Hacking into root protection
 

I have a computer running SuSe Linux 7.0 Pro. There are some people who know a lot about linux, I am just a noob. Someone left a note saying they hacked into it and found the root password. I have changed this password about three times and I keep getting this note.

The computer is not on a network or even the internet. Theres nothing really important on the computer and I dont really care about it. I just want to win this game! lol

Do you know how they could be doing this and how to stop it? Thanks a bunch!

Jared

well, it seems taht he has fisical acces to the computer. It's quite easy to get the root pass in that way, or at least to enter as root. What u should do is to set a 15 chars long pass using dots or comas and especiall chars to make a bruteforce a bit dificult. It'd be good also to protect lilo against single user acces, and protect the bios conf with a password and disable floppy or cd booting. U also will have to protect the pc battery so it cant be romoved and the bios conf password will never disspaear.
All this sounds paranoic but this is the only way to be fuuuully secure :D

did they leave hand written sticky note? or a file on the pc? I had an idiot where i work do that to me a few times till i figured out he was just full of crap. I did most of what ssobeht said but then also setup a webcam. Turns out he didnt do squat just lied and said he did.

ssobeht, thank you. I just finished doing all of what you said. No one will be at the computer untill wednesday, so I'll post a reply then. I'm not sure, but I think he is using single-user mode, so I changed a ton of stuff to fix that.

as for cyph3r7: lol. I know that the person did it - they had changed the password, but I made them change it back. You see, the "hacker" (who I know) and I have access to the comp different times of the day. This is just a little game we have going. We are not friends, but, well we know of each other if you know what I mean.

It is fun, but I am learning a bunch about Linux through the process which is great! Thanks to both of you!!!

Jared

Problems make u learn...
standing in front of the computer with no problems or things to solve doesn't bring u anywhere.

I learned a dozen things that didn't work today... does that count? ;)