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  • Ask the Readers: How Do You Monitor Your Computer?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Beneath the shiny case of your computer and GUI of your operating system there’s a lot–CPU utilization, memory access, and disk space consumption to name a few things–you can keep an eye on. How do you keep an eye on resource utilization and more on your computer? Image available as wallpaper here. Whether you’re carefully managing a small pool of RAM, making sure your abundant apps don’t bog down your processor, or you just like having an intimate view of what’s going on in the guts of your computer, we want to hear all about the tools you use to do it. How and why do you monitor your computer? From disk use to case temps, any kind of monitoring is fair game. Sound off in the comments with the how and why of your monitoring arrangement and then be sure to stop back in on Friday for the What You Said roundup to see what tricks and tools your fellow readers are using to keep an eye on their hardware. HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works HTG Explains: Why Deleted Files Can Be Recovered and How You Can Prevent It HTG Explains: What Are the Sys Rq, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break Keys on My Keyboard?

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  • What is the program "Additional Drivers" (jockey-gtk) talking me about?

    - by Robert Vila
    The program says: "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system" But it doesn't say if it is talking about graphical drivers only or what. Then, it lists two drivers: NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 173). NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version current) [recomended] Both have exactly the same description. What is the difference then? When I select the 1st one, it says: "This river is not activated",and there's a button to "activate" it. When I select the 2nd one, it says: "This river is activated but it is not currently in use", and the button is to "remove". So which one is in use? Why or what for should I have activated (enabled) and not in use? If it is in use it is activated? What is the difference between activate and remove? and what is the relationship between installed, activated, in use, enabled and removed, disabled, inactive and not-installed? Why can I activate the inactivated and remove (but not deactivate) the activated that is not in use? All this is very puzzling... What other drivers can I use for an Apple MacBook pro 3,1 and how? I see that there's a nouveau and I heard that there was going to be a new open source even better. > -display > description: VGA compatible controller > product: G84 [GeForce 8600M GT] > vendor: nVidia Corporation

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  • Does it make sense to write build scripts in C++?

    - by Klaim
    I'm using CMake to generate my projects IDE/makefiles, but I still need to call custom "scripts" to manipulate my compiled files or even generate code. In previous projects I've been using Python and it was OK, but now I'm having serious trouble managing a lot of dependencies in two very big projects I'm working on so I want to minimize the dependencies everywhere. Someone suggested to me to use C++ to write my build scripts instead of adding a language dependency just for that. The projects themeselves already use C++ so there are several advantages that I can see: to build the whole project, only a C++ compiler and CMake would be necessary, nothing else (all the other dependencies are C or C++); C++ type safety (when using modern C++) makes everything easier to get "correct"; it's also the language I know the better so I'm more at ease with it even if I'm able to write some good Python code; potential gain in execution speed (but i don't think it will really be perceptible); However, I think there might be some drawbacks and I'm not sure of the real impact as I didn't try yet: might be longer to write the code (that said I'm not sure because I'm efficient enough in C++ to write something that work quickly, so maybe for this system it wouldn't be so long to write) (compilation time shouldn't be a problem for this case); I must assume that all the text files I'll read as input are in UTF-8, I'm not sure it can be easilly checked at runtime in C++ and the language will not check it for you; libraries in C++ are harder to manage than in scripting languages; I lack experience and forsight so maybe I'm missing advantages and drawbacks. So the question is: does it make sense to use C++ for this? do you have experiences to report and do you see advantages and disadvantages that might be important?

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  • not being able to access any sudo function on my pc

    - by explorex
    Hi, I am not being to access any functions in my desktop and I don't have an OS besides Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Linux and I am new to ubuntu. I think I rebooted my computer thinking that Google Chrome crashed. I opened Google Chrome but it showed opening message but never opened so I restarted my computer. and when my system was loading ('i was playing with keyboard dont know what I typed') and when by ubutnu loaded, I was unable to access anything some of characteristics are listed below I cannot hear any sound I cannot access wired ethernet connection on the right corner where I usually enable to access interne and I have no internet. There is no local apache server either. when ever I try to start apacer I get setuid must be root or something. When I type sudo then I get message setuid must be root. I cannot access orther external storage devices like pendrive and portable hard drive and cannot mount my other drives with FAT32 filesystem. When I try to start my apache webserver with out typing sudo then I get message cannnot open socket or something like it. EDIT:: i remember also doing command chown -R www-data / earlier and got error message EDIT:: and i cannot shutdown my computer, it only logs off

