Mike Rothman wrote this article about John Chamber's Keynote @ RSA. I was there and I thought the talk was one of the best I heard or saw but let me be really clear with my disclaimer that John is my boss. Check it out.
I was going to post an post RSA article (that I am STILL working on). In short it was agood conference and show. The presentations that I thought would be valuable were not and many of the analyst's presentation that I thought would be light technically were actually good.
"On the Firewall" is a online journal on the subject of network Firewalls and all things Internet security.
March 24, 2006
March 03, 2006
Another good article on SSH
This FAQ type tutorial originally appeared up on digg and is more commercial that the previous SSH article I referenced.
February 19, 2006
Ten Things that You Can Do to Secure Your LinkSys Router
1. Change the router password.
2. Update the Linksys router firmware.
3. When using DHCP reduce the number of addresses.
4. Turn off services and pass throughs that you don't use.
5. Turn off SNMP on Linksys
6. Turn off wireless if you are not using it
7. If you are using wireless, change your SSID to some word that you and your family know.
8. If you are using wireless, use wireless security.
9. On your PC be sure to use an E-Mail scanner.
10. If you are going to be away from home for more than a few days turn off your cable modem.
#1 - No one should be using "admin" as their Linksys router password! Make sure you change it. A good practice is to write the new password on a sticky note or a label and attach it to the bottom of the Linksys device. Security purists would probably say this is a horrible idea but if a hacker is looking at your router they're in already. This way it is there if you ever forget it.
#2 - Check the Linksys website to make sure that the firmware that you are using is the latest. Many very common problems can be resolved just by updating the firmware.
#3 - By default Linksys sets the number of connections allowed on many of their devices to 50. That's usually at least 45 too many. Count the total number of devices that you own that can use the Internet connection and add either 1 or 2 to that number and use it to set the maximum connections. You want to always add one or two to let the Linksys router a little time to recycle a recently used address.
#4 - If you don't think you are using it; turn it off. Case in point would be multicast. Most folks out there shouldn't use multicast over the Internet. Turn it off.
#5 - Make sure that SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is turned off.
#6 - If your Linksys router is equipped with wireless and you are not using it; turn it off.
#7 - Change your SSID. This is the "passphrase" that devices that attach to your wireless have to use. You don't want someone who can intercept your signals to be able to figure out where they are coming from based on the SSID. Don't use your family name or your street address.
#8 - If you are using wireless; use wireless security. Even though WEP can be cracked (data can be captured, analyzed, and de-coded) it is still hard enough to do that most attackers will move on to an easier target. And there is no shortage of easier targets.
#9 - Electronic mail (e-mail) has to be able to get through your Linksys device and to your computer. Make sure that you use some e-mail scanner to make sure that the e-mail messages you receive don't have viruses and worms embedded or attached. My favorite is PC-cillin from Trend Micro.
#10 - You can be sure that your home is safe from the threats of the Internet if you are not connected. If you are going to be away for a day or too use the "standby" button on your cable modem or just turn it off.
2. Update the Linksys router firmware.
3. When using DHCP reduce the number of addresses.
4. Turn off services and pass throughs that you don't use.
5. Turn off SNMP on Linksys
6. Turn off wireless if you are not using it
7. If you are using wireless, change your SSID to some word that you and your family know.
8. If you are using wireless, use wireless security.
9. On your PC be sure to use an E-Mail scanner.
10. If you are going to be away from home for more than a few days turn off your cable modem.
#1 - No one should be using "admin" as their Linksys router password! Make sure you change it. A good practice is to write the new password on a sticky note or a label and attach it to the bottom of the Linksys device. Security purists would probably say this is a horrible idea but if a hacker is looking at your router they're in already. This way it is there if you ever forget it.
#2 - Check the Linksys website to make sure that the firmware that you are using is the latest. Many very common problems can be resolved just by updating the firmware.
#3 - By default Linksys sets the number of connections allowed on many of their devices to 50. That's usually at least 45 too many. Count the total number of devices that you own that can use the Internet connection and add either 1 or 2 to that number and use it to set the maximum connections. You want to always add one or two to let the Linksys router a little time to recycle a recently used address.
#4 - If you don't think you are using it; turn it off. Case in point would be multicast. Most folks out there shouldn't use multicast over the Internet. Turn it off.
#5 - Make sure that SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is turned off.
#6 - If your Linksys router is equipped with wireless and you are not using it; turn it off.
