NW315 - Notes and Resources
Text: Network Defense and Countermeasures, Weaver, Thomson Course Technology Inc. 2007 (ISBN: 1-4188-3679-
6)
Organizations/Projects
The Apache Group - Creators
of the world's most popular Web server, which just happens to be free.
The SANS
Security Policy Project - A great resource for developing your own
security policies and guidelines from the SANS (SysAdmin, Audit,
Network, Security) Institute.
How
to Write Security Policy - Reference Library - Another guide from
"The Security Portal for Information System Security Professionals" at http://www.infosyssec.net
The Internet Storm Center
- An interesting site that tracks worm and virus activity, including
trends over time.
The Honeynet Project - A
group that is using networks of Honeypots to track and record cracking
activity on the public Internet.
Windows Resources
Cygwin - Free, open
source tools for Windows users. Let loose the geek within.
XLiveCD - allows
users to connect to *NIX systems, run graphical apps remotely, all
without installing anything. Based on Cygwin.
UNIX/Linux Resources
The Linux Documentation Project
- This is your new best friend. How to perform almost any task in
Linux (also most UNIXes.)
Webmin - The home of Webmin,
the GUI management console that runs on just about every UNIX-based
operating system you can name. (Plus, it's free.)
open-source, free software is available here.
DistroWatch - A good site
to keep track of/compare/contrast the different distributions of Linux.
Linux
Partitioning Mini-FAQ - A good, practical guide to
partitioning your hard drive for Linux.
Applications and Tools (NOTE: Some of these
sites may not be accessible from the Westwood LAN)
Ethereal - This is a
free, open-source network analyzer that is available in UNIX and Win32
versions.
OpenSSH - An open-source
implementation of Secure Shell (SSH), includes both server and client.
OpenSSL - An open-source
implementation of SSL (Secure Socket Layer), which allows you to set up
secure, encrypted network connections.
Kerberos
- This industry standard authentication protocol was originally
designed by MIT and includes servers and clients for multiple
platforms. (Plus, it's free.)
PAM -
Short for Pluggable Authentication Modules,
PAM allows amazing flexibility for authentication and authorization.
Instead of rewriting your software to use a new authentication
system, just add the appropriate PAM. You can even authenticate
your UNIX box against Active Directory using PAM!
WebDAV - Short for Web
Distributed Authoring and Versioning, this uses HTTP to share out file
systems in a simple, cross-platform way. (Microsoft's 'Web
Folders' feature is actually a WebDAV client and Apple uses WebDAV to
serve their iDisk network storage.)
Multi-Routing
Traffic Grapher - A nifty network utility that allows
you to monitor traffic in and out of any of your network devices and
display the results as a dynamically updated Web page.
Big Brother - Web-based network and
server-monitoring tool (free for non-commercial use).
Qmail - A very good
secure mailer. The author has a cash bounty for anyone who can
document a security hole in qmail and nobody has collected since 1997.
A nice replacement for sendmail, as it's easier to configure and
more secure.
Life with qmail
- Free documentation on installing, configuring and administering
qmail, an open-source mail server.
LinuxMafia Knowledgebase
- A very good resource for Linux admins, put together by Rick Moen, a
true old-school UNIX hacker. There's a good section on security here.
Keeping
Accurate Time on Linux - Just what it says. Setting up a time
server.
Security Tools and Applications
The
Linux-PAM Administrator's Guide - What a system-administrator needs
to know about the Linux-PAM library. It covers the correct syntax of
the PAM configuration file and discusses strategies for maintaining a
secure system.
Exploits - A
collection of information about computer software exploits. Hard to
describe.
Local Area Security
Linux - Another live, bootable CD, based on DS Linux. Comes in two
sizes - 185 megabytes and 215 megabytes- and it can run entirely in
RAM. Very good, compact toolkit and a nice complement to Knoppix STD.
Shellcode.org - Shellcode
is the software that computer exploits use once they breack the remote
host's defenses. More for the programmer-inclined, but might be worth a
look.
Exploit Labs - Another
hacker/cracker site.
Top 75 Network
Security Tools - Just what the name implies. Some are commercial,
some open-source, some for Windows, some for UNIX, etc.
Bastille Linux -
Not, as the name implies, another Linux distro, but a set of perl
scripts that can be used to harden a given installation of Linux.
