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 headlines.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Password guessing with Medusa 2.0 - Medusa was created by the fine folks at foofus.net, in fact the much awaited Medusa 2.0 update was released in February of 2010. For a complete change log please visit

Password guessing as an attack vector - Using password guessing as an attack vector. Over the years we've been taught a strong password must be long and complex to be considered secure. Some of us have taken that notion to heart and always ensure our passwords are strong. But some don't give a second thought to the complexity or length of our password.

Top 10 Security Assessment Tools (Feb 27)

Modern data centres deploy firewalls and managed networking components, but still feel insecure because of crackers. Hence, there is a crucial need for tools that accurately assess network vulnerability. This article brings you the top 10 assessment tools to address these issues, categorised based on their popularity, functionality and ease of use.
How to sneak into a security conference (Feb 28)

But this does not seem to be an obstacle for my anonymous source, whom I met on the first day of the conference. A risk management and physical security expert, he is in the business of "pen-testing humans" via social engineering, he said, and he also has an expertise in event security. I met him while I was covering the event, and he agreed to give me details of how he snuck into RSA in a matter of minutes without any credentials--and then went back and got credentials under a fake name to boot.
(Feb 27)

In the early hours of Monday, Wikileaks began the process of releasing some of the 5 million mails taken in Anonymous's December 2011 hack of Stratfor, an intelligence and analysis company.
Why CloudFlare kept LulzSec safe (Feb 29)

On June 2nd, 2011, the antisec hacker group known as LulzSec launched a web site. Although they had been an active hacking group for several weeks, the creation of Lulzsecurity.com was their first official web presence other than the Twitter account they had been using.
(Feb 29)

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack types are evolving. Enterprises have always feared the brute force of high-bandwidth network-based attacks, but smaller, application-based DDoS attack types are proving to be more common and more dangerous.
(Mar 2)

It's a story we heard again and again at RSA this week. The pros are generally smart enough to avoid the things that will get them hacked -- visiting malicious websites or opening documents from untrusted sources. But even if they get fooled, the odds are their antivirus software catching it are pretty low. But many of these pros also believe that antivirus isn't always that useful to the average business either.
(Feb 28)

Career stress and burnout is as common among information security professionals as it is among professionals in other high-stress fields, such as medicine or law. But finding support and information on dealing with info sec career burnout is difficult because resources and knowledge are scant.
How to Catch an Internet Cyber Thief (Mar 2)

They're out there, says security researchers: the Chinese hackers attempting to break into U.S. enterprises, and jihadist terrorists that brazenly post videos of sniper killings, while stealing credit-cards to launder money for funding nefarious campaigns in Mideast or Caucasus hot spots.
PostgreSQL updates close security holes (Feb 28)

The PostgreSQL development team has published updates for all actively supported branches of its open source relational database to fix bugs and close security holes found in the previous releases.
Anatomy of an Anonymous hack attack (Mar 2)

The elusive hacker movement known as Anonymous has carried out internet attacks on well-known organisations like Sony and PBS. In August, the group went after its most prominent target yet: the Vatican.
Google's New Privacy Policy Goes Live Today, Do You Care? (Mar 1)

Despite opposition from privacy groups and regulators, Google's privacy policy update is set to go live today, March 1. But is this something that should have you worried, or is it much ado about nothing? Depends on who you ask.
(Feb 29)

Google has raised the total amount it will pay for Chrome security flaws by a factor of fifty compared to last year, but it is doing so outside of the Pwn2Own hacking competition.