#7 - Change your SSID. This is the "passphrase" that devices that attach to your wireless have to use. You don't want someone who can intercept your signals to be able to figure out where they are coming from based on the SSID. Don't use your family name or your street address.
#8 - If you are using wireless; use wireless security. Even though WEP can be cracked (data can be captured, analyzed, and de-coded) it is still hard enough to do that most attackers will move on to an easier target. And there is no shortage of easier targets.
#9 - Electronic mail (e-mail) has to be able to get through your Linksys device and to your computer. Make sure that you use some e-mail scanner to make sure that the e-mail messages you receive don't have viruses and worms embedded or attached. My favorite is PC-cillin from Trend Micro.
#10 - You can be sure that your home is safe from the threats of the Internet if you are not connected. If you are going to be away for a day or too use the "standby" button on your cable modem or just turn it off.
February 11, 2006
Good article on getting started with SSH
Great article with notes and references on getting started with SSH by Kimmo Suominen. He's writing for people that using Linux but explains some of the technology behind SSH making it easier to understand. For more information about SSH see the FAQ. He also covers SCP for file transfers (and mentions my favorite WinSCP)
January 11, 2006
Running someone else's firmware on your Linksys Router?
In case you didn't know you can run firmware developers by folk's other than Linksys on a Linksys router. Why? The best answer to this question is that these other developers are adding features that Linksys just doesn't have in their firmware. Like what? Most often it's support for advanced crypto (AES cypher) or routing (protocols other than RIP). Here's a link to an article by Eric at Roachfiend that goes into more detail about why.
Who should be thinking about this? From what I've seen this is something that just a handful of Linksys users might even consider and still fewer should do. If the feature that you want isn't in a Linksys router it is probably because it doesn't belong there. Case in point AES. Using AES to encrypt data over the wire is great and much more secure than DES or 3DES. The problem is that it's computationally harder and therefore to be done quickly you need a bigger, faster processor. My message is that if you want AES or advanced routing; buy a real router.
If you are still interested in doing this; more power to you. Experiment with it. My suggestion would be to make sure that you have another router of some sort to fall back on if the Linksys becomes wedged (i.e. the lights are on but it stops working) and can't be reset right away.
To learn more about the firmware choices that are out there see this article over on Linksysinfo.org.
Who should be thinking about this? From what I've seen this is something that just a handful of Linksys users might even consider and still fewer should do. If the feature that you want isn't in a Linksys router it is probably because it doesn't belong there. Case in point AES. Using AES to encrypt data over the wire is great and much more secure than DES or 3DES. The problem is that it's computationally harder and therefore to be done quickly you need a bigger, faster processor. My message is that if you want AES or advanced routing; buy a real router.
If you are still interested in doing this; more power to you. Experiment with it. My suggestion would be to make sure that you have another router of some sort to fall back on if the Linksys becomes wedged (i.e. the lights are on but it stops working) and can't be reset right away.
To learn more about the firmware choices that are out there see this article over on Linksysinfo.org.
January 02, 2006
Top 10 ways to protect DNS
Something that I think everyone using the Internet should be concerned about is protecting the Domain Name System or DNS. Without DNS this blog, Google, all my other work, and everything else would be a series of IP addresses in dotted decimal notation.
While I'm not usually a fan of thinking found on Tech Republic (I have a link to a link sometimes to yet another link to some content problem) they do justice to this topic in this article.
Here is a link to the original article where I found this over at ZDNet: Top 10 ways to protect DNS | ZDNet Government Blog | ZDNet.com.
While I'm not usually a fan of thinking found on Tech Republic (I have a link to a link sometimes to yet another link to some content problem) they do justice to this topic in this article.
Here is a link to the original article where I found this over at ZDNet: Top 10 ways to protect DNS | ZDNet Government Blog | ZDNet.com.
December 24, 2005
PIX Firewall Documentation
This is a link to all PIX Firewall documentation from version 2.7 through 7.0.
December 19, 2005
Happy Holidays
If you have a moment (and are looking for a laugh) please take a look at my personal online holiday greeting to everyone in the IT business.
As the year draws to a close I have a lot to be thankful for. I find it's a good time to think about those who are less fortunate. If you can spare some money (it doesn't have to be much) these folks could sure use all of our help.
Happy holidays!
As the year draws to a close I have a lot to be thankful for. I find it's a good time to think about those who are less fortunate. If you can spare some money (it doesn't have to be much) these folks could sure use all of our help.
Happy holidays!
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