Snort mailing list archives

RE: System hardening


From: twig les <twigles () yahoo com>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 12:25:46 -0700 (PDT)

Have you checked out the Solaris hardening guide from SANS?
https://store.sans.org//store_category.php?category=consguides

I have it and it helps me out.  I know BSD pretty well but I am
a royal moron when it comes to Solaris.  Doesn't cover Solaris 9
though.

--- "James R. Hendrick" <hendrick () keane-nne com> wrote:
Have to jump in here..

Stop-A or EEPROM passwords are important only to guard against
people with physical access.

If your system is in a restricted access area, they might not
help much.

I would suggest following the advice of "Google for it" and
find several references on hardening UNIX in general and
Solaris in particular. 

The system needs to be looked at in terms of required services
vs. risk. 

Think about what needs to be running on the system:
- snort and its related programs
- a way to access the system (local terminal)
- a way to access the system remotely ?
- time service (so that the timestamps in the sensor logs
actually mean something)

Other than that, you should look at disabling as much as
possible. The inetd is a good place to start. The startup
scripts are another good place to look.

Learn to check the output from "netstat" to see what network
services your computer is providing.
Look at the output from "ps" to see what programs are running.

Think small. If you don't know what it is, find out. If you
don't need it, find out how to disable it.

Please take a bit of time and research this before you start
implementing. 

Make backups or be prepared to re-install from media. (not a
bad thing to do anyway. You can often get a more secure system
by installing a minimal set of packages. You may need to do
this a few times to get to the "right" set. For example, you
may not need any development tools if you can build software
on another compatible system. If a system does not have
libraries or compilers, it is less useful for many attackers.
If you don't need a graphical environment, even better.
X-windows and display managers are often too eager to allow
remote connections. If you can do without them for your snort
box, great.


Good luck.

Jim



-----Original Message-----
From: Slighter, Tim [mailto:tslighter () itc nrcs usda gov]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 11:18 AM
To: 'John Creegan'; snort-users () lists sourceforge net
Subject: RE: [Snort-users] System hardening


There are many hardening techniques that can be implemented
aside from
Yassp.  This of course all depends upon one's definition of
a 
secure system
as well as any mandated security requirements or criteria as

specified by a
security policy or practice within their organization.  If
you are
attempting this more along the lines of Ad-hoc, then just
run a google
search on how to secure a Solaris system.  Primarily the 
first items that
should be done is to disable the STOP-A capability.  Locate
the
/etc/default/kbd file and make sure that the KEYBOARD_ABORT
is set to
disable.  Then set yourself with EEPROM security and
password 
to prevent
unauthorized booting or EEPROM changes to the system.  Do 
this as follows
from a C shell:

setenv security-mode full
setenv security-password *******

Make sure that you never forget this EEPROM password or you 
will have to
call SUN to have them come out and replace the EEPROM.

My next recommendations would be to eliminate any
unnecessary 
packages such
as TFTP, FTP, etc using "pkgrm" and then onto the services
in 
/etc/rc2.d and
/etc/rc3.d...especially NFS.  Assuming that no remote 
connection access will
be required to this system, use an empty /etc/inetd.conf
file 
and chmod 400
this file and kill -HUP inetd.  Check your
/etc/default/login file and
disallow root console login by changing the line 
CONSOLE=/dev/console to
CONSOLE= whereby only normal users can log onto the system 
and either must
SU or issue command via SUDO (providing that package has
been 
installed and
configured).  Essentially, your netstat -a should yield no 
listening ports.
That would be a decent starting point but there a many more 
security steps
that can be implemented.  

-----Original Message-----
From: John Creegan [mailto:jcreegan () questarweb com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 8:28 AM
To: snort-users () lists sourceforge net
Subject: [Snort-users] System hardening


I've got the basic snort and reporting systems up and
running (snort,
ACID, MySQL) and I'm ready to turn my attention to 
protecting/hardening
my system (Solaris 8 on SPARC) before I do any more with
snort
(barnyard, oinkmaster, etc.)

I'm looking at a tool (yassp) for going beyond the system
hardening
described in the docs.  I can't find any mention of it (so
far) in the
archives, FAQ or the recommended three books.  Yassp seems a
bit old. 
It may work well for Solaris 8, but it appears there's been
no recent
support for it.

Does anyone think it's worth hardening a system so much? 
I've already
got tripwire running but that, to me, is a reactive
approach.  I'd
rather prevent someone from changing my system files than to
know they
already did it.

I'm aware that unless I proceed carefully I can make the 
system useless
for its intended purpose, running snort.


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