Hacker's Arsenal - The Cutting Edge of Hacking/Hacker's Arsenal - The Cutting Edge of Hacking.iso/texts/nix/unixsec.txt

Text File | 2001-07-11 | 49.3 KB | 956 lines

Basic Local/Remote Unix Security for Unix Newbies
<===============================================>
version 1.0, 21/11/99

Written by: R a v e N, Black Sun Research Facility.

Black Sun Research Facility - http://blacksun.box.sk

<--! Begin copyright bullshit !-->
All copyrights are reserved. You may distribute this tutorial freely, as long
as you keep our names and Black Sun Research Facility's URL at the top of this
tutorial.
I have written this tutorial for you, the readers. But I also wish to remain
the author of this guide, meaning I do not want people to change a line or two
and then claim that the whole guide is theirs. If you wish to create an
altered version of this tutorial, please contact me by Email -
[e-mail].
<--! End copyright bullshit !-->

<--! Begin disclaimer !-->
Yada yada yada... you know the drill. I did not write this tutorial for people
to learn "how to hack" and crack into and possibly damage other machines. It
is solely intended to teach the reader a lesson about Unix security.
Also, I am not responsible to any damage caused by using any of the techniques
explained in this guide.
<--! End disclaimer !-->


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Introduction
============
This guide is meant for Unix newbies who want to learn a little about basic
Unix security, and how to secure their box.
Most systems come very very insecure out-of-the-box. What is out-of-the-box
(let's call it OOTB from now on), you ask? An OOTB system is a system which
was just installed. All the default configurations are turned on, which means
zero personalization (besides maybe a little personalization made during the
installation process) and quite a lot possible security problems.
Also, there are some very basic concepts that most newbie Unix users aren't
familiar with.

During this tutorial, I will teach you how to change default configurations,
basic packet filtering, how to secure your system's networking services (or
completely remove them or some of them, in case you don't need them, in order
to increate your computer's security), how to use, how to avoid trojans, what
are sniffers, how to maintain local security between different users in your
system (if you're not the only one using this system, whether it's locally
or remotely), some stuff about SSH, how to protect yourself against computer
viruses under the Unix system, what are security scanners and how to use
them, why you should encrypt your important data and how etc'.

Now, it is advised to go through Black Sun's previous tutorials (see
blacksun.box.sk) prior to reading this tutorial. They contain some basic
concepts and terminology which you need to know and you're might not familiar
with. Also, you should have some basic Unix knowledge and experience. If you
don't have that kind of knowledge yet, we advise you to go to the local
computer store and buy a basic Unix book (it shouldn't cost too much), or,
if you really want to, order a specific one from the Internet (or even
better: go to blacksun.box.sk/books.html and order a book from there. We get
15% of the money you pay...  :-)  This doesn't mean that you pay more,
though. We simply get 15% out of the money you pay). Don't worry about online
ordering, it's completely secure as long as you order your books from
Amazon.com (they're considered the most secure E-Store on the planet, and I
order lots of books from there).

Oh, one last note: this tutorial is in no way a complete one (Duh! It's a
BASIC tutorial, in case you havn't read the title). I included everything I
could possibly think of (that is notable for a beginners guide in this field,
of course). With time, I will add more chapters, so make sure you have the
latest version by visiting blacksun.box.sk often or subscribing to Black Sun's
mailing list (info on how to subscribe at blacksun.box.sk also).

Okay, heads up! Here we go!

Setting The Ground
==================
First of all, I assume that you are using either RedHat Linux or Mandrake
Linux. Why is that? Because most Unix newbies use either of these two
distributions. Don't worry, it's no crime to use them or something, and it's
not "lame". Each distribution has it's advantages. RedHat and Mandrake, for
example, both have simple installation and come with a lot of utilities
built-in. That's okay, although I like Slackware Linux and OpenBSD better
(I'll explain why in a second).

Now, some of you might be asking right now "but... but I have a different
distribution! Will this stuff work for me too?". Before I answer this
question (to the impatient ones of you, I can already say "yes", but that's
not the exact answer. Read on and you'll understand), I want to explain what
is a distribution (otherwise known as a "distro" or a "flavor" of Unix), why
there are so many of them, where you could learn about all the different
distributions and how to choose the right distribution for you.

Unix was first distributed freely and in open-source form. If you're not
familiar with any programming language, then you're not familiar with the
term "source code". I'll explain.

The simplest way to show you what source code is is to send you to a
webpage. Take hackernews.com (a personal favorite) for example. Every common
browser has an option to view the page's source from within the browser, but
let's pretend you don't know how to do this or you don't even have this
option within your browser. First, wait for the whole page to load. Then,
save it to your hard drive, a diskette or whatever. Then, open the HTML page
you've just saved with any text editor (Pico, KEdit, Emacs, Notepad,
UltraEdit, whatever).

