Security

Secure Desktops with Qubes: Installation

This is the second in a multipart series on the Qubes operating system. In my first article, I gave an overall introduction to Qubes and how it differs from most other desktop Linux distributions, namely in the way it focuses on compartmentalizing applications within different VMs to limit what attackers have access to in the event they compromise a VM.

Secure Desktops with Qubes: Introduction

This is the first in a multipart series on Qubes OS, a security-focused operating system that is fundamentally different from any other Linux desktop I've ever used and one I personally switched to during the past couple months.

Secure File Transfer

File transfer between Linux systems (and perhaps all POSIX systems in general) is in some ways a neglected subject. The arcane protocols in common use are far from secure, and the SSH replacements offer too much power and complexity.

Upcoming Webinar: When the Golden Master Tarnishes

Servers are generated – often with a ‘golden master’ and then left never to be checked or examined from a security perspective. This session discusses the ways the server settings can degrade, the undesirable effects this may have on your organization and how you can avoid both.

Transferring Conserver Logs to Elasticsearch

If your organization manages Linux, AIX, HP-UX or Solaris servers in-house, chances are your system administrators at least occasionally need low-level access to those devices. Typically, administrators use some kind of serial console—for example, traditional serial port, Serial-over-LAN or Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI).

Server Hardening

Server hardening. The very words conjure up images of tempering soft steel into an unbreakable blade, or taking soft clay and firing it in a kiln, producing a hardened vessel that will last many years. Indeed, server hardening is very much like that.

Securi-Pi: Using the Raspberry Pi as a Secure Landing Point

Like many LJ readers these days, I've been leading a bit of a techno-nomadic lifestyle as of the past few years—jumping from network to network, access point to access point, as I bounce around the real world while maintaining my connection to the Internet and other networks I use on a daily basis.

Take Control of Your PC with UEFI Secure Boot

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is the open, multi-vendor replacement for the aging BIOS standard, which first appeared in IBM computers in 1976. The UEFI standard is extensive, covering the full boot architecture. This article focuses on a single useful but typically overlooked feature of UEFI: secure boot.

Cipher Security: How to harden TLS and SSH

Encryption and secure communications are critical to our life on the Internet. Without the ability to authenticate and preserve secrecy, we cannot engage in commerce, nor can we trust the words of our friends and colleagues.

Protection, Privacy and Playoffs

I'm not generally a privacy nut when it comes to my digital life. That's not really a good thing, as I think privacy is important, but it often can be very inconvenient. For example, if you strolled into my home office, you'd find I don't password-protect my screensaver.

Debian Project Aims to Keep the CIA Off Our Computers

Lunar, one of the lead developers on the Debian ReproducibleBuilds project, has recently outlined a serious security hole that could impact all open-source software, including most Linux distributions. It potentially exposes users to unwanted scrutiny from third parties, including security agencies. His project is designed to close this hole.

Using tshark to Watch and Inspect Network Traffic

Most of you probably have heard of Wireshark, a very popular and capable network protocol analyzer. What you may not know is that there exists a console version of Wireshark called tshark. The two main advantages of tshark are that it can be used in scripts and on a remote computer through an SSH connection.

Secure Server Deployments in Hostile Territory, Part II

In my last article, I started a series on some of the challenges related to spawning secure servers on Amazon EC2. In that column, I discussed some of the overall challenges EC2 presents for security compared to a traditional infrastructure and elaborated on how I configure security groups and manage secrets.

Hacking a Safe with Bash

Through the years, I have settled on maintaining my sensitive data in plain-text files that I then encrypt asymmetrically. Although I take care to harden my system and encrypt partitions with LUKS wherever possible, I want to secure my most important data using higher-level tools, thereby lessening dependence on the underlying system configuration.

One Port to Rule Them All!

I was chatting with Fred Richards on IRC the other day (flrichar on freenode) about sneaking around hotel firewalls. Occasionally, hotels will block things like the SSH port, hoping people don't abuse their network. Although I can respect their rationale, blocking an SSH port for a Linux user is like taking a mouse away from a Windows user!

Secure Server Deployments in Hostile Territory

Would you change what you said on the phone, if you knew someone malicious was listening? Whether or not you view the NSA as malicious, I imagine that after reading the NSA coverage on Linux Journal, some of you found yourselves modifying your behavior. The same thing happened to me when I started deploying servers into a public cloud (EC2 in my case).
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