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  • Entity communication: Message queue vs Publish/Subscribe vs Signal/Slots

    - by deft_code
    How do game engine entities communicate? Two use cases: How would entity_A send a take-damage message to entity_B? How would entity_A query entity_B's HP? Here's what I've encountered so far: Message queue entity_A creates a take-damage message and posts it to entity_B's message queue. entity_A creates a query-hp message and posts it to entity_B. entity_B in return creates an response-hp message and posts it to entity_A. Publish/Subscribe entity_B subscribes to take-damage messages (possibly with some preemptive filtering so only relevant message are delivered). entity_A produces take-damage message that references entity_B. entity_A subscribes to update-hp messages (possibly filtered). Every frame entity_B broadcasts update-hp messages. Signal/Slots ??? entity_A connects an update-hp slot to entity_B's update-hp signal. Something better? Do I have a correct understanding of how these communication schemes would tie into a game engine's entity system? How do entities in commercial game engines communicate?

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  • Error when restoring database (Windows 7 test environment)

    - by Undh
    I have a windows 7 operating system as a test environment. I have SQL Server EE installed with two instances, named as test and production. I took a full backup from AdventureWorks database from test instance and I tried to restore it into the production instance: RESTORE DATABASE [testikanta] FROM DISK = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008TESTI\MSSQL\Backup\AdventureWorks.bak' WITH FILE = 1, NOUNLOAD, REPLACE, STATS = 10 GO I got an error saying: Msg 3634, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The operating system returned the error '32(failed to retrieve text for this error. Reason: 15105)' while attempting 'RestoreContainer::ValidateTargetForCreation' on 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008TESTI\MSSQL\DATA\AdventureWorks_Data.mdf'. Msg 3156, Level 16, State 8, Line 1 File 'AdventureWorks_Data' cannot be restored to 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008TESTI\MSSQL\DATA\AdventureWorks_Data.mdf'. Use WITH MOVE to identify a valid location for the file. Msg 3634, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The operating system returned the error '32(failed to retrieve text for this error. Reason: 15105)' while attempting 'RestoreContainer::ValidateTargetForCreation' on 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008TESTI\MSSQL\DATA\AdventureWorks_Log.ldf'. Msg 3156, Level 16, State 8, Line 1 File 'AdventureWorks_Log' cannot be restored to 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008TESTI\MSSQL\DATA\AdventureWorks_Log.ldf'. Use WITH MOVE to identify a valid location for the file. Msg 3119, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Problems were identified while planning for the RESTORE statement. Previous messages provide details. Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally. Where's the problem? I'm running these instances as on local machine adminstrator (SQL Server services are running with the same account).

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  • Using VLANs/subnetting to separate management from services?

    - by YouAreTheHat
    Background: I recently purchased a server and a managed switch for my home in the hopes of getting more experience and some fun toys to play with. The devices and appliances I either have or plan to have cover a broad spectrum: router, DD-WRT AP, Dell switch, OpenLDAP server, FreeRADIUS server, OpenVPN gateway, home PCs, gaming consoles, etc. I intend to segment my network with VLANs and associated subnets (e.g., VID10 is populated by devices on 192.168.10.0/24). The idea is to secure the more sensitive appliances by forcing traffic through my router/FW. Setup: After thinking and planning for some time, I have tentatively decided on 4 VLANs: one for the WAN connection, one for servers, one for home/personal devices, and one for management. In theory, the home VLAN will have limited access to the servers, and the management VLAN will be totally isolated for security. Question: Since I want to restrict access to management interfaces, but some appliances have to be accessible to other devices, is it possible/wise to have only management (SSH, HTTP, RDP) available on one VLAN/IP and only services (LDAP, DHCP, RADIUS, VPN) available on other? Is this a thing that is done? Does it gain me the security I think it does, or hurt me in some way?

