Savannah W-ITS

VirtualBox Security Tools – testing or installing Live CD images as virtual machines
I noted that this seems to be a popular approach for VMWare images and decided to try a few tools out using VirtualBox.   As with any such ’security solution’ you should carefully evaluate the tools that you allow (or the OS builds that you [...]

I recently found that some users could not access this site due to what seemed to be ‘false positive’ matches in the mod_security rule base.  In this particular instance the rule was one for ‘backdoor’ or ‘trojan’ access attempts.
For now, I disable the rule (or set it to log only) and I decide to see [...]

Hmm, imagine this – The C-HACK! of 2009
Update (2/7/2010) – it will be interesting to see ‘the facts’ for this event – A post by Bruce Schneier (1/23/2010) on the CNN web provides some additional thoughts, i.e. Are we doing this to ourselves? (Do our national policies increase the chances that these types of events [...]

GEO Blocking network access – blocking specific IP blocks (GEO-blocking – do you really need those connections from Asia?)
CAVEAT: The flow of packets through your system is fairly complex – I am limiting this discussion and I encourage you to RTM as well as the tutorial referenced in below…
There are a number of approaches to [...]

What are your shoe’s like?  Comfortable? How do your feet feel in a garden of needles where you are endlessly/randomly pricked?
Isn’t my ISP supposed to protect me? Hmm – yes & no.   Your ISP provides connectivity and attempts to allow the connectivity without intruding  – privacy concerns loom – how is the ISP supposed [...]

Part 101b:  Some example rules for your Linux Firewall

Creating a custom chain
Creating a LOG rule
Creating a  DROP rule

Some basic/simple rules you should implement – blocking RFC 1918 (or similar) traffic at your gateway.
Your Internet Gateway is the connection between your internal network and the public Internet.  For many consumers and small businesses this is [...]

Part 101a: Where should you start with a Linux firewall?
Review your configuration (review ALL tables – save the short script below to the file /tmp/show.firewall – you must be ‘root’ or use ’sudo’)
#!/bin/bash
for TABLE in raw mangle nat filter
do
printf “\t##### Table: ${TABLE} ####\n”
iptables [...]

I started this post a while back and settled on Back in Time (Rsync based solution) for my needs.  The post includes references (and in some cases, brief descriptions) of other tools.  The best tool for any solution will vary based on requirements, budget & time – as usual, your mileage will vary – just [...]

Your mileage should vary, but for me this device was both a poor/bad investment and a trouble-shooting time hog. I picked this up at Office Depot for $20 (regular price ~$50.)  While relatively simple to configure (via a web interface) the device seems to have performance issues (i.e. both dropping established wireless connections as well [...]

I previously posted about our friend Murphy – he has returned…   Stuff happens – all the time.
Seems like it was just yesterday that I purchased an external 1TB Seagate FreeAgent USB disk drive (I actually purchased the drive in February of 2009 – so I am seeing failure in ~10 months with modest use – [...]