Internet Security Issues Solved Lessons learned
 

Greetings

I am working on a project in my e-commerce class.

The project has me go to a network administrator and ask what problems security problems they had and how they solved them. My school is a WIndows Server 2003 network setup. It is no challenge to studying the security issues here.

I would like to ask the members of this forum for some help as I want to write a little more on the subject.

I have been reading about 2 main issues in linux security:
rootkits
insecure mysql passwords

How have any of you dealt with these two problems successfully?

Are rootkits an issue given the plethora of linux distributions from any number of sources? ( I ask this because, one distribution I use has several programs which access the net doing who knows what. I uninstalled one program, KWeather which was a real pain and I saw no use in having it. )


Are there other major security problems unique to Linux/Unix systems?

You help will be appreciated.

Alanbe

Re: Internet Security Issues Solved Lessons learned
 

I don't know about anyone else, but I dealt with this by changing the passwords.Yes, rootkits are an issue on every distro. A rootkit overwrites existing binaries with ones that hide any signs of said rootkit. But we aren't going to do your homework for you. ;) Weak mysql passwords (and weak passwords in general) are by no means unique to *nix.

Ouch. I've read this reply on other forums. Never thought I would get it. :)

The assignment required that I ask a network administrator what security problems they had and how they they worked toward solving them.
I am not doing any research myself, only recording what is told me.

Which is why I am asking here. I could read all the posts to this forum (I note that the issues I brought up have been dealt with). I just like to get someone's personal experience in detecting, and correcting a security problem with a linux system.

alanbe