Now what do you see? No more text and graphics and colors and layout, but
plain good instructions. These are HTML instructions. HTML stands for Hyper
Text Marquee Language, and it is the language used to create HTML pages,
which can be read by your browser and used as instructions for how to build
and display the web page.


The same goes with programming. To create a program, you need to know some
sort fo a programming language (C, for example), and then construct the
program using commands which will later be given to a compiler (which will
turn the source code file into an executable binary file, or in other words, a
program which you can run and play around with) or an interpreter (the program
runs as source code, and gets executed by a program called an interpreter,
which reads the instructions in the source code and performs them. A popular
interpreted programming language is Perl. Interpreted programming languages
usually run slower, but have their advantages. We won't go into that now,
though).

Okay, moving on. So now you know what source code is. As I've already
explained, Unix was initially distributed freely and in source code form. This
means that ANYONE with the right knowledge and skills can create his own
version of Unix, to meet his special needs. A different version of Unix is
called a distribution, a "distro" or a "flavor".

Now go to www.linuxberg.com. Pick the closest mirror site and then enter the
distributions page. It will display a list of Unix distributions, each one
with it's own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. This is all nice,
but what happens if people start creating versions of Unix without paying
attention to compatibility issues? For example, if I would have created my own
version of Unix and called ls (the command that lists all files in the current
directory in console mode (text-based interface) or in a virtual console (a
console within a graphical window)) "list" instead? This means that if someone
would have made a program that called the ls command for some purpose, it
wouldn't work anymore (unless I create a command called ls that calls my own
command - list. But in that case, I have to make sure that list has similar
rules to ls). See the problem?

Also, if I go to my friend's house, which could be using a different
distribution, how could I possibly use his computer if everything is
completely different?

This is why there are standards. Every Unix distribution has to meet these
standards so it will be compatible with other versions. This is also why most
(if not all) of the stuff I am about to teach here will work in all
distributions. If you have a certain problem or question, ask in our message
board (find it at blacksun.box.sk).

Oh, almost forgot... in the beginning of this section, I have clearly stated
that I like Slackware Linux and OpenBSD more than RedHat Linux and Mandrake
Linux. Why is that? Simply because they have some advantages, such as even
mroe stability, security, speed and encryption, and they top all the other
distributions in these fields. Of course, they are much harder to work with
(have you ever tried to install OpenBSD?! To a person who installed Mandrake
Linux, which is the easiest to install, and is almost as easy as installing
Windows 95, it would look like hell!!).

Okay, let's move on to the actual security information, shall we?

First Thing's First: Local Security
===================================
First of all, let's think: why would you want to improve your computer's local
security? Well, if you're the only one using this computer, and you don't
intend to let anyone into your computer (at least not intentionally), then you
should only read this chapter for pure knowledge. But if you're running a
multi-users system, you definetly should improve your local security.

What is local security? Well, better local security means that different users
on this computer, whether they are local users (they have local access to the
computer. They use a keyboard, a monitor and what-not that are
directly connected to the actual box, not through some sort of a local
area network (LAN) or the Internet) or remote users (users accessing your
computer, whether legally or not, using Telnet, SSH, RLogin etc' and through a
local network or the Internet), you need to increate your computer's local
security.

Let's start with a basic lesson about file permissions.

Unix File Permissions And The Password File
-------------------------------------------
First of all, you need to learn about the way the system works with different
users. Here is a mini-tutorial out of the Byte Me page at my website that will
explain what and how the Unix password file works, thus explain to you a
little more about this subject.

Password files == world readable + how do password files look like?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
First of all, a file that is world readable is a file that can be read by
ANYONE on the system, even the most inferior user. On most systems today, the
password file (usually /etc/passwd) is world readable. Does this mean ANYONE
can get the encrypted passwords and decrypt them? Definetly not!
A password file consists of several (or one) lines, when each line represents
a user.

The password file looks like this:
username:password:uid:gid:free text:home directory:shell
Username - the user's username.
Password - the user's password, encrypted using altered DES encryption (can
be cracked in a matter of time, though [note: we'll get to cracking the
password file later]).
UID - User ID. If your UID is 0, you have root priviledges (nothing can stop
you, and you can even type "su username" (without the quotes) to become a
different user. Type exit to return to your root shell after you're done. Btw
SU stands for Switch User). If two users have the same UID, they'll have
identical permissions.
GID - Group ID. The same as UID, with root being GID=0. GID let's you set
ownership patterns and access patterns for a group of users (or a single user)
who have different or identical UIDs but have the same GID.
Free text - some free text about the user. For info on how to exploit this
field in order to get private information about people, read the Info
Gathering tutorial here.
Home directory - where the user's private configurations files are stored.
Usually /root if you are root, or /usr/your-username or /home/your-username if
you're another user.
Shell - the program that gets executed once you log in. Usually a command
interpreter (a program that receives commands from you and executes them).

