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Missing Open Source Security Tools?

Posted by simoniker on from the swiss-army-knife dept.

Kinetic writes "There are many great open source security tools out there, Nmap, Nessus, and DSniff, just to name a few. However, with the world of security constantly changing, this begs the question, what open source security tools are missing? What commercial security tools have no viable open source alternatives? When securing/testing/exploring networks (home or enterprise), what security tools/applications/functionality are lacking (or non-existent) in the open source world?"

22 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Open source security tools are missing.. security holes?

    1. Re:Security by daeley · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bob: Looks like you've been missing a lot of security holes lately.

      Peter: Well, I wouldn't exactly say I've been *missing* them, Bob.

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  2. Self Defending Networks? by Neil+Blender · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, wait, you probably mean stuff that actually works.

    1. Re:Self Defending Networks? by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You think this is funny. Let me tell you a little story.

      I just took this past spring a course in "Network Security". The teacher got hold of a DARPA video on computer security and played it for us at one class session.

      You wouldn't believe this crap. The scenario was a country suspiciously similar to Iraq who set up a computer center with a bunch of Arab terrorist hackers and tried to drop America's infrastructure.

      So, of course, the brilliant and utterly boring (all these people looked like crew-cutted Republicans, it was unbelievable) used all sort of "cutting-edge technology" (that doesn't exist and won't for another two or three decades) to defeat the evil Arabs. It ended with them tracking the evil Arabs to their lair and a bunch of Special Forces guys busting in and shooting up the place (DIE, EVIL HACKERS! DIE!).

      The tech they showed involved a lot of voice-command and voice-response computer systems, all sorts of fancy graphics stuff, and of course something very much like Total Information Awareness that allowed them to know who everybody was no matter who the hell they were. They also had the ability to search out the source of any virus or hacker penetration in minutes and then commandeer the entire US infrastructure to repel the attack.

      Utter bullshit - and I told the teacher so at the end of the video.

      This was a DARPA "wish-list" video with absolutely no relevance to current computer security technology.

      At the end of the semester, I demo'd the Knoppix STD (Security Tools Distribution) to the class. One student asked if this stuff was "all command line". I said, well, it's all servers, and the servers all run UNIX, and servers usually are administered from the command line, so, yes, most of the tools (except for stuff like Ethereal and Nessus) was command line.

      It's a long way from there to DARPA's fantasy land.

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  3. Your favorite tools by TLouden · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Also important, if you don't think anything is missing, or even if you do, what software do you use for security purposes? Anything obscure but useful or unusual uses of common software?

    --
    -Tim Louden
    1. Re:Your favorite tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wrote this little app in C++ (so it's very efficient) that pops up a box every 5 minutes saying "all is well", regardless of what the relationship of that message to reality. Makes me feel very secure.

    2. Re:Your favorite tools by Lancer · · Score: 5, Informative
      My favorite tool?

      knoppix-std

      Most every security tool a network admin (or script kiddie) could want in a convenient iso package.

      --
      Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
    3. Re:Your favorite tools by alecthomas · · Score: 5, Informative

      A more appropriate tool might be linux-vserver, which lets you assign each virtual server its own disk quota, process space and IP addresses.

  4. SIMS by WwWonka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...what security tools/applications/functionality are lacking (or non-existent) in the open source world?

    How about an open source Security Information Management System (SIMS) Description, Article .

    Something that lets us intergrate, collect, and correlate what the other great tools (Nessus, Snort, Nmap) find.

    1. Re:SIMS by gfunicus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Have a look here... http://www.ossim.net/

      --
      It's better to regret something you have done that to regret something you haven't done.
    2. Re:SIMS by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Obviously you don't do security for a large network.

      No, no. That's not how it goes. If you take that approach people are likely to take it as a personal attack rather than a reasoned argument. To avoid such confusion it's best to proceed like this:

      I ask, "Pipes and regular expressions?" (you dropped my question mark and replaced it with a period)

      Then you say, "No, that won't do it, because. . . (and then you insert your argument here)

      Otherwise people might think you're just being a jerk.

      Now, I don't necessarily mind if people here and there think I'm being an intellectual jerk, or even an ignorant jerk (because, Lord knows, now and again I am an ignorant jerk), but I might feel bad if someone considered me just a jerk. So I can empathize with you being in a position where someone might think that of you.

      Sure, that's like saying a magnifying glass can be used to find your lost class ring in the playground. Sure it will work, but extreme under-kill and a waste of time.

      Wouldn't it be great if you could use pipes and regular expressions to find lost things? That would be sooooooooooo sweet, because (this is where I insert my argument) they're like a perfect multi-lens device of infinately variable focal length and aperature, hooked up to a spectrograph , a mass spectrograph, a lath, a mill, a tap and die set, a forge, a. . .

      So there you are, in a playground in Central Park, NYC, and you suddenly realize your class ring is missing. You aren't sure where you lost it either. Let's say you know it had to be someplace on Manhatten. You zoom the lens out to encompass Manhatten, set the aperature appropriately, and turn on the spectrograph.

      Then ask it to show you all the rings. And it does!

      "Oh, shit," you say to yourself. "Look, only show me the rings with a garnet in them."

      No, that didn't do it, there's still a pile of them too big to go through. Ok, how about all the gold rings with a garnet? Gold rings with a Garnet from the High School of the Performing Arts? Damn, that many? Ok, how about one of those ,but with that little scratch on the side with '58 Porsche grease in it?

      Bingo! There it is in a cab up in East Harlem.

      See? Not like a magnifying glass at all, but an entire suite of logical tools and set theory manipulators that can be combined in any way that suits your fancy to return any logical result you want.

