Jay Beale On Overcoming Linux Security Holes

alpinista writes "Sorry, Redmond; according to Jay Beale, it's not yet time to throw away all those pesky insecure Linux boxes. Newsforge interviewed Jay and got some pretty straight talk from a guy that knows more that his share about OS security. In a nutshell: 'Beale's take on how you can make your system more secure, on the Linux vs. Windows security debate, and on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's impact on security testing.'"

Comments

Bastille Linux

[agnosonga]

Linux.com: What's going on with Bastille Linux right now? Where's the project at?

Beale: Well, for readers who don't know, Bastille Linux is a hardening program. Basically, it's a tool that increases the security of a system in every way that we've thought to automate. This includes steps like reconfiguring DNS, Web, FTP and Mail servers for better security, but also includes single-machine or single network firewalls and port scan detection tools.

Now, our most recent piece of good news is that we're officially supporting HP-UX, making our name just slightly inaccurate. Then again, we probably started that trend a few years ago, naming ourselves after a defeated French jail!

you can get it here

Correctness

[norwoodites]

Why do people do not stop for a second and audit their code for correctness, like what the OpenBSD people have been doing?
Correctness will make security holes be very few and far in between.
Also the more eyes the better because someone can spot one problem somewhere that another would not spot.
I think for the linux kernel 2.8, correctness should be a priority. Also for glibc 2.4, and all other project's next version which should include Mozilla.

Re:A few facts about Microsoft's OS may help.

[duffbeer703]

That article is full of FUD and very misleading.

Suggesting that Windows XP is awful because it is easy to change a user's password if you have physical access is absurd. Has the dope who wrote this every head of "single-user mode" in Unix?

Similarly is the statement criticizing MS for not supporting ghosted system images without sysprep. If you do not use sysprep, the ghosted systems will have the same SID, which opens you up to all sorts of security vulnerabilites.

Microsoft is a shitty company, which plenty of legimate practices to criticize. If you need to use FUD when knocking Windows XP, you need to pursue a new line of work.

another expert on OS security

[belbo]

Security Expert Gives Operating Systems Poor Security Grade

Favourite quote: "Windows is awful, but well, so is Linux."

b.