Now, most systems will make /etc/passwd world-readable, but don't put the
passwords in it. Instead, they will put a single character, such as *. The
passwords will be stored at the shadow file, which is not world-readable, and
is usually stored at /etc/shadow.
The shadow file is identical to the /etc/passwd file, only it has the
encrypted passwords. Some shadowing programs can also improve the encryption
schemes, but that's not important to us right now.

The /etc/passwd has to be world readable if you want to:
1) Find out what's the username of a certain UID. Very useful in some
situations. For example: each file has an owner. The owner can change access
patterns for this file, or change it's ownership. Root can own all files if
he/she wants to. The owner's UID is inserted into the file. Programs such as
ls (ls stands for list. It views the contents of a directory. For more info
about it and it's uses, type "man ls" without the quotes on a Unix system) can
tell you who owns a file. If they don't have access to the password file
(programs run with your priviledges, unless they are SUID, in which case they
run with the priviledges of the user who SUIDed them. People try not to use
SUID, because it poses lots of security threats), they will only be able to
present you with the UID of the owner. But if they have access to the password
file, they can find the appropriate username for this UID.
2) Find out information about people (what's their home directory, what's
their shell, what's written in their free text area etc').
3) Etc' etc' etc'... be creative!

              EOF

In case you're wondering, EOF stands for End Of File. This means that... well,
duh! End of file! That's it, you've just finished that nice little
mini-tutorial. Now I assume you want to learn how to change file permissions.

So, in order to change file permissions, you need to learn how to use the
chmod command. Now, I am about to guide you on the process of finding
information about Unix commands by yourself. It's quite easy.

Okay, let's try man first. Man stands for manual. Man is a command that
displays a manual page for a specified command. The syntax is: max command.
For example: man ls, man cd, man more etc'. So let's try to type man chmod.
AHA! No man entry for chmod...   :-/   (some systems might have a man page for
chmod)

Let's try using info. We type info chmod. AHA! This time, we're getting
something. So let's see... it says a little about the chmod command, but it
doesn't explain how to use it! Oh, wait, look at this - there are links within
this guide. Simply position your cursor within a word, a couple of words or a
sentence that link somewhere else (they always have a * in front of them) and
hit enter. Keep following links until you learn about chmod and about file
permissions.

Runlevels
---------
I have decided to quote a nice mini-tutorial from the Byte Me page at my
website instead of just writing about runlevels all over again (I don't like
doing things twice).

What Are Unix Runlevels?
++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you've been paying attention to what your Unix box does during startup, you
should have noticed that it says: "Entering runlevel x" (where x is a number
between 1 and 5) at one point of the bootup stage (after it mounts your root
filesystem (your "/" directory) into read-write mode, sets up sound, finds
your RPMs ("Finding module dependencies...") etc'). A runlevel is a
bootup/shutdown sequence. It consists of a list of commands to run on startup
and a list of commands to run on shutdown (or when switching to different
runlevels).

Now, first of all, let's see how you can switch runlevels. Bah, that's easy.
Simply type init x, where x is a number between 0 and 6. Runlevel 0 is for
"halt" (turning off your computer, if you have APM -Advanced Power Management,
and if you have APMD - APM Daemon, installed. All modern CPUs have APM),
runlevel 6 is for reboot and the rest are various runlevels. 5 will bootup
everything - it will even automatically run X and ask you for your login
and password in a graphical interface (by default, of course. You can change
this). Runlevel 1 is considered the single-mode runlevel. It does the least
possible (kinda like "safe mode" in Windows) and doesn't even require you to
enter a password (but only root can switch runlevels, so you have to be either
root or have physical access to the computer during startup (we'll get to that
later)).

To edit your runlevel list, you can either:
a) Go to /etc/rc.d/rcx.d/ (where x is the runlevel's number) and play around
within this directory. It contains symbolic links (kinda like shortcuts in
Windows. For more information about symbolic links (otherwise known as
"symlinks"), type man ln) to programs (including their parameters) that will
be executed, and symbolic links to programs that will be killed on shutdown.
Play around to find out more (but ALWAYS make backups!!).
b) (this should work on most Unix boxes) Switch to the runlevel you want to
edit. Then type setup. Go to system services, and select/unselect the
services u want to run on startup and kill on shutdown).
c) The easiest way - on most systems, you will be able to type the command
control-panel within an xterm (a "virtual terminal" - a console window within
X-Windows) and get a nice little window thingi with lots of buttons and
suchlikes. Find the button that says "runlevel editor" when you put the mouse
above it for a second or two. Then click on this button and play around with
the programs. I'm sure you'll figure out how to use it yourself. It's quite
self-explanitory, and it contains help files and documentation if you really
need help.