The Metasploit Project -
An attempt to put together a cross-platform system penetration testing,
IDS signature development and exploit research.
Ettercap:
ARP Spoofing and Beyond - A good, if somewhat dated, look at the
capabilities of Ettercap.
Network Documents - A
"quite complete" guide to UDP and TCP ports and their associated
services
Security Discussion Sites and Guides
Apache
Authentication Part 1 - Beginning with the basics of authenticating
to an Apache server, using htpasswd.
Apache
Authentication Part 2 - Switching from htpasswd to using a database
to handle authentication.
Apache
Authentication Part 3 - Using MySQL for managing authentication
information.
Apache
Authentication Part 4 - Automating maintenance of your password
lists.
SSL
Certificates HOWTO - How to manage a certificate authority (CA),
issue and sign certificates.
Johnny iHackStuff
- An interesting site with a lot of documentation on assessing your
site's vulnerabilities.
Phrack - An online
magazine for systems crackers and hackers
PacketStorm
- A listing of DOS, DDOS and other vulnerability assessment tools.
SecurityForest - A
very good site for news and discussion of security issues and
vulnerabilities. It's a Wiki, so anyone can set up an account and
contribute. In addition, they keep a pretty extensive collection of
exploit code that you can download for your own use.
Professional
Security Testers - Another interesting site, this one is a rich
source of documentation, training and software for doing penetration
testing and vulnerability assessment.
CERT - Home of the Computer
Emergency Response Team
Security Focus -
Home of the Bugtraq database
Cryptogram - If
you are interested in a career in security, you need to know about
Bruce Schneier.
InfosecWriters.com -
A site for security specialists who wish to share their experiences and
expertise.
An
Illustrated Guide to Cryptographic Hashes - A nice explanation of
software like SHA and MD5.
2600: The Hacker Quarterly
- A magazine devoted to covering security issues of interest to hackers
and crackers. You can purchase their
merchandise (t-shirts, videos, back issues) online here.
Windows
Password Recovery - A nicely written discussion of this topic using
Linux tools exclusively.
Hacker High School
- This is an interesting open-source project to create an IT security
curriculum for high school students.
Articles on Network Security
Constructive
Paranoia at the end of 2003 - An article by top Unix hacker Rick
Moen discussing some techniques and guidelines for securing your
systems.
5
IDS Mistakes Companies Make - An essay on some common problems
companies have implementing and managing their Intrusion Detection
Complete
Snort-Based Architecture - A detailed guide to setting up the
network monitoring software Snort.
What
Countermeasures Really Mean - A discussion of security management.
Are Your
Servers Secure? - A nice, readable article about system security
from the Linux Gazette.
Know Your
Enemy: Tracking Botnets - An excellent, very readable article from The HoneyNet Project, describing
the results of their research monitoring the Internet for Botnet
(networks of zombie PCs) activity.
A Sense of
Proportion - An essay discussing security incident response. Very
good.
Security
Links - An enormous (.5 MB) set of links to all sorts of online
security resources, courtesy of Peter Gutman.
Godzilla
Crypto Tutorial - Another gift from Peter Gutman, this is a set of
704 slides in eight parts of a tutorial on cryptography and
cryptanalysis.
Tutorials
Netcat - a PDF
with a quick run-through of Netcat's abilities.
Nmap
- The premier port-scanning tool.
Ethereal Capture
Filters - A nice guide.
Nemesis
- The official documentation from the developer.
Metasploit
- The official documentation for this exploit framework.
Nessus - A nice
introduction to the best free vulnerability scanner ever.
Digital
Certificates - A guide to using CA.pl, a front-end script for
openssl for creating and managing digital certificates. NOTE: This
script is limited in what it does, so for extra control use the openssl
command directly.
OpenSSL Command
Line HOWTO - A nice guide to all the nifty crypto stuff you can do
with openssl, including some things that surprised me, like using it to
launch a server to test your certificates!
Attack
Trees - The original article from Bruce Schneier describing this
risk analysis technique.
Plug the search terms in these files into Google to see how
many people leave themselves wide open and vulnerable on the Internet.
Hacking
Footholds - Information that could be used to gain a foothold on a
vulnerable site
Online
Shopping Info - Queries that can reveal online shopping information
like customer data, suppliers, orders, etc.
