Real-world Linux Security: Intrusion, Prevention, Detection, and Recovery

Bob Toxen

Jan 2001 · Prentice Hall Professional

About this ebook

Cracker attacks are costing leading e-Businesses millions -- and spotlighting the dangers intruders pose to every participant in the new dot-com economy. If you rely on Linux, this is your systematic, comprehensive guide to protecting yourself. Security guru Bob Toxen uses real-world case studies from his own consulting career to show exactly how network and Internet security breaches can happen, what they look like when they do happen, and what you must do now to prevent them. The book is organized into four sections: securing your system, preparing for an intrusion, detecting an intrusion, and recovering from an intrusion. Toxen even provides at-a-glance icons and tables rating the severity and likelihood of each type of attack. Along the way, you'll learn how to configure systems so they alter themselves to lock out a cracker -- and notify the sysadmin immediately -- at the first sign of attack. You'll discover virtually cracker-proof techniques for protecting credit card databases, even if your web server and network are compromised. Toxen also presents 100+ pages of techniques for ensuring that, if a break-in does occur, damage will be minimal and a full recovery can happen fast. The accompanying CD-ROM includes a complete Linux security software library -- including powerful tools written by the author to detect cracker servers, and identify running cracker programs, even if they've been deleted from disk.

About the author

Bob Toxen has over 26 years of UNIX & Linux experience. He was a developer of the original Berkeley Unix, and one of four responsible for porting Unix to SGI hardware -- kernel hacking a C2-compliant secure Unix system. Formerly Unix sysadmin for one of the world's largest shipping companies, he also architected the server that controls one of today's leading network disk appliances.