And now, for a nice little runlevels-related hack.
Now, if you're reading this document, you're probably a Unix newbie, so you
probably use Redhat Linux, Mandrake Linux etc'. If so, you should have a
prompt saying "boot:" or "LILO boot:" or "LILO:" when you start your computer,
and you could either type Windows or Linux (you can change these names into,
say, sucky-OS for Windows and Stable_and_secure_OS for Linux, or anything else
you want. Use the linuxconf program to edit LILO's preferences, and use your
imagination...  :-) ). Now, what happens if you type linux 5? Of course! It
boots up Linux in runlevel 5!! But wait! What happens if you type linux 1 or
linux single? It runs on runlevel 1 - single user mode, which means...
automatic root access! No password needed.   :-)  Most people simply don't
realize how dangerous this could be.

              EOF

Now, imagine that some evil cracker (e.g. your grandma...  :-) ) reads this
document and then locally roots your computer somehow (the verb 'to root'
means 'to get root access to a computer, not necessarily one that runs Unix').
Scary, huh? That was as easy as stealing a candy from a baby (not that I've
ever done that... /me looks away...   :-) ).

Cracking The Password File
--------------------------
As you should already know by now, the password file has some encrypted text
within it. Let's discuss about the encryption scheme first, shall we?

Unix password file encryption is based on an altered version of DES
encryption. If you will try to decode an encrypted Unix password (let's call
it a hash from now on. That's the proper name for it) using standard DES
decoding, you will get a null string. Nothing. Nada. Zero. No, not even zero.
You simply won't get anything.

So how do you open this door? With a key.  :-)
Key-based encryption (e.g. PGP, which stands for Pretty Good Privacy, and has
very powerful encryption schemes) is an encryption scheme where you need to
have a key, which is a set of letters (lowercase or uppercase), numbers,
symbols etc' (it could be just numbers, symbols and lowercase letters, all
letters, etc').

So in Unix "crypt" (from now on, crypt means Unix password file encryption),
the key is actually the first eight characters of the user's password (you can
add extra characters to the key, which can be generated randomly, for extra
security. These are called salts. I won't explain much about them here because
I don't believe I know enough about them to do so), so you need the user's
password to decode the hash (but if you have the user's password, why would
you want to decode his hash if you already have the password?  :-) ).

So, crypted passwords cannot be cracked, right? WRONG! You can use a password
cracker such as John the Ripper or Cracker Jack (there are both Unix versions
and Windows versions. Sorry, I don't have URLs to download them) to crack the
hashes. But how do these things work?

A password cracker generates random passwords and then tries to break the hash
by using this password as the key. If it fails, it simply tries another
password until it gets it right. Password crackers can try thousands of
passwords per second on modern computers.

there are two methods of password cracking - brute-force and dictionary
attacks. In brute-force mode, your password cracker guesses passwords
systematically. You can set a minimum amount of characters for the password,
and tell your cracker what to create the password out of (lowercase letters,
uppercase letters, numbers, symbols etc'). In dictionary attacks, your
password cracker takes words out of a simple text file called a 'dictionary
file'. Each line in this file represents a single word for the password
cracker to try.

Dictionary files usually have an advantage over brute-force attacks, because
if you know that the target's password has something to do with dogs, you
could download a dictionary file about dogs. If you know it's the name of some
philosopher, you could download a dictionary file containing the names of all
known philosophers. You can also download all-purpose dictionaries that
contain various words (these usually have the greatest chance to succeed).
The best place to download wordlists from is theargon.com.

So, as you can see, if someone obtains your hashes somehow, he could decode
them and break into your computer. This is why all users on your system should
have a long password, and preferably not a dictionary word.

If you need help with using a password cracker or have any further questions,
try asking them on the message board at blacksun.box.sk (it's ours, btw...
:-) ).

Trojans
=======
Yes, trojans. Most people who read this might be thinking about Netbus, Back
Orifice, Sub7 and other Windows trojans. These aren't trojans. Okay, I mean,
they ARE trojans, but not this kind of trojans. They are 'remote
administration trojans'. First, let's understand what this name means, and
then you'll see what they have to do with Unix in general and with local
security in particular (as well as remote security). Let's start with the word
trojan:

Trpjan - In the Greek mithology, There is a story about the 'trojan horse'. The
Greek were trying to capture the city of Troy for a reason which is beyond this
guide (you should really read the whole story or get the movie or something.
It is quite good). They were camping on the outsides of Troy for about ten
years and they still didn't manage to get in. Then, they came up with a
brilliant plan: the whole army pretended to be leaving the area, and they left
a giant wooden horse for the Trojans as some kind of a present (to honor the
Trojans for being so good). Within this horse sat a couple of soldiers. When
the Trojans found the giant horse, they carried it inside and then, under the
cover of night, the soldiers inside it came out, opened the city's gates and
let the entire Greek army get in, which eventually lead to the fall of the
city of Troy.

So, as you see, a trojan program is a program that does not do what it
proclaims to be doing. It could either be a harmless joke (a joke program that
pretends to delete your entire hard drive or any other kinds of computer joke
programs) or a malicious program which could harm your system.

Remote administration - To remotely administer a system means to be able to
work on this system as if you had local ("physical") access to it. Being able
to remotely access your system (or "to remotely login to it") is useful for
getting files off your system, working on your system from a distant place
etc'.

