Linux security »
With the power and flexibility of Unix and Unix variants like Linux come many potential security holes. To limit the vulnerability of your workstation as well as that of the system, please read the following suggestions and apply the patches appropriate to your particular version of Linux.
- General Advice
- Unnecessary Services
- Allowing Access to Your Workstation
- Useful Tools
- Mailing Lists
- Linux Security Links
General Advice
- Use a current version of your version of Linux. For example, Red Hat 5.1 is known to be particularly favored by hackers.
- Apply security patches as soon as they become available. As soon as a vulnerability becomes known, attack kits are posted on the Internet to take advantage of it.
- Turn off services you don't need. Most versions of Linux come with preconfigured options enabled for things that most people never use. Many of these are popular targets for attack.
- Look into available tools to prevent break-ins to your workstation.
- Subscribe to a mailing list to be notified when security holes are found as well as when patches become available.
- Keep track of your logs for repeated access attempt or other unusual activity. For RedHat releases, you should check
/var/adm/messages,/var/adm/syslog, etc. and for Debian releases you should check/var/log'sauth.log,daemon.log, andmessages.
