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

Snort


In today's enterprise environments, where security is a major issue, there are lots of tools available for securing network infrastructure and communication over the internet. Snort is one of those tools, available for free as it is open source. It is a lightweight network intrusion detection and prevention system. Snort works in three different modes: sniffer mode, packet logging mode, and network intrusion detection system mode.

Getting ready

Before getting started with the installation of Snort, ensure that our system is up to date and install the required dependencies on it. To install the required dependencies, we run the following command:

How to do it...

Snort can be installed on Ubuntu, either from its source code or through the deb package. In this section, we will install Snort using the deb package:

  1. To get started, we install on our Ubuntu system, using the apt-get command, as shown here:
  1. During the installation, we will be asked to select the interface on which Snort should listen...