Remote administration trojan - A trojan program that let's the author of the
program, the person who sent you the program or any other person in the world
access your computer and remotely administer it (this is why Remote
Administration Trojans, or RATs, are often called remote administration
"backdoors" - they open a "back door" for the attacker to get in). This is
exactly like depositing your entire system and evertyhing on it to the hands of
the attacker.

The most dangerous thing about RATs would probably be that most of them
(especially Netbus and Sub7) are extremely easy to use and understand, and
come with one or two pages of instructions (yes, they're THAT simple), so any
little kid can use them. Most of these "kids" have no idea what this program
or other programs that do most of the work for them do, which lead to the
nickname "script kiddies" - "lamers" (a lamer is a person who acts immaturely
or stupidly) with programs that do all of the work for them. Technically, a
script kiddie can crack into the Pentagon if he is given a program that does
everything for him. But does he know how this whole thing works? Will he know
what to do once he's in? I doubt it.

Now, malicious trojan programs can do a lot more than that. There are also
trojans that allow the attacker to have local access to any user who runs the
program (if root runs it, the whole system is doomed. This is one of the
reasons why no sensible system administrator would work as root all the time,
and instead make himself a less-priviledged account to work with). This is
useful if the attacker has an account on this system and wants to get access
to some other user's files (or even root access, which means access to
practically everything).

Also, if you gain write access to a commonly-used application (such as su,
which let's you run a sub-shell as another user by simply giving his password
instead of having to relogin. SU stands for Switch User. Oh, by the way, root
doesn't need to supply a password to su if he wants to gain access to some
other person's account), you can trojan these applications. Let's take su for
example - if you manage to change su so it'll send you every username and
password which it received, you could eventually capture your target's
password or even root's password.

So, kids, this is why you should beware of trojans. Be very careful with what
you run. Also, there are programs called checksum checkers. These programs
perform periodical tests (once a day, once an hour, once a week etc, depending
on how you configure them) that determine if the size of some applications
(you can descelect default applications to test or add new applications by
yourself) has changed. If someone has trojaned one of those applications, it's
size should change, but it is also possible (although much harder) to trojan a
program without affecting it's size, but that's out of the topic of this guide.

Unix Viruses
------------
The computer virus problem is much less harsh under the Unix platform, but if
you want to keep your data intact, you should be aware of the problem, which
still exists.

There is an incredibly small number of viruses in the wild for the Unix
operating system (a virus that is "in the wild" is a virus that has gone
through a network of any kind and started infecting computers on this network,
just like a biological virus, when it escapes a restricted laboratory
environment and goes into "the wild" and starts infecting people). This is
because virus writers are less motivated to write viruses for Unix, because of
the following reasons:

A) Most people who use Unix are more mature than other computer users. Virus
creators who intend to infect other computers are immature people.

B) Because of access restrictions in the Unix operating system, if a user runs
a file that is infected with a virus, the virus can't go far, and it can only
do what this user has priviledges to do (although, if a root-priviledged user
runs a virus, it can infect the whole system and freely travel to other
systems). So, because there are files that some users can access and some
other users can't, Unix viruses can't spread far.

Still, the problem exists, and we want to protect our data, right? This is why
you should still get yourself a Unix virus scanner. Because of the extreme
lack of viruses in the Unix system, there are no "big titles" of virus
scanners. Try going to altavista.com and searching for Unix virus scanners.
Download some different ones and compare the quality of their scans and the
amount of resources they consume.

Encryption
----------
Encrypt your important files. Use PGP for better encryption.

If someone penetrates your computer's security, it will be much much harder
for him to get your important data if you encrypt it.

For more information about encryption, read Black Sun's encryption tutorials
at blacksun.box.sk (go to the tutorials page and then find the encryption
section. We have some guides for beginners about PGP and encryption in
general).

Remote Security
===============
Why would you want to improve your computer's remote security? DUH! If you
ever plan to hook your computer into a LAN, the Internet or any other kind of
network, you immediately increase the chance of you getting hacked. You should
definetly attend to your remote security (unless you like getting your ass
rooted).

Also, you should read the local security part first, since it contains a lot
of information you need to know before you read this, and also quite a few
tricks that work for both local security and remote security.

Remote Root Logins
------------------
Before I explain to you what is the issue with remote root logins and how to
block them, I need to explain to you what a TTY is first.

Unix is a multi-users system, right? And on multi-users systems, many users,
each one with his own monitor or any other type of terminal, can work on the
same computer, right?

Now, this computer is obviously running more than one process (a process is a
running program), since it has multiple users on it. Each process receives
some input and sends out some output. Well, then, how will this computer know
which input is whom's and where to direct the output of each program? You
wouldn't want to receive the output of processes that other users are running,
right? (well, technically, if you're a malicious cracker, you'd love to
receive the output of other users' processes, but we're getting off-topic now).

