+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | LinuxSecurity.com Weekly Newsletter | | June 13th, 2005 Volume 6, Number 25n | | | | Editorial Team: Dave Wreski dave@private | | Benjamin D. Thomas ben@private | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ 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. This week, perhaps the most interesting articles include "The meagre living of Linux virus writers," "Integrating and securing Linux without a silver bullet," and "Cracking WEP in 10 minutes." --- ## 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. Click to find out more! http://store.guardiandigital.com/html/eng/products/software/ips_overview.shtml --- LINUX ADVISORY WATCH This week, advisories were released for krb4, mailutils, traversal, Wordpress, SilverCity, kdbg, ImageMagick, openssh, dbus, rsh, and the Red Hat kernel. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, and Red Hat. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119280/150/ --- Review: The Book of Postfix: State-of-the-Art Message Transport I was very impressed with "The Book of Postfix" by authors Ralf Hildebrandt and Pattrick Koetter and feel that it is an incredible Postfix reference. It gives a great overall view of the operation and management of Postfix in an extremely systematic and practical format. It flows in a logical manner, is easy to follow and the authors did a great job of explaining topics with attention paid to real world applications and how to avoid many of the associated pitfalls. I am happy to have this reference in my collection. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119027/49/ --- 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. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/118881/49/ --- 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. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/118181/49/ -------- >> The Perfect Productivity Tools << WebMail, Groupware and LDAP Integration provide organizations with the ability to securely access corporate email from any computer, collaborate with co-workers and set-up comprehensive addressbooks to consistently keep employees organized and connected. http://ads.linuxsecurity.com/cgi-bin/newad_redirect.pl?id=gdn05 --> Take advantage of the LinuxSecurity.com Quick Reference Card! --> http://www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/QuickRefCard.pdf +---------------------+ | Security News: | <<-----[ Articles This Week ]---------- +---------------------+ * Talking with Richard Stallman 12th, June, 2005 Let's start. Can you explain to our readers why you started with FSF in 1984? What did you need of? Why you created it? What I started in 1984 was the development of the GNU operating system. All the operating systems for modern computers of the day were proprietary; users were forbidden to share them, and could not get the source code to change them. The only way to use computers in freedom was to replace those systems with a free operating system. That's what GNU was meant to do. The Free Software Foundation was started in late 1985 to raise funds for GNU development, and more generally to promote free software. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119289 * How well do you know your partner? 7th, June, 2005 For those of you who follow the news, you may have read the recent story of spy software discovered at some of Israel's leading companies which reads just like the spy stories we've been reading for years. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119259 * Debian released without security update feature 8th, June, 2005 A configuration mistake in the new Debian Linux distribution has forced a fix less than 24 hours after the software was released. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119266 * The meagre living of Linux virus writers 9th, June, 2005 According to anti-virus firm Trend Micro, the number of Linux viruses in the wild has not changed dramatically for two years, but its figure of 500 dangerous and exploitative programs dashing around the Internet seeking unprotected systems is cause for concern, until you look closer at the reasoning. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119274 * Attack Trends: 2004 and 2005 7th, June, 2005 Counterpane Internet Security, Inc., monitors more than 450 networks in 35 countries, in every time zone. In 2004 we saw 523 billion network events, and our analysts investigated 648,000 security "tickets." What follows is an overview of what's happening on the Internet right now, and what we expect to happen in the coming months. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119260 * Analysts say 'cloudy' forecast is OK 7th, June, 2005 The network security forecast is cloudy, and that's not a bad thing if you're to believe what analysts are saying at this week's Gartner IT Security Summit. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119261 * What to ask when evaluating intrusion-prevention systems 8th, June, 2005 An intrusion-prevention system (IPS) is part of an overall security strategy to protect your network from attack. The IPS literally prevents an attack by blocking bad stuff, such as viruses or malformed packets, from getting into the company network. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119268 * Secure Mac and Linux authentication 8th, June, 2005 CryptoCard (.com) makes a variety of secure authentication and ID management tools, and they just released support for OS X Tiger (they already did Panther). For the rest of you PC alternative fans, Linux support includes Red Hat, SuSE, and an easy compile option for Debian. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119265 * Integrating and securing Linux without a silver bullet 10th, June, 2005 The difficulty in integrating Linux with legacy systems and securing IT systems are two of IT managers' most common complaints about Linux, says Peter Harrison, who canvassed many IT pros while writing The Linux Quick Fix Notebook, a new book from Prentice Hall PTR. In this tip, Harrison doesn't offer a quick fix, but he does offer sage advice about security and integration. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119281 * Has Ransomware Learned from Cryptovirology? 6th, June, 2005 A secure cryptovirus, cryptotrojan or cryptoworm contains a payload that activates under a particular circumstance. When it activates, it generates a random symmetric key and encrypts the victim's files with it. This key is then encrypted in turn with the attacker's public key to produce an asymmetric ciphertext. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119253 * Insecurity through obscurity 9th, June, 2005 Security through obscurity is probably one of the oldest tricks in the security book.The basic premise stems from the fact that people are trying to ensure security by hiding certain facts of their software or architecture design from regular users. This is equivalent to someone hiding a house key under a pot of plants in front of his house. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119275 * Gartner IDs 'Over-Hyped' Security Threats 9th, June, 2005 Over-hyped security threats have made companies unnecessarily hesitant to roll out new technologies, such as Internet telephony and wireless networks, a research firm said Wednesday. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119276 * A Tale of Two Hackers 6th, June, 2005 Lapping up the sunshine here outside a downtown cafe, Kevin Mitnick is apprehensive. He never asked to be the world's most high-profile convicted computer criminal, he says, and he's sick of media interviews dwelling on his criminal past. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119252 * Israel espionage case points to new Net threat 10th, June, 2005 Executives of top telecom firms accused of spying on each other. A jealous ex-husband suspected of monitoring his former in-laws. Private investigators implicated in computer-hacking-for-hire; one now involved in a possible attempted suicide. So much bad publicity, government officials worry it might impact the entire nation's economy. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119282 * Cracking WEP in 10 minutes 8th, June, 2005 Yesterday I started noticing referral traffic from myscreencast.com, a phpbb-based community site for finding and sharing screencasts. The most entertaining one I found is called Cracking WEP in 10 minutes. It was produced with Camtasia, but the action takes place in Whoppix, which describes itself thusly. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119273 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Distributed by: Guardian Digital, Inc. 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