Sensitive
Info - Not passwords, but certainly information you don't want to
leave laying around.
Juicy
Info - Interesting stuff
Login
Pages - Front pages for Web-based administration software.
Passwords
- 'Nuff said.
Vulnerable
Network Data - Firewall logs, honeypot logs, network information,
IDS logs, etc.
Vulnerable
Servers - Reveals servers with specific vulnerabilities.
Directory Service Links
Kerberos/LDAP
Mini-HOWTO - A quick and dirty guide to getting Kerberos working
with OpenLDAP, an open source directory service.
LDAP
Authentication - From the Debian Wiki, a nice collection of
information and links for integrating LDAP directory services into your
network.
LDAP
Implementation HOWTO - From the Linux Documentation Project.
Installing
an OpenLDAP Server (part 1) - From Linux.com
Installing
an OpenLDAP Server (part 2) - Explains how schemas work and how to
migrate your current data to your LDAP server.
OpenLDAP
Authentication Setup - A fairly comprehensive overview of the
types of authentication available with an OpenLDAP-based server.
Open-IT:
LDAP Tools - A nice collection of articles and tutorials describing
how to work with LDAP-based directory services.
LDAP-based
User Management for Linux - How to consolidate your user
information and setup single-sign-on for your users with LDAP.
OpenLDAP
Quick-Start Guide - As the title suggests, a fast way to get an
OpenLDAP server up and running. (Covers version 2.1)
OpenLDAP - Set up your
own industry standard directory service (or just an e-mail address
book) using this free, open-source software. Integrates nicely
with Active Directory, eDirectory, NDS and Sun's iPlanet Directory
Server.
General Resources
ComputerWorld - If
you want to see how computers are really used in real businesses, this
is a good source. Essentially an offshoot of Computerworld magazine
(available as a free subscription if you can convince them that you
influence buying decisions where you work) , this site is pretty
platform independent and has a decent career section, as well as a
'gossip' column where actual IT folk write in anonymously and describe
the various ways that management can screw up the techies.
SoftPro Books - This is
an excellent source for computer and networking books. You can order
online or go to one of their local stores. (They have one at Yosemite
and Arapahoe in Englewood and another in Boulder.) You can usually get
10-20% off the list price and if you join their 'frequent shoppers'
club (it's free) you can get additional savings.
GoCertify - A nice
site that has information on just about every technical certification
you can get -- who offers it, what you need to get it, where you can
get training and where/how you can take the test.
BrainBench - Another
certification site, but this one does their own online certification
exams in a wide variety of technical subjects.
Safari - As technical
professionals, one of the things you will need to have is a reference
library. Safari, from O'Reilly Press, offers online access to thousands
of technical books and manuals with the ability to search, print and
bookmark content. I already have shelves of books both at home and in
my office as well as technical journals at hand, but Safari has been a
tremendous help to me when I need to get up to speed on a topic
quickly. It's by subscription (I don't get any kickbacks from this) and
they start at $15/month.
Online References
Google - One of the best
search engines out there for the technically inclined.
FAQs Online - Here's the
one-stop shop for looking up Internet FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
and RFCs (Requests For Comments).
Just for Fun
Ubersoft - A funny comic
strip about a mythical software/OS vendor located somewhere in the
Pacific Northwest....
User Friendly
- Yet another comic strip that looks at the funny side of computing.
Computer Stupidities
- This site collects actual dialogues between real users and real tech
support folk. The range of misunderstandings and confusion is
frequently hilarious.
Peter's
Evil Overlord List - Thinking about a career as an Evil Overlord?
Think you have what it takes to be the next Darth Vader? Check out this
site for a collection of SuperVillain Do's and Don'ts including 'My
ventilation shafts will be too small to crawl through'.
The Voice Actor Page -
Want to know who does the voice of Larry 3000 on Time Squad? Find
the answer to this and many more questions about the men and women who
do the talking for your favorite cartoon characters. Search
alphbetically by show title or actor name. (By the way, Larry is
voiced by none other than Mark Hamill.)
What
NOT to Do During "The Return of the King" - Very funny and somewhat
nasty.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this site are those
of the author and are not necessarily those of his employer, Westwood
Technical College or its affilliates. This material is intended to
supplement the class lectures and text and is not required to complete
the course.
You can e-mail me here
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