This is why each user has a TTY. TTY stands for Terminal TYpe. Each user has
it's own TTY, which can be composed of letters and numbers. That way, the
computer knows where the input comes from (from which TTY) and where to direct
the output to.

Okay, first, let's make an experiment. Run a text-based console of an XTerm
window (a console window from within X-Windows, the popular Graphical User
Interface, or GUI, of Unix systems) and type the command who. This will show
who is logged into the system (his username), when he logged in and what is
his TTY. By the way, if you prefer a graphical version of the who command, try
typing gw within an XTerm or within a "run command" box in X. This program
should come with the gnome window manager.

Okay, let's move on. Now, that we know what TTYs are, let's edit the file
/etc/securetty with a simple text editor. Now, what do we have here? We have a
list of all TTYs that can log in as a root-priviledged user. My /etc/securetty
file looks like this:

tty1
tty2
tty3
tty4
tty5
tty6
tty7
tty8

Okay, let me explain myself. Your computer should have eight virtual consoles.
You can switch virtual consoles by pressing ctrl+alt+F1 for console #1,
ctrl+alt+F2 for console #2 etc'. You can imagine how useful this could be.

Consoles #7 and #8 are usually reserved for graphical displays, so if you run
X, it should appear in #7, and if you run another X process, it should appear
in #8.

These eight local consoles have these TTYs: tty1 for #1, tty2 for #2 etc'.
Now, as you can see, my /etc/securetty file contains only those local TTYs, so
no remote user can login as a root-priviledged user into my computer, even if
he has all the usernames and the passwords.

Now, of course, if someone has all the passwords, he could log in as another
user and then use su to switch to root. So the /etc/securetty thing isn't
exactly some fail-proof method, but it'll block off some intruders.

Watching Your Processes
-----------------------
If you intend to have several users logged into your system, you should really
watch for what they're running, and how much system resources they're hogging.

Here are a few methods to watch your users:

Using PS
++++++++
Type in the command ps -aux. Quite a list, huh? Now, if you want it to be more
readable, try doing ps -aux | more or directing it's output into a file, like
this: ps -aux > some-file-name. If you want to look for specific entries
within this list, try doing ps -aux | grep some-text and it'll display lines
within the output of ps -aux that contain some-text (or whatever you type in).

Oh, by the way, as far as I know, PS stands for ProcesseS.

Using Top
+++++++++
Type the command top. Cool program, huh? Quite useful... you should have a
whole virtual console or a whole XTerm devoted exclusively for it.

If you prefer a graphical display, try typing gtop (a graphical version of top
that comes with the gnome window manager) or kpm (stands for KDE Process
Manager. Comes with the KDE window manager).

Eavasdropping
+++++++++++++
If you're a root-priviledged user and you want to see what the other users on
your system are typing, consider using a command called TTY Watch. It will
eavasdrop on the TTY of the user(s) you choose to eavasdrop on, and let you
know exactly what they're typing and exactly what they see on their monitors.

Try searching for the latest version of ttywatch at Packet Storm Security
(packetstorm.securify.com), Security Focus (securityfocus.com), Linux.Box
(linux.box.sk), Astalavista (astalavista.box.sk) etc'.

Playing With INetD
------------------
First of all, you need to learn what network daemons are and what INetD is.

A daemon is a program similar to TSR programs on Microsoft platforms. TSR
stands for Terminate and Stay Resident. TSRs locate themselves on your
computer's memory, and then stay silent and watch everything. Once certain
credentials are met, the program awakes and does something. For example: when
your free disk space reaches less than, say, 200MBs, the program alerts you.

A daemon is the Unix equivelant of Microsoft's TSRs (well, actually, Unix and
it's daemons were around waaaaaaaaay before Microsoft DOS and later Microsoft
Windows started selling). So what is a network daemon? Well, obviously, it's a
daemon that watches for certain credentials that have something to do with
networks. Here are several examples:

Example #1: The telnet daemon. Usually listens for incoming connections on
port 23, and then, once this credential is met, it displays a login screen
to the second party. Once the second party enters the correct combination of a
username and a password, it is given a shell environment, where it can
interact with your computer and run commands on it.

Example #2: The FTP daemon. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and makes
it easier for different computers to exchange computer files. More info on my
FTP security for extreme newbies tutorial (blacksun.box.sk/ftp.txt).

Example #3: A firewall is also a network daemon. Firewalls are programs that
filter incoming and outgoing network packets. They awake once a network event
occurs, and decide whether to allow or disallow it.

Now, let's think. Suppose you have twelve different network daemons on your
system. That would take up too much memory for us, right? Then why not just
have a single daemon to do all the ditry work for us and consume less memory?
This is where INetD comes into the picture.

INetD stands for InterNet Daemon. You can configure inetd by editing
/etc/inetd.conf (conf stands for configurations). This file should contain
instructions on how to edit it.

