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Re: [Wlug] Vunerable Machine

by Tom Guilderson

Marc Hughes wrote: > > It's not my box, so I need to be sensitive of the office politics so > no one says something like, "Well, since we can't secure linux, NO MORE > LINUX" > > h4x0rs? And I guess an even bigger concern is the office politics > things. How do I bring this to the big-wigs in a "good" light? Rather that highlight that you think the box may have been compromised (because if it has it may be too late, but since the box has been running for some time it will likely continue to run for another week or two), the best approach is likely to indicate that it is time to update the software on the box; indicate that there are updated versions of the SMTP and POP servers availabe at no cost to your company. Also mention that there are also some other tools that could be installed to improve security. Don't raise what could be a false alarm by saying that the box is completely unsafe and should be immediately pulled from the network (then all MS Windows IIS boxes should be pulled according to Gartner who has been accused of being in bed with Redmond at times). Since you have more familiarity with Linux than the current maintainer - offer to head up the effort and put together a small project plan including the transition and training of the webmaster (make your life easier later by spending the time now to train the webmaster and put together some simple easy to use documentation)(not knowing your environment that could be as simple as a todo list on a napkin to a detailed plan with impact checklists etc). Rather than highlight the security holes that you know exist - HIGHLIGHT THE IMPROVEMENTS YOU WILL BE MAKING AND THE IMPROVED SECURITY YOU WILL BE PUTTING IN PLACE. Avoid getting overly technical, use simple easy to understand arguments that highlight the benefits of your proposed improvments. Make sure that the "group" taht owns the machine feels you are helping them, and not taking over for them. You need to make sure that they still feel that they are in control. You need to remain calm and show confidence in the previous choice in using Linux and use this as an oppurtunity to show the support the open source community provides with the constant improvements that are made to open source software. Also insure that you get the webmaster checking the CERT advisories for the software exposed (another reason you need good docs with version and basic config of sendmail etc.). Another great thing is that you can show that the company will not have to outlay any cash - since the software is free. They will have the time to update the software - but think about the time to update if you were running exchange on nt? Either way that is a given. Use the opportunity to highlight the benefits of open source, not the dangers of the internet! Best of luck!

Oct. 6, 2001

Re: [Wlug] Email reader...

by Skip Gaede

On Friday 05 October 2001 05:16 pm, Stephen C. Daukas wrote: > Well, as it turns out, the version of KMail that comes with RH 7.1 is > threaded, and very different from the version included with RH 6.2. So > far, a pretty good mailer... Still interested in your recommendations! The one with KDE 2.2.1 is even better!

Oct. 6, 2001

Re: [Wlug] RedHat Apps CD

by Charles R . Anderson

On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 05:54:29PM -0400, Bill Mills-Curran wrote: subssn594> I'm trying to burn a CD from the RedHat 7.1 distro. However the CD has a subssn594> bunch of hardlinked files that, if the files get copied as duplicates subssn594> instead of hardlinks, makes the CD too big. The mkisofs command generates subssn594> copies. I'm going to try to mount the iso image file and manipulate it subssn594> manually, but I don't know if this is right. You can't mount an ISO image file read/write and manipulate it. Are you building an ISO image from a directory tree full of files, or did you get the ISO file directly from an FTP site? Usually getting the original ISO is the best way to do things, so you get an exact replica of the original CD. If you are copying a physical CD, the best way is just like this: cdrecord -v dev=/dev/sgc speed=4 /dev/scd0 assuming /dev/scd0 contains the source CD and /dev/sgc is the CD writer device. Set the speed to only as fast as the source CD drive is. If you only have one CD-ROM drive, this obviously won't work, so you would need to 'dd' the image to disk first: dd if=/dev/scd0 of=rh71apps.iso then cdrecord that file. -- Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886

Oct. 5, 2001

RedHat Apps CD

by Bill Mills-Curran

I'm trying to burn a CD from the RedHat 7.1 distro. However the CD has a bunch of hardlinked files that, if the files get copied as duplicates instead of hardlinks, makes the CD too big. The mkisofs command generates copies. I'm going to try to mount the iso image file and manipulate it manually, but I don't know if this is right. Suggestions? Thanks, Bill

