On September 9th, over 40 users and supporters of the Linux operating system attended a 2 hour talk by NACS’ Ted Gielow concerning security issues. Linux has been growing in popularity as an inexpensive and effective variety of the UNIX operating system, as it accommodates both computational and e-mail/Web server uses. Linux systems are very powerful and easy to setup, but are vulnerable to attack if not setup and maintained properly. Break-ins jeopardize computer availability, as well as valuable data and other academic pursuits. Since systems are connected to the campus network, they can be used to disrupt departmental or network communications and are thus a campus-wide concern.
Ted, who is a member of NACS’ Computing/Network Security Team, gave helpful hints on permission settings and on commands to determine what is running, who is connected, and more. He dispelled myths about hackers, discussed how to reduce exposure to network break-ins, talked about security software, and made suggestions for system administration and backups.
See the following document for information on making a UNIX system more secure:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/dcs/security/hardening.html
Keeping a system secure is an ongoing effort — if you are interested in someone else doing it for you, NACS’ Distributed Computing Support (DCS) group provides support services for Red Hat Linux and other UNIX variants. See the following for information on DCS services:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/sysadmin/sysadmin.html
Please contact us at our NACS@UCI.EDU e-mail address to express interest in future seminars, or if you have any Linux or system security concerns.