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  • Windows 7: Windows Firewall: Logging/Notifying on Outgoing Request Attempts

    - by Maxim Z.
    I'm trying to configure Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to log and tell me when programs are trying to make outbound requests. I previously tried installing ZoneAlarm, which worked wonders for me with this in XP, but now, I'm unable to install ZA on Win7. My question is, is it possible to somehow monitor a log or get notifications when a program tries to do that if I set all outbound connections to auto-block, so that I can then create a specific rule for the program and block it.? Thanks! UPDATE: I've enabled all the logging options available through the Properties windows of the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Console, but I am only seeing logs in the %systemroot%\system32\LogFiles\Firewall\pfirewall.log file, not in the Event Viewer, as the first answer suggested. However, the logs that I can see only tell me the request's or response's destination IP and whether the connection was allowed or blocked, but it doesn't tell me what executable it comes from. I want to find out the file path of the executable that each blocked request comes from. So far, I haven't been able to.

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  • NTFS: Deny all permissions for all files, except where explicitly added

    - by Simon
    I'm running a sandboxed application as a local user. I now want to deny almost all file system permissions for this user to secure the system, except for a few working folders and some system DLLs (I'll call this set of files & directories X below). The sandbox user is not in any group. So it shouldn't have any permissions, right? Wrong, because all "Authenticated Users" are a member of the local "Users" group, and that group has access to almost everything. I thought about recursively adding deny ACL-entries to all files and directories and remove them manually from X. But this seems excessive. I also thought about removing "Authenticated Users" from the "Users" group. But I'm afraid of unintended side-effects. It's likely that other things rely on this. Is this correct? Are there better ways to do this? How would you limit the filesystem permissions of a (very) non-trustworthy account?

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  • What to do before connecting Ubuntu Server to the internet for the first time?

    - by CodeMonkey
    I just finished installing Ubuntu Server 12.10 on an Asus Eee PC 1000H (to be used as a home server/sandbox) from USB. I installed this software during installation: OpenSSH server LAMP server Samba file server Virtual Machine host I won't use 2, 3 or 4 for a while though. Can/should I turn these off somehow? I have turned home directory encryption on. Security updates are installed automatically. I have chosen a strong password for the single user. I have never plugged in the internet cable so far. Before doing so I'd like to ask: What can/should I do/install to increase security before connecting to the internet? Firewall? Fail2ban? Users/Passwords? Encryption? Enable/Disable functionality? etc. I'm sorry if you get this question a lot. I've searched around quite a while, but it still feels like I might overlook something important.

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  • Running multiple sites on a LAMP with secure isolation

    - by David C.
    Hi everybody, I have been administering a few LAMP servers with 2-5 sites on each of them. These are basically owned by the same user/client so there are no security issues except from attacks through vulnerable deamons or scripts. I am builing my own server and would like to start hosting multiple sites. My first concern is... ISOLATION. How can I avoid that a c99 script could deface all the virtual hosts? Also, should I prevent that c99 to be able to write/read the other sites' directories? (It is easy to "cat" a config.php from another site and then get into the mysql database) My server is a VPS with 512M burstable to 1G. Among the free hosting managers, is there any small one which works for my VPS? (which maybe is compatible with the security approach I would like to have) Currently I am not planning to host over 10 sites but I would not accept that a client/hacker could navigate into unwanted directories or, worse, run malicious scripts. FTP management would be fine. I don't want to complicate things with SSH isolation. What is the best practice in this case? Basically, what do hosting companies do to sleep well? :) Thanks very much! David

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  • How (in)secure are cell phones in reality?

    - by Aron Rotteveel
    I was recently re-reading an old Wired article about the Kaminsky DNS Vulnerability and the story behind it. In this article there was a quote that came across a little bit exaggerated to me: "The first thing I want to say to you," Vixie told Kaminsky, trying to contain the flood of feeling, "is never, ever repeat what you just told me over a cell phone." Vixie knew how easy it was to eavesdrop on a cell signal, and he had heard enough to know that he was facing a problem of global significance. If the information were intercepted by the wrong people, the wired world could be held ransom. Hackers could wreak havoc. Billions of dollars were at stake, and Vixie wasn't going to take any risks. When reading this I could not help but feel like it was a bit blown-up and theatrical. Now, I know absolutely nothing about cell phones and the security problems involved, but to my understanding, cell phone security has quite improved over the past few years. So my question is: how insecure are cell phones in reality? Are there any good articles that dig a bit deeper into this matter?

