Book Image

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening

By : Donald A. Tevault
Book Image

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening

By: Donald A. Tevault

Overview of this book

This book has extensive coverage of techniques that will help prevent attackers from breaching your system, by building a much more secure Linux environment. You will learn various security techniques such as SSH hardening, network service detection, setting up firewalls, encrypting file systems, protecting user accounts, authentication processes, and so on. Moving forward, you will also develop hands-on skills with advanced Linux permissions, access control, special modes, and more. Lastly, this book will also cover best practices and troubleshooting techniques to get your work done efficiently. By the end of this book, you will be confident in delivering a system that will be much harder to compromise.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface

Setting up security banners


Something that you really, really don't want is to have a login banner that says something to the effect, "Welcome to our network". I say that because quite a few years ago, I attended a mentored SANS course on incident handling. Our instructor told us the story about how a company took a suspected network intruder to court, only to get the case thrown out. The reason? The alleged intruder said, "Well, I saw the message that said 'Welcome to the network', so I thought that I really was welcome there." Yeah, supposedly, that was enough to get the case thrown out.

A few years later, I related that story to the students in one of my Linux admin classes. One student said, "That makes no sense. We all have welcome mats at our front doors, but that doesn't mean that burglars are welcome to come in." I have to confess that he had a good point, and I now have to wonder about the veracity of the story.

At any rate, just to be on the safe side, you do want to set up login...