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49.2 Some General Security Tips and
Tricks
To handle security competently, it is important to keep up with new developments and
stay informed about the latest security issues. One very good way to protect your systems
against problems of all kinds is to get and install the updated packages recommended
by security announcements as quickly as possible. SUSE security announcements are
published on a mailing list to which you can subscribe by following the link
www.novell.com/linux/security/securitysupport.html. The list
suse-security-announce@suse.com
garding updated packages and includes members of SUSE's security team among its
active contributors.
The mailing list
suse-security@suse.com
issues of interest. Subscribe to it on the same Web page.
bugtraq@securityfocus.com
worldwide. Reading this list, which receives between 15 and 20 postings per day, is
recommended. More information can be found at
.com.
The following is a list of rules you may find useful in dealing with basic security con-
cerns:
• According to the rule of using the most restrictive set of permissions possible for
every job, avoid doing your regular jobs as root. This reduces the risk of getting
a cuckoo egg or a virus and protects you from your own mistakes.
• If possible, always try to use encrypted connections to work on a remote machine.
Using ssh (secure shell) to replace telnet, ftp, rsh, and rlogin should be
standard practice.
• Avoid using authentication methods based on IP addresses alone.
• Try to keep the most important network-related packages up-to-date and subscribe
to the corresponding mailing lists to receive announcements on new versions of
such programs (bind, sendmail, ssh, etc.). The same should apply to software rele-
vant to local security.
is a first-hand source of information re-
is a good place to discuss any security
is one of the best-known security mailing lists
http://www.securityfocus
http://
Security and Confidentiality
889
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Troubleshooting
