a SSH-Based Point to Point Connection (Dec 2)
OpenSSH version 4.3 introduced a new feature: the ability to create on-the-fly "Virtual Private Networks" via the tunnel driver (the so-called "tun" driver). This allows you to create a network interface that bridges two physically disparate network segments in different locations. This article explains how to use SSH to set up SSH-based point to point connections with OpenSuse 11.0 which can then be used to create routes that create virtual private networks.
This article will show you how to set up an on-the-fly Virtual Private Network with the tunnel driver. If you are interesting in setting up your own or want to learn more please read on...
For many, migrating to Linux is a rite of passage that equates to a thing of joy. For others, it's a nightmare waiting to happen. It's wonderful when it's the former; it's a real show stopper when it's the latter. But that nightmare doesn't have to happen, especially when you know, first hand, the most common mistakes new Linux administrators make. This article will help you avoid those mistakes by laying out the most typical Linux missteps. If you are new to Linux and want to secure your network with improved Linux Administrator skills, then reading this article would be a good starting point. Read on for more information.
Researchers at a major security vendor are exploring the extent to which Linux systems - especially servers - are involved in the botnet plague. A six-year old Linux virus is still in circulation, and Sophos suspects the high uptime exhibited by servers (compared with the typical home or office Windows PC that spends much of the day switched off or asleep) makes them valuable to bot-herders as central control points.
What do think is the role of Linux in Botnets. This article presents a study on the relationship between Linux and Botnets.
