Re: [Full-Disclosure] Re: January 15 is Personal Firewall Day, help the cause

From: Tobias Weisserth (tobias_at_weisserth.de)
Date: 01/16/04

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    To: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:43:32 +0100

    Hi "Exibar" (no realname?!),

    Am Fre, den 16.01.2004 schrieb Exibar um 20:57:
    ...
    > Ahhh, now there we go. That might just be the case. Off the top of my head
    > I can't think of a Linux specific e-mail spreading virus. Unless you count
    > "phishing" type e-mails that are completely OS independant and basically
    > want the user to head out to a web site and enter all their personal info
    > (ss#, CC#'s etc).

    I fail to see how "phishing" (not fishing?) type emails relate to
    viruses. Those are two totally different types of attack methods. A
    virus aims for the weakness in a technical system. Sometimes, it may be
    needing a little social engineering though.
    Asking somebody to cut his own throat and smile while doing so is
    genuine social engineering and has nothing to do with the need for a
    virus scanner or technical defencive measures.

    While you are right that there is the principal threat of "viruses" to
    Linux too, a virus scanner is not the way to protect against such
    attacks using Linux.

    Minimum usage (only deploy services you use)
    File Integrity Checking
    Rootkit Detectors (this comes closest to virus scanning)
    Firewalling
    Rigid Management Of User Rights
    Encryption

    These are the concepts for protecting a Linux machine.

    Most of them are missing in Windows. Just adding a personal firewall
    won't improve matters if the rest of these principles is absent.

    cheers,
    Tobias W.

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