Updating Your Network Daemons
-----------------------------
You've just got the latest version of your favorite Unix distribution. It came
with an FTP daemon, which you want to run on your system so you could turn it
into an FTP server. But then, someone discovers a hole within this FTP daemon,
and a new version with a fix for this problem goes out. You don't wanna get
caught with your pants down, running an old and buggy FTP daemon, right? Hell,
you could get cracked by some script kiddie and lose your entire hard drive!
We don't want THAT to happen, now do we?

First of all, you need to know when a new hole is discovered. You should watch
packetstorm.securify.com on a daily basic, and also subscribe to the BugTraq
mailing list (securityfocus.com). You should also look for mailing lists
concerning the network daemons (also referred to as network services) you are
using.

Then, once there are new versions of the network daemons you use, you should
download the latest version and update the files on your system.

Network Sniffers
----------------
For an excellent paper on network sniffers (what are they, how can they risk
your computer's security and how to fight against them), read this excellent
paper: blacksun.box.sk/sniffer.txt.

DO NOT Use Telnetd!
------------------
DO NOT run the telnet daemon on your system! If you want people to be able to
remotely login to your system and run commands on your system, DO NOT use
telnet for this purpose.

Instead, you should use SSH (SSH stands for Secure SHell). SSH encrypts your
sessions, so it'll be harder for intruders to eavasdrop you and/or capture any
passwords you enter.

Of course, you have to use a special client for SSH, since SSH is very
different than telnet, because of the following reasons:

A) SSH encrypts your sessions. Telnet merely creates plain-text TCP sessions.
B) SSH runs on port 22 by default, while telnet stays on port 23. Although
almost every telnet application in existence allows you to create telnet
sessions with any remote host and port specified, some telnet applications
still use port 23. Anyway, ALL telnet applications have port 23 as their
default, so if you type telnet some-host or telnet some-ip, it'll telnet to
that host/IP and into port 23.

Get sshd and ssh clients at packetstorm.securify.com, securityfocus.com,
linux.box.sk, astalavista.box.sk etc'.

Basic Packet Filtering
----------------------
First, find these two files: /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny. These two
files can be used to form a basic packet filtering system. Let's start with
/etc/hosts.deny first.

Each line in this file should look like this:
host:service

Host - a hostname or an IP. You can also use wildcards. For example: *.aol.com
would stand for every host that has a hostname that ends with aol.com.

Service - what network service(s) do you want to allow/deny to this host?
Services are defined by their port number. You can also put ALL instead to
block of EVERY well-known port to this host (a well-known port is any port
between 0 and 1024. These ports are called well-known ports because each one
has a default network service associated with it. For example: port 23 is the
default for telnet, port 21 is the default for FTP, port 25 is the default for
Sendmail, port 110 is the default for POP3 etc').

Each line within this file represents a combination of a host and a port(s)
that you don't want this host to be able to access. This is called basic
packet filtering.

Now, the /etc/hosts.allow file works exactly like hosts.deny, only it contains
hosts that you want to allow access to. Here are a few examples of why you
would need such a thing:

Example #1: You want to block every well-known port to AOL users besides port
21, so they could access your FTP server. To do this, you put *.aol.com:all in
your hosts.deny file and then *.aol.com:21 in your hosts.allow file. As you
can see, hosts.allow has a higher priority than hosts.deny.

Example #2: You want to block off AOL users from your FTP server on port 21,
besides foobar.aol.com, which is actually quite nice and always has something
interesting to contribute to your FTP collection. To do this, you put
*.aol.com:21 in hosts.deny and foobar.aol.com:21 in your hosts.allow file.

Advanced Packet Filtering
-------------------------
Yup... firewalls.

Firewalls are programs that watch everything that comes in and out of your
network or personal computer, and decide what to allow and what to block. Out
of their nature, firewalls need root-priviledges to run (or admin priviledges
on NT networks).

Firewalls usually come with a set of premade rules files. Rules files are
files with rules on what to allow and what to deny. These rules files can
block DoS attacks and relatively popular methods of hacking. Also, most
firewalls come with a 'learning mode' option, which is a way of defining your
rules as you go on (whenever something comes in or out, you are asked to
either allow or deny it, and the firewall adapts itselfs to your preferences).

The best firewall for Unix (and possibly the best firewall in the world) is
IP
 Chains. Search for the latest version at packetstorm.securify.com (search
for
 ipchains, not ip-chains or ip chains or anything. Otherwise, you probably
won't find anything), securityfocus.com or linux.box.sk.

For help using ipchains (ipchains isn't exactly the most user-friendly
firewall in existence), get some ipchains howtos (a howto is a document on how
to do something or how to use something), which probably come with the
ipchains package anyway, together with the executables, the configurations
files etc'. These howtos should help you a lot.