      I was once having dinner with some friends and one of them, who happens to be a network tech, asked one who happens to be a professor of Chemistry, "Why has Organic Chemistry effectively become a required course for a medical degree? Does a doctor really need to know Organic Chemistry? What would they possible actually use it for?"

      The Chemistry professor responded, "Well, a biochemist would obviously need and use Organic Chemistry, but if you just mean a practicing medical doctor, no, they don't need it and will never use it."

      "Well," asked the net tech, " why do you make them learn it then?"

      "We don't make them learn it to learn Organic Chem." replied the professor. " We make them learn it to learn deductive reasoning in a domain of applied set theory. It's to teach them diagnosis."

      And network security is a diagnostic field requiring deductive reasoning in a domain of applied set theory.

      Maybe we should make CS majors take Organic Chemistry.

      Or maybe we should just make them take math with a certain focus on logic and set theory and apply same against the computer (a mathmatical logic machine) network. Then maybe they could use general purpose logical tools to construct their own specific case tools, instead of being restricted to the domain of premade tools that often don't even fit their network situation (since every large network is unique in its structure and logic, and thus no outsider can know the sets, or the possible set of logical prepositions).

      KFG

  5. Sniffer Pro by Nonesuch · · Score: 5, Informative
    Sniffer Pro has features which neither "ntop" nor "ethereal" come anywhere near, both in the realtime monitoring of traffic and also in some of the "expert" functionality.

    I've yet to find an open source tool that can show a "matrix" graph of source and destination talkers by MAC/IP/IPX name in realtime as found in Sniffer. Other tools show some of this information, but do not render the same graphical display (chords of a circle) as Sniffer.

    With ethereal there's to do this with snapshots using graphviz, but not realtime...

    --

    I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
    1. Re:Sniffer Pro by pkey · · Score: 5, Informative

      If I'm understanding what you're looking for (I've never seen Sniffer Pro in action), I think EtherApe might do it. It hasn't been updated since January of 2003, but the current version works fine for me.

  6. Re:So.... by RealAlaskan · · Score: 5, Funny
    The best stuff comes when you're scratching your own itch.

    If you're a programmer with an itch, may I recommend a bath? Follow that up with a visit to a dermatologist, if necessary.

    And for goodness sake, don't scratch other folk's itches! You'll spread all kinds of nasty stuff that way.

    --
    See what I've been reading.
  7. There are open security methodologies and tools! by bandrzej · · Score: 5, Informative
    Sheez, post something of importance, and get a bunch of smart ass flack.

    If you are looking for a proven open standard methodology for performing security tests, then Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual (OSSTMM) is the way to go.

    In addition, there is the linux distro of Trinux, which includes most of the common linux open source security auditing tools.

    --

    LainTheWired = isgod( int Lain, int denial, float truth)

  8. Re:Open source virus scanners by Mc+Fly · · Score: 5, Informative

    Duh.
    Dude, you should see clamav, a full opensource antivirus for Linux, FreeBSD and even Windows, which integrates nicely with virtually every mailer out there.

    --
    He is the Path, the Truth and the Life
  9. Give me reporting tools! by Bubblehead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am constantly trying to improve the security of my home network, and the available tools are pretty powerful. My biggest problem has been to find powerful reporting tools. I use iptables as a firewall, tripwire for intrusion detection, etc. But it's not always easy to see what's going on in the system. Tripwire produces decent reports; but there is no easy way (afaik) to get a list of intrusion attempts, network traffic, port scans, etc. Sure, the information is in the logs - but the log information is hard to parse and often not as complete as it should be.

    --
    Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  10. Network Forensics by mplex · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This probably is a very good project for the opensource community, but it sure would be cool. I want to see an opensource version of the old SilentRunner product, now carried by Computer Associates.

    eTrustTM Network Forensics captures raw network data and uses advanced forensics analysis to identify how business assets are affected by network exploits, internal data theft, and security or HR policy violations. Its patented technology allows IT and security staff to visualize network activity, uncover anomalous traffic and investigate breaches with a single, convenient solution.

    http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=4856
  11. Re:Open source virus scanners by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Informative
    What about ClamAV or OpenAntivirus or a lot in the same league?

    There are also a lot of integrity checkings tools, that if well don't count as "antivirus", at least they report changes that could mean something nasty running, and not to forget things like chkrootkit.

  12. user by scrotch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's one I just thought of. Maybe it's been made, and maybe 16,000 people will point out why it isn't necessary or that it's built into find or emacs or something. Here goes anyway:

    Write an app that takes a username as input and shows me all the files/directories that user can read or edit or execute. If I run it as root, it shows me All files. If run as me under my account, all of my files that that user could play with. For example:
    shell% sudo fileSecurityCheck -www /
    will show me all files that are deleted when my webserver gets hacked.

  13. Knopix STD all the security all the time by phreak03 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Get Knopix STD (always a copy in my backpack) A live linux distro aimed at security with up to date packages for the following areas (From the Knopix STD site) http://www.knoppix-std.org/ * authentication * encryption * forensics * firewall * honeypot * ids * network utilities * password tools * servers * packet sniffers * tcp tools * tunnels * vulnerability assessment * wireless tools Turn it into a firewall, a web server, an IDS box, a honeypot. Use it to do data recovery on an dead or locked computer, perform a vulnerability assessment, a penetration test, perform an autopsy on a compromised machine, test your incident response team. Listen to your MP3 collection and play gnugo while waiting for that nessus scan to complete.

    --
    come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
  14. Re:Open source virus scanners by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Virus scanners are for people who want to leave security holes open and then get information about the damage.

    No, they're for the people who don't trust that every security hole is known of first by the white-hats.

    Is your system secure? Are you sure? What abotu 5 minutes before you applied that last ssh update? Wouldn't a virus / trojan / root kit scanner give you one more level of assurance?