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  • Network tools not working with a 3G connection

    - by gAMBOOKa
    Some of my network tools stopped working after I switched to a 3G connection from a DSL one. Cain and Abel's sniffer, Metasploit, even the NMAP scanner. I'm using Windows 7. The 3G device in question is the Huawei E180. Here's the error I get when running NMAP WARNING: Using raw sockets because ppp2 is not an ethernet device. This probably won't work on Windows. pcap_open_live(ppp2, 100, 0, 2) FAILED. Reported error: Error opening adapter: The system cannot find the device specified. (20). Will wait 5 seconds then retry. pcap_open_live(ppp2, 100, 0, 2) FAILED. Reported error: Error opening adapter: The system cannot find the device specified. (20). Will wait 25 seconds then retry. Call to pcap_open_live(ppp2, 100, 0, 2) failed three times. Reported error: Error opening adapter: The system cannot find the device specified. (20) Metasploit's refused connection to my websites too.

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  • Web Application Publishing on Citrix with Restricted Access

    - by Kanini
    We have a Citrix setup enabling users to access our applications from home. Basically, they login to our site using the Windows Authentication. Once, the are successfully logged in, they see the following icons Desktop - Full Screen (which provides them the Desktop as they would see when the login in our office) We now have a requirement where we would like to publish a web application, hxxp://ourlibrary on Citrix with the following security requirement. (this application is already accessible if the users launch the desktop and launch IE within it and navigate to it) The requirement is this - When the are successfully authenticated to our site, they should be able to see The Internet Explorer icon only, NOT the Dekstop - Full Screen icon. On clicking on the icon, Internet Explorer should open up and should automatically navigate to hxxp://ourlibrary They should not be able to access any other URL, such as Google, Hotmail etc., They should not be able to go FileOpen and Browse They should not be able to do FileSave and Browse In effect, they should be able to view the site and that should be it. Any ideas on how to accomplish the security feature? We have already published the application.

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  • Mac OS X Disk Encryption - Automation

    - by jfm429
    I want to setup a Mac Mini server with an external drive that is encrypted. In Finder, I can use the full-disk encryption option. However, for multiple users, this could become tricky. What I want to do is encrypt the external volume, then set things up so that when the machine boots, the disk is unlocked so that all users can access it. Of course permissions need to be maintained, but that goes without saying. What I'm thinking of doing is setting up a root-level launchd script that runs once on boot and unlocks the disk. The encryption keys would probably be stored in root's keychain. So here's my list of concerns: If I store the encryption keys in the system keychain, then the file in /private/var/db/SystemKey could be used to unlock the keychain if an attacker ever gained physical access to the server. this is bad. If I store the encryption keys in my user keychain, I have to manually run the command with my password. This is undesirable. If I run a launchd script with my user credentials, it will run under my user account but won't have access to the keychain, defeating the purpose. If root has a keychain (does it?) then how would it be decrypted? Would it remain locked until the password was entered (like the user keychain) or would it have the same problem as the system keychain, with keys stored on the drive and accessible with physical access? Assuming all of the above works, I've found diskutil coreStorage unlockVolume which seems to be the appropriate command, but the details of where to store the encryption key is the biggest problem. If the system keychain is not secure enough, and user keychains require a password, what's the best option?