DoS Attacks
-----------
DoS stands for Denial of Service. DoS attacks deny access to a certain service
for a certain person. DoS attacks can crash your computer, disconnect you,
crash your web server programs, SMTP server programs, POP3 server programs
etc', disallow you access to your Email account (a mailbomb (flooding someone
with enormous amounts of Emails. Usually done with some sort of a program which
automates this progress) is also considered a DoS attack (although somewhat
privitive) because it fills up your mailbox and denies you access to it),
block certain remote services and in general anything you can think of that
will deny you access to something.

To protect yourself against DoS attacks, I recommend either:

a) Getting a good firewall (see previous section).
b) Subscribing to security mailing lists and checking online databases
frequently to get the latest versions of everything and all the latest patches.

Security Scanners
-----------------
Security scanners automatically test the security of a network by attempting
to crack into it in different popular ways. It is advised to run one on your
network or home PC (unless you don't run any services on your system, which
makes your system much less vulnerable, in which case there is no need to be
so paranoid. Just avoid default configurations and read all the rest of the
sections and you're pretty much safe) to test it's security, although
just running one isn't enough to secure oneself (follow the rest of the
instructions in this text and read some other texts and books. This text is in
no way complete (ahem... the name is BASIC Local/Remote Unix Security). Try
some of the stuff at blacksun.box.sk's books page).

In the next part, I will review some of the best scanners available at the
time this tutorial was written, although not in much depth and detail, since I
am limited in size and time.

The Scanners
++++++++++++
Remote security scanners test the security of a remote network or computer over
a LAN (Local Area Network), a WAN (Wide Area Network, such as the Internet) or
any other kind of network.

SATAN
*****
Author: Dan Farmer and Weitse Venema.
Language written in: C and Perl.
Platform built on: some version of Unix.
Requirements: Unix, Perl 5.001+, C, IP header files and root access on the
system you intend to run Satan from.

Satan stands for Security Administrator's Tool for Analyzing Networks). It is
the first security scanner that is actually user-friendly. It is built as a
website, where you can choose attacks using simple forms, pulldown boxes,
radio boxes and check boxes, and it displays all the output in an
easily-readable form, ready for printing.

Satan also includes a short and easy-to-understand tutorial on each attack,
which makes it an excellent source for security study for beginners. If you're
interested in network security, it is advised to get Satan and try running it
on your computer and scanning your friends (DO NOT scan systems you are not
allowed to scan! It is illegal!).

If you prefer the command-line approach, Satan can also be run using a simple
command-line-based interface.

Satan can be obtained from the following URL:
http://www.trouble.org/~zen/satan/satan.html

As far as I know, there are no Windows NT and Macintosh versions of Satan, but
I havn't checked for a long time now. I expect that there should be a Windows
NT version soon, if there isn't one already.

If you're using any version of Linux, you must make several modifications to
run Satan on your system (the next part has been copied from some website. I
forgot the website's URL, but I'm not going to credit these folks anyway,
since I am sure they have stolen this from some book... forgot the book's
name, though...):
a) The file tcp_scan makes incompatible select() calls. To fix this problem,

Nessus
******
Author: Renaud Deraison.
Language written in: C.
Platform built on: Linux.
Requirements: Linux (most non-Linux distributions will also run it, though,
since they all can emulate each other's programs), C, X-Windows and GTK
(the version of GTK you will need depends on the version of Nessus you intend
to run).

Nessu is another excellent remote security scanner. Has a user-friendly
graphical user interface and relatively fast scans. Get Nessus from the
following URL:
http://www.nessus.org

IdentTCPScan
************
Author: Dave Goldsmith.
Language written in: C.
Platform built on: Unix.
Requirements: Unix, C, IP header files.

IdentTCPScan has a very useful ability: what it does is that it portscans it's
target (determines which ports are open on the target host), tells you what
service is probably running on this port and tells you which user is running
it by his UID.

This can reveal some interesting holes. For example: if it discovers that some
network or computer is running their web server as UID 0 (remember? UID 0 =
root access), this is a serious security hole! If some malicious attacker
exploits a hole in, say, one of the CGIs on this website, he could access ANY
file on the system, since the web server runs as root, hence is not limited
with access. Web servers should run on users that have limited access (in this
case, the web server should only have access to the files contained in the
website and to it's own files, of course).

Unfortunately, I don't have an up-to-date URL. Try searching
packetstorm.securify.com or securityfocus.com.



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=



That's about all for this time, folks. As I have already stated in the
introduction (actually, the next part was copied and pasted from the
introduction chapter): "I included everything I could possibly think of (that
is notable for a beginners guide in this field, of course). With time, I will
add more chapters, so make sure you have the latest version by visiting
blacksun.box.sk often or subscribing to Black Sun's mailing list (info on how
to subscribe at blacksun.box.sk also)."

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All copyrights are reserved. You may distribute this tutorial freely, as long
as you keep our names and Black Sun Research Facility's URL at the top of this
tutorial.
I have written this tutorial for you, the readers. But I also wish to remain
the author of this guide, meaning I do not want people to change a line or two
and then claim that the whole guide is theirs. If you wish to create an
altered version of this tutorial, please contact me by Email -
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