Oct. 5, 2001

Re: [Wlug] Vunerable Machine

by Brian J. Conway

> Anyone have a favorite graphical threaded email reader that supports multiple > POPs and/or IMAP? About 6 months ago I stumbled across an awesome GTK+ mail/news reader very similar in look to Netscape Messenger (and far superior to XFMail) called Sylpheed (http://sylpheed.good-day.net/) It'll handle as many accounts as you want, supports threading and image view through gdk-pixbuf, is extremely fast (and decently configurable), and I've never had it crash on me. Some distributions are starting to pick it up now, and it's included in Mandrake 8.1, though I usually compile myself from source. I'd suggest giving it a look if it's an X app you're looking for. Brian J. Conway dogbert(a)clue4all.net "LINUX is obsolete" - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix - Jan 29, 1992

Oct. 5, 2001

Email reader...

by Stephen C. Daukas

Well, as it turns out, the version of KMail that comes with RH 7.1 is threaded, and very different from the version included with RH 6.2. So far, a pretty good mailer... Still interested in your recommendations! -- Stephen C. Daukas stephen(a)daukas.com (508) 845-9809 - Home (508) 845-5015 - Fax (508) 612-2149 - Mobile

Oct. 5, 2001

Re: [Wlug] Vunerable Machine

by ccb＠acm.org

If this is a RedHat machine, run rpm -V. Some h4x0rs know how to hack the databases, but it may still catch some nasty stuff. ccb

Oct. 5, 2001

email (was Vunerable Machine)

by Bill Mills-Curran

On Fri, 5 Oct 2001, Stephen C. Daukas wrote: <snip> > Anyone have a favorite graphical threaded email reader that supports multiple > POPs and/or IMAP? > <snip> I'm partial to fetchmail for delivering email from multiple sources to my machine. You can take your pick of the actual reader. I prefer pine, because, although it's not fancy, it does a lot of things right. Bill

Oct. 5, 2001

RE: [Wlug] Vunerable Machine

by Stephen C. Daukas

OK - another is a series of product recomendation questions... Anyone have a favorite graphical threaded email reader that supports multiple POPs and/or IMAP? This, of course, excludes Netscape (can't have multiple POPs nor a mix of POP and IMAP accounts). I'm currently using the KDE mail app that comes with RedHat 6.2 (will be upgrading to RH 7.1 in about 10 minutes), but it isn't exactly stellar... You can't do much of anything while it cheks for new mail, and it isn't threaded. Regards, Steve ______________________________ Stephen C. Daukas stephen(a)daukas.com (508) 845-9809 - Home (508) 845-5015 - Fax (508) 612-2149 - Mobile

Oct. 5, 2001

RE: [Wlug] Vunerable Machine

by Long, Mike

If you can determine that the machine has not been hacked then you could bring up the security holes you found to the big-wigs in the following way. The decision to use Linux was a very good one. Machine X was configured in a way that left it vulnerable to being compromised. However, because it is a Linux box and not a windows box it has not been compromised so far. The techniques for compromising a Linux server are more complex than those used to compromise a windows server. Since the tools for securing a Linux server are much more robust than those used to secure a windows server it will be virtually impossible to compromise the companies network through this server once it has been properly configured. A little spin can go a long way. :) Mike -----Original Message----- From: Marc Hughes [mailto:hughesm@tomsnyder.com] Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 1:53 PM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Subject: RE: [Wlug] Vunerable Machine On Fri, 2001-10-05 at 13:40, Keller, Tim wrote: > step 1: Change the root password Done > step 2: Remove all those "holy" services Done > step 3: Install SSH Still have to do ... getting weird library conflicts > step 4: Firewall the machine so that it only accepts SMTP traffic from the > outside world and SSH traffic from a couple of specific addresses TODO > step 5: Use a tool like tripwire to make a snapshot, wait a week, rerun it > again and see if anything changes. > Good, but still, how do I tell if it's already been rooted by 3l33t h4x0rs? And I guess an even bigger concern is the office politics things. How do I bring this to the big-wigs in a "good" light? _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Oct. 5, 2001