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  • Registry remotley hacked win 7 need help tracking the perp

    - by user577229
    I was writing some .VBS code at thhe office that would allow certain file extensions to be downloaded without a warning dialog on a w7x32 system. The system I was writing this on is in a lab on a segmented subnet. All web access is via a proxy server. The only means of accessing my machine is via the internet or from within the labs MSFT AD domain. While writing and testing my code I found a message of sorts. Upon refresing the registry to verify my code changed a dword, instead the message HELLO was written and visible in regedit where the dword value wass called for. I took a screen shot and proceeded to edit my code. This same weird behavior occurred last time I was writing registry code except on another internal server. I understand that remote registry access exists for windows systems. I will block this immediately once I return to the office. What I want to know is, can I trace who made this connection? How would I do this? I suspect the cause of this is the cause of other "odd" behaviors I'm experiencing at work such as losing control of my input director master control for over an hour and unchanged code that all of a sudden fails for no logical region. These failures occur at funny times, whenver I'm about to give a demonstration of my test code. I know this sounds crazy however knowledge of the registry component makes this believable. Once the registry can be accessed, the entire system is compromised. Any help or sanity checking is appreciated.

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  • SSH attack CentOS Amazon EC2

    - by user37143
    Hi, I run a few Rightscale CentOS AMI based instances on Amazon EC2. Two months back I found that our SSHD security is compromised( I had added host.allow and host.deny for ssh). So I created new instances and done an IP based ssh that allows only our IPs through AWS Firewall(ec2-authorize) and chnaged the ssh 22 default port to some other port but two days back I found I was not able to login to the server and when I tried on 22 port the ssh got connected and I found that sshd_conf was changed and when I tried to edit sshd_config I found root had no write permission on the file. So I tried a chmod and it said access denied for 'root' user. This is very strange. I checked secure log and history and found nothing informative. I have PHP, Ruby On Rails, Java, Wordpress apps running on these server. This time I did a chkrootkit scan and found nothing. I renamed the /etc/ssh folder and reinstalled openssh through yum. I had faced this on 3 instances on CentOS(5.2, 5.4) I have instances on Debian as well those working fine. Is this a CentOS/Rightscale issue. Guys, what security measures I should take to prevent this. Please support me this is very critical. Thanks

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  • How can visiting a webpage infect your computer?

    - by Cybis
    My mother's computer recently became infected with some sort of rootkit. It began when she received an email from a close friend asking her to check out some sort of webpage. I never saw it, but my mother said it was just a blog of some sort, nothing interesting. A few days later, my mother signed in on the PayPal homepage. PayPal gave some sort of security notice which stated that to prevent fraud, they needed some additional personal information. Among some of the more normal information (name, address, etc.), they asked for her SSN and bank PIN! She refused to submit that information and complained to PayPal that they shouldn't ask for it. PayPal said they would never ask for such information and that it wasn't their webpage. There was no such "security notice" when she logged in from a different computer, only from hers. It wasn't a phishing attempt or redirection of some sort, IE clearly showed an SSL connection to https://www.paypal.com/ She remembered that strange email and asked her friend about it - the friend never sent it! Obviously, something on her computer was intercepting the PayPal homepage and that email was the only other strange thing to happen recently. She entrusted me to fix everything. I nuked the computer from orbit since it was the only way to be sure (i.e., reformatted her hard drive and did a clean install). That seemed to work fine. But that got me wondering... my mother didn't download and run anything. There were no weird ActiveX controls running (she's not computer illiterate and knows not to install them), and she only uses webmail (i.e., no Outlook vulnerability). When I think webpages, I think content presentation - JavaScript, HTML, and maybe some Flash. How could that possibly install and execute arbitrary software on your computer? It seems kinda weird/stupid that such vulnerabilities exist.

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  • Secure data from a server to a workstation using jumper hosts

    - by apalsson
    Hello. I have a WWW-server, my problem is that the content is sensitive and should not be accessible for people without proper credentials. How can I improve the ease of use but still maintain security following scenario; The Server is accessed through a "jumper host", i.e. the client connects to the jumper using VPN-connection and uses RemoteDesktop to access the jumper. From the jumper he uses RemoteDesktop again to access the Server. Finally on the Server the user can access content using a WWW-browser. All the way from the VPN-client to the WWW-browser requires authentication using a SmartCard-token. This seems quite secure to me. Content only gets mirrored on the RemoteDesktop between Server and jumper, no cached files to worry about. Connection between jumper and client is protected using VPN(ssl), so no eavesdropping. But it is quite cumbersome for the clients with many steps and connections to open. :( So, how can I improve the user experience accessing my server without compromising security? Thanks.

