Book Image

Practical Linux Security Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Tajinder Kalsi
Book Image

Practical Linux Security Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Tajinder Kalsi

Overview of this book

Over the last few years, system security has gained a lot of momentum and software professionals are focusing heavily on it. Linux is often treated as a highly secure operating system. However, the reality is that Linux has its share of security ?aws, and these security ?aws allow attackers to get into your system and modify or even destroy your important data. But there’s no need to panic, since there are various mechanisms by which these ?aws can be removed, and this book will help you learn about different types of Linux security to create a more secure Linux system. With a step-by-step recipe approach, the book starts by introducing you to various threats to Linux systems. Then, this book will walk you through customizing the Linux kernel and securing local files. Next, you will move on to managing user authentication both locally and remotely and mitigating network attacks. Later, you will learn about application security and kernel vulnerabilities. You will also learn about patching Bash vulnerability, packet filtering, handling incidents, and monitoring system logs. Finally, you will learn about auditing using system services and performing vulnerability scanning on Linux. By the end of this book, you will be able to secure your Linux systems and create a robust environment.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Packt Upsell
Preface
Index

Network security monitoring using Suricata


If we want to use a network intrusion detection system on Linux, we can use Suricata, which is a free and open source tool. It can be used to inspect network traffic using its rules and signature language. Suricata can handle multiple gigabits of traffic and display it on screen. It can also send alerts through emails.

Getting ready

Before starting with the installation and configuration of Suricata, we will need to install a few of its dependency packages. We can install all the required dependencies using the following command:

apt-get install libpcre3-dbg libpcre3-dev autoconf automake libtool libpcap-dev libnet1-dev libyaml-dev libjansson4 libcap-ng-dev libmagic-dev libjansson-dev zlib1g-dev

The default working of Suricata is as an Intrusion Detection system. If we wish to use it as an Intrusion Prevention system, we will need some extra packages, which can be installed using the following commands:

apt-get install libnetfilter-queue-dev libnetfilter...