Linux Security Week - February 23rd 2004

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

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|  LinuxSecurity.com                            Weekly Newsletter     |
|  February 23rd, 2004                            Volume 5, Number 8n |
|                                                                     |
|  Editorial Team:  Dave Wreski             dave () linuxsecurity com    |
|                   Benjamin Thomas         ben () linuxsecurity com     |
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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 headlines.

This week, perhaps the most interesting articles include "A practical
approach for defeating Nmap OS-Fingerprinting," "SSL vs. IPsec: Which Is
Right For Your VPN," and "Sniffing Switched Networks."

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LINUX ADVISORY WATCH:
This week, advisories were released for gnupg, kernel, mc, mutt, slocate,
XFree86, gaim, freeradius, samba, phpMyAdmin, clamav, mailman, metamail,
racoon, shmat, OpenSSL, and PWLib.  The distributors include Debian,
Fedora, Gentoo, Immunix, Mandrake, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Red Hat, Slackware,
SuSE, Trustix, and Turbolinux.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/forums_article-8940.html

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Interview with Vincenzo Ciaglia, Founder of Netwosix - In this article, a
brief introduction of Netwosix is given and the project founder Vincenzo
Ciaglia is interviewed.  Netwosix is light Linux distribution for system
administrators and advanced users.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-160.html

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Guardian Digital Launches Next Generation EnGarde Secure Linux

Guardian Digital, Inc., the world's premier open source security company,
announced an update to the next generation, award-winning platform that
delivers features designed to ease the process of building a complete
Internet presence and the level of security necessary to prevent system
compromise. EnGarde Secure Linux leverages the best open source
applications available to provide secure Internet connectivity, user
privacy, Web and email functions, and intrusion detection.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-159.html


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| Host Security News: | <<-----[ Articles This Week ]----------
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* Linux Kernel Flaws Uncovered
February 21st, 2004

Security researchers are warning of potentially serious vulnerabilities in
the Linux kernel that could allow malicious hackers to gain full
super-user privileges.  The vulnerability affects the 2.6.x branch prior
to version 2.6.3 and the Linux kernel memory management code.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/host_security_article-8947.html


* A practical approach for defeating Nmap OS-Fingerprinting
February 20th, 2004

In my opinion, it's pretty clear that we can't rely on only one security
tool to remotely guess the Operating System. This paper has shown that
it's very easy to fool Nmap (and other similar tools) when trying to
profile a remote device, and that all those attempts can be properly
logged by the remote administrator.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/documentation_article-8941.html


* Linux serves up triple threat
February 20th, 2004

Three separate security flaws could be used by an ordinary user to gain
total control of a Linux server or workstation, security researchers have
warned.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/host_security_article-8945.html


* Another security hole found in Linux kernel
February 19th, 2004

A second serious vulnerability in the mremap system call found in the
Linux kernel was discovered Wednesday and enterprises are urged to
immediately update to new versions of the kernel or apply patches from
their distributor.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/host_security_article-8935.html


* Dealing With The End Of Life Of Red Hat Linux 7.x, 8.0 and 9
February 18th, 2004

Red Hat Linux versions 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 hit their end of life
December 31, 2003. Red Hat Linux version 9 hits end of life on April 30,
2004. As you are reading this paper on or after January 1st, 2004 the
support for Red Hat Linux 7.x and 8.0 is already ended.


http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/host_security_article-8932.html


* The Os-Hids Project
February 18th, 2004

OsHids is an Open Source software that analyzes your log files and take
some actions if it founds something malicious. The OsHids can be run on
"Real-time", as a daemon, or you can execute it using crontab.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/intrusion_detection_article-8927.html

* Using GnuPG, Part I
February 17th, 2004

In today's world, communication has broken all previous time and distance
limits. Now you can talk with someone in real-time no matter how far away
he is. That advantage has also brought some major problems with itself.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/cryptography_article-8921.html



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| Network Security News: |
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* SSL vs. IPsec: Which Is Right For Your VPN?
February 17th, 2004

Dave Wreski, CEO of Guardian Digital, says "Guardian Digital customers
implement IPsec VPNs for connecting their branch offices and critical
internal systems and SSL VPNs as an option for mobile users." Wreski is
the author of much of the authoritative documentation on Linux security.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/network_security_article-8922.html


* WiFi Opens Doors For Crooks, Identity Thieves
February 16th, 2004

Wireless technology is exploding in popularity. But as KIRO 7 Eyewitness
News Consumer Investigator Wayne Havrelly discovered, high-tech criminals
love it even more than you do.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/network_security_article-8918.html


* Sniffing Switched Networks
February 16th, 2004

You are probably familiar with how easy it is to sniff traffic on a shared
network and how traffic is sent. But I will explain a bit about how a hub
works on a shared network as an introduction anyway.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/network_security_article-8915.html



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| General Security News: |
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* Linux servers 'attacked more often'
February 20th, 2004

Linux advocates often take pride in the operating system being more secure
than Windows but this claim may have attracted unwanted attention from the
hacking community.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/server_security_article-8944.html


* Information Security & Negligence
February 20th, 2004

Numerous recommendations since September 11, 2001 have been published on
the evils of negligence relative to protecting one's assets (cyber &
physical). In light of the articles, references, statutes, case laws and
other relevant pieces of this puzzle, how do you physically "prove"
negligence versus the common business practice of risk management?

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/general_article-8939.html


* Leak An Experiment in Open Source?
February 19th, 2004

But for those who do, including plenty of people in peer-to-peer networks
and in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) rooms worldwide, the 660 MB file
containing the code is essentially open source material.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/forums_article-8933.html


* CSO Magazine and CERT Security Capability Model
February 19th, 2004

The model is organized into four topic areas -- Risk
Assessment/Management, Management and Policy, System and Network
Management, and Physical Security. Questions within each practice topic
area are listed in the recommended order for moving from least capable to
more capable.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/general_article-8934.html

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