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  • Is there a way to prevent password expiration when user has no password?

    - by Eric DANNIELOU
    Okay, we all care about security so users should change their passwords on a regular basis (who said passwords are like underwear?). On redhat and centos (5.x and 6.x), it's possible to make every real user password expires after 45 days, and warn them 7 days before. /etc/shadow entry then looks like : testuser:$6$m8VQ7BWU$b3UBovxC5b9p2UxLxyT0QKKgG1RoOHoap2CV7HviDJ03AUvcFTqB.yiV4Dn7Rj6LgCBsJ1.obQpaLVCx5.Sx90:15588:1:45:7::: It works very well and most users often change their passwords. Some users find it convenient not to use any password but ssh public key (and I'd like to encourage them). Then after 45 days they can't log in as they forgot their password and are asked to change it. Is there a way to prevent password expiration if and only if password is disabled? Setting testuser:!!:15588:1:45:7::: in /etc/shadow did not work : testuser is asked to change his password after 45 days. Of course, setting back password expiration to 99999 days works but : It requires extra work. Security auditors might not be happy. Is there a system wide parameter that would prompt the user to change expired password only if he really has one ?

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  • Why would I need a firewall if my server is well configured?

    - by Aitch
    I admin a handful of cloud-based (VPS) servers for the company I work for. The servers are minimal ubuntu installs that run bits of LAMP stacks / inbound data collection (rsync). The data is large but not personal, financial or anything like that (ie not that interesting) Clearly on here people are forever asking about configuring firewalls and such like. I use a bunch of approaches to secure the servers, for example (but not restricted to) ssh on non standard ports; no password typing, only known ssh keys from known ips for login etc https, and restricted shells (rssh) generally only from known keys/ips servers are minimal, up to date and patched regularly use things like rkhunter, cfengine, lynis denyhosts etc for monitoring I have extensive experience of unix sys admin. I'm confident I know what I'm doing in my setups. I configure /etc files. I have never felt a compelling need to install stuff like firewalls: iptables etc. Put aside for a moment the issues of physical security of the VPS. Q? I can't decide whether I am being naive or the incremental protection a fw might offer is worth the effort of learning / installing and the additional complexity (packages, config files, possible support etc) on the servers. To date (touch wood) I've never had any problems with security but I am not complacent about it either.

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  • Patch management on multiple systems

    - by Pierre
    I'm in charge of auditing the security configuration of an important farm of Unix servers. So far, I came up with a way to assess the basic configuration but not the installed updates. The very problem here is that I just can't trust the package management tools on those machine. Indeed some of them did not sync with the repository for a long time (So I can't do a "yum check-updates" on Redhat for example). Some of those servers are not even connected to the internet and use an company repository. Another problem is that I have multiple target systems: AIX, Debian, Centos/Redhat, etc... So the version could be different (AIX) and the tools available will be different. And, last but not least, I can't install anything on the target system. So I need to use a script to retrieve the information and either: process it directly or save the information to be able to process it later on a server (Which may happen to run a different distribution than the one on which the information have been retrieved). The best ideas I could come up with were: either retrieve the list of installed packages on the machine (dpkg -l for example on debian) and process it on a dedicated server (Directly parsing the "Packages" file of debian repositories). Still, the problem remains the same for AIX and Redhat... or use Nessus' scripts to assess vulnerability on the installed packages, but I find this a bit dirty. Does anyone know any better/efficient way of doing this ? P.S: I already took time to review some answers to similar problems. Unfortunately Chef, puppet, ... don't meet the requirements I have to meet. Edit: Long story short. I need to have the list of missing updates on a Unix system just like MBSA on Windows. I'm not authorized to install anything on this system as it's not mine. All I have are scripts languages. Thanks.

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  • How can visiting a webpage infect your computer?

