Linux Security Week - March 12th 2001

[newsletter-admins () linuxsecurity com]

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|  LinuxSecurity.com                         Weekly Newsletter        |
|  March 12th, 2001                           Volume 2, Number 11n    |
|                                                                     |
|  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, there are a few articles worth taking a look at.  "TCP
Wrappers: Part 2," "PortSentry and Snort Compared," and
"Deconstructing DoS attacks" will help in the improvement of network
security.  If you are interested in cryptography, you may want to
read "EU denies rumours NSA has broken its encryption system" and
"The opening of secrets: Crypto review."

Debian, Debian, Debian!  If your using Debian, its time to update.
13 Debian advisories were just recently released.  This week,
advisories were released for Zope, mail, mgetty, proftpd, sudo,
analog, ePerl, man2html, mc, nextaw, sgml-tools, glibc, slrn, joe,
and cups.  The vendors include Conectiva, Caldera, Debian, Mandrake,
Red Hat, SuSE, and Immunix.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/forums_article-2646.html


FREE SECURITY BOOKS Guardian Digital has just announced an offer for
free 2 free security books with the purchase of any secure Linux
Lockbox. The Lockbox is an Open Source network server appliance
engineered to be a complete secure e-business solution. It can be
used as a commerce server, web server, DNS, mail, and database
server. Please see Guardian Digital's website for details.

http://www.guardiandigital.com/bookoffer.html



HTML Version available:
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/newsletter.html


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| Host Security News: | <<-----[ Articles This Week ]-----------------+
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* TCP Wrappers: Part 2
March 7th, 2001

Last week, we had a look at the concept of TCP Wrappers from the
theoretical perspective. As we have already mentioned, TCP Wrappers
isn't meant to fulfill the security measures you would want for an
enterprise network. But it surely does fall into the greater scheme
of rule sets that would make up a comprehensive strategy to protect
an enterprise network. The author of TCP Wrappers mentions this
stating, that TCP Wrappers could be made use of along with a firewall
box on your corporate gateway with minimum services running. While
building a firewall, we suggest, that you pipe all the firewall
logging off the gateway.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/host_security_article-2627.html


* Ethical hacking: The network sentinels
March 5th, 2001

Ethical hacking? The term may sound like an oxymoron to many. But
with incidents of hacking on the rise, more and more companies now
turn to white hat hackers or ethical hackers to assess the security
vulnerability in their servers and internal networking system.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/general_article-2618.html



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| Network Security News: |
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* PortSentry and Snort Compared
March 11th, 2001

A brief description of port sentry and snort. "A port scan detector
that can be configured to bind to ports you want monitored, reporting
scans  made to these ports and optionally running a command to deal
with the scanning host (usually in  the form of routing that host to
a blackhole or adding a firewall rule dealing with said host)

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/intrusion_detection_article-2655.html


* Honeypots: Bait for the Cracker
March 8th, 2001

The Honeynet Project team, an invitation-only security group, has
been  working with the project, a network that exists only to allow
the team to  watch who cracks it, in order to determine what crackers
do and why they  do it. The team will soon publish a paper on their
research.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/intrusion_detection_article-2638.html


* 'Decoy nets' gain backers in battle against hackers
March 7th, 2001

This so-called "deception" network is envisioned  as more than just a
single server set up to be a "honeypot," where hackers may break in,
find a dead end and have their activities recorded with an eye
toward prosecution. Rather, the decoy net  is an entire fake network,
complete with host computers on a LAN with simulated traffic, to
convince hackers for as long as possible that it's real.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/intrusion_detection_article-2633.html


* Deconstructing DoS attacks
March 7th, 2001

Denial of service (DoS) attacks have  made headlines in the last year
by assaulting a  number of large and very successful companies. A
rash of hits roughly a year ago left the e-industry  aware of how
vulnerable it is. The recent attacks  against Microsoft are a
not-so-gentle reminder.  When large, smart companies, including the
likes  of Yahoo, Amazon, CNN, and Microsoft, fall  victim to DoS
attacks, can any of us feel safe? Why are successful companies, which
ought to  know better, seriously and publicly affected by attacks
perpetrated by less-than-brilliant hackers?  Finally, what can you do
to defend your site?

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/network_security_article-2632.html


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| Cryptography News:     |
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* EU denies rumours NSA has broken its encryption system
March 9th, 2001

Paranoia is alive and well at the European Union (EU) Commission,
which has been forced to officially deny its encryption system has
been compromised by the NSA  (National Security Agency).

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/cryptography_article-2653.html


* Seven-line program beats DVD crypto
March 8th, 2001

The Motion Picture Association of America is taking a closer look at
a seven-line Perl  script claimed by its authors to show just how
"trivial" DVD encryption really is.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/cryptography_article-2641.html


* The opening of secrets: Crypto review
March 8th, 2001

What are the roots of cryptography, and how has it evolved over the
last 30 years? In this month's Bill's Bookshelf, Bill Rosenblatt
reviews Steven Levy's new book on the history of public key
cryptography, and finds it to be a balanced and engaging work. There
are three types of books on cryptography and its related subjects,
security and  privacy.


http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/security_sources_article-2642.html



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| Vendors/Products:      |
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* Uncovering the secrets of SE Linux: Part 1
March 9th, 2001

In an uncharacteristic move, the U.S. National Security Agency
recently released a  security-enhanced version of Linux -- code and
all -- to the open source community. This  dW-exclusive article takes
a first look at this unexpected development -- what it means and
what's to  come -- and delves into the architecture of SE Linux.


http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/server_security_article-2647.html


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| General News:          |
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* Advance notice of Web site warning may have helped block attacks
March 9th, 2001

Early warnings issued by the FBI to four vertical-industry groups
about the continuing threat of Web site break-ins by Eastern European
organized  crime groups may have helped block thousands of copycat
attacks against banks  and other companies doing business online,
according to security analysts.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/network_security_article-2652.html


* Wireless: The Next Battle In Privacy
March 9th, 2001

Privacy has been a hot issue in Washington and elsewhere for some
time now, and anyone familiar with  political trends could be
forgiven for assuming the public  spotlight will quickly find some
new hot-button issue.  But not so, according to Forrester and its
report on  "Surviving The Privacy Revolution."

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/privacy_article-2649.html

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