    - by Cybis
    My mother's computer recently became infected with some sort of rootkit. It began when she received an email from a close friend asking her to check out some sort of webpage. I never saw it, but my mother said it was just a blog of some sort, nothing interesting. A few days later, my mother signed in on the PayPal homepage. PayPal gave some sort of security notice which stated that to prevent fraud, they needed some additional personal information. Among some of the more normal information (name, address, etc.), they asked for her SSN and bank PIN! She refused to submit that information and complained to PayPal that they shouldn't ask for it. PayPal said they would never ask for such information and that it wasn't their webpage. There was no such "security notice" when she logged in from a different computer, only from hers. It wasn't a phishing attempt or redirection of some sort, IE clearly showed an SSL connection to https://www.paypal.com/ She remembered that strange email and asked her friend about it - the friend never sent it! Obviously, something on her computer was intercepting the PayPal homepage and that email was the only other strange thing to happen recently. She entrusted me to fix everything. I nuked the computer from orbit since it was the only way to be sure (i.e., reformatted her hard drive and did a clean install). That seemed to work fine. But that got me wondering... my mother didn't download and run anything. There were no weird ActiveX controls running (she's not computer illiterate and knows not to install them), and she only uses webmail (i.e., no Outlook vulnerability). When I think webpages, I think content presentation - JavaScript, HTML, and maybe some Flash. How could that possibly install and execute arbitrary software on your computer? It seems kinda weird/stupid that such vulnerabilities exist.

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  • How can I implement ansible with per-host passwords, securely?

    - by supervacuo
    I would like to use ansible to manage a group of existing servers. I have created an ansible_hosts file, and tested successfully (with the -K option) with commands that only target a single host ansible -i ansible_hosts host1 --sudo -K # + commands ... My problem now is that the user passwords on each host are different, but I can't find a way of handling this in Ansible. Using -K, I am only prompted for a single sudo password up-front, which then seems to be tried for all subsequent hosts without prompting: host1 | ... host2 | FAILED => Incorrect sudo password host3 | FAILED => Incorrect sudo password host4 | FAILED => Incorrect sudo password host5 | FAILED => Incorrect sudo password Research so far: a StackOverflow question with one incorrect answer ("use -K") and one response by the author saying "Found out I needed passwordless sudo" the Ansible docs, which say "Use of passwordless sudo makes things easier to automate, but it’s not required." (emphasis mine) this security StackExchange question which takes it as read that NOPASSWD is required article "Scalable and Understandable Provisioning..." which says: "running sudo may require typing a password, which is a sure way of blocking Ansible forever. A simple fix is to run visudo on the target host, and make sure that the user Ansible will use to login does not have to type a password" article "Basic Ansible Playbooks", which says "Ansible could log into the target server as root and avoid the need for sudo, or let the ansible user have sudo without a password, but the thought of doing either makes my spleen threaten to leap up my gullet and block my windpipe, so I don’t" My thoughts exactly, but then how to extend beyond a single server? ansible issue #1227, "Ansible should ask for sudo password for all users in a playbook", which was closed a year ago by mpdehaan with the comment "Haven't seen much demand for this, I think most people are sudoing from only one user account or using keys most of the time." So... how are people using Ansible in situations like these? Setting NOPASSWD in /etc/sudoers, reusing password across hosts or enabling root SSH login all seem rather drastic reductions in security.

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  • How to secure a group of Amazon EC2 instances

    - by ks78
    I have several Amazon EC2 instances running Ubuntu 10.04 and I've recently started using Amazon's Route 53 as my DNS. The purpose of doing that was to allow the instances to refer to each other by name rather than private IP (which can change). I've pointed my domain name (via GoDaddy) to Amazon's name servers, allowing me to access my EC2 webservers. However, I noticed I can now access the EC2 instances which I don't want to be public, such as the dedicated MySQL Server. I was thinking Amazon's Security Groups would still be in effect when using Route 53, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Before I started using Route 53, I was thinking of having one instance run a reverse proxy, which would help protect the web servers behind it. Then IP-restrict all the other instances. I know IP restricting can be done using the firewall within each instance, but should I ever need to access them from another IP address, I'd need a way in. Amazon's control panel made it a breeze to open a port when necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions for keeping EC2 instances secure, but also accessible to their administrator? Also, what's the best topology for a group of EC2 instances, consisting of web servers and a dedicated database server, from a security perspective? Does having a reverse proxy server even make sense?

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