SECURITY HELP, SECURITY TUTORIALS, SECURITY PROGRAMMING, SECURITY TRICKS

If you have ever wondered how to configure and run a secure open source firewall, look no further. This book excerpt is from chapter three of Open Source Security Tools by Tony Howlett, ISBN 0321194438, copyright 2004. All rights reserved. It is reprinted with permission from Addison-Wesley Professional.

In this second of a three-part series covering threats to computer security, we focus on attacks that are more specifically directed against a particular person or company.

It's no secret that any computer connected to the Internet faces a wide array of security threats. These days, however, a business needs to be connected to the Internet just to do business. What can you do? Keep reading to learn more about risks you take, and what you can do to protect yourself and your company.

Many of us who use use security products on our computers religiously are bewildered to find that we still get infected with malware. How does this happen? No matter what we do, our computers are constantly in touch with the vectors that carry malicious software. Thomas Greene explains what this means, and what we can do about it.

Public key infrastructure (PKI) is an excellent technology to help users certify that the people or companies they are corresponding with are who they say they are. It has proven itself invaluable in e-commerce among other areas. As with any technology, however, it is not without its own security risks. Eliana Stavrou discusses these risks, and ways to minimize them.

We may not be able to completely bulletproof our websites, but we can at least try to anticipate possible attacks and secure against them. Here is one you might not have heard of: cross site scripting. With just a bit of JavaScript, a malicious attacker can use it to cause all sorts of problems. To find out more about what it is, and how to prevent your website from becoming a victim, keep reading.

In the Internet’s world of insecurities, many actions should be taken to enhance the defense of each and every network. Many solutions exist that provide a level of security, none however being bulletproof. The best approach is to combine a variety of mechanisms that will supplement one another. In this article I will discuss a technology that is considered to be the new trend and a favored option among network implementers, that is Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

Web services themselves provide a powerful new approach to PKI that prevents each Web service requestor and provider from having to build their own PKI: accessing a trusted PKI as a service. XKMS aims to do just that. This is part 2 of chapter 9 from Securing Web Services with WS-Security, by Rosenberg and Remy (ISBN 0672326515, SAMS, 2004).

Today we cover the basics of Web services and information security and the way Web services security builds on existing security technology. This is chapter 1 from Securing Web Services with WS-Security, by Rosenberg and Remy (ISBN 0672326515, Sams, 2004).

XML Signature and XML Encryption, two of the three major pillars of the WS-Security standard, are so predominant in current thinking about Web Services Security that some people mistake them as the only strategy for securing Web services. This is really not the case at all. Read more in this chapter from Securing Web Services with WS-Security, by Rosenberg and Remy (ISBN 0672326515, SAMS, 2004).

The purpose of this article is not to teach you how to hack sites, but to show you some scenarios that may reveal to you how vulnerable your existing site may be, or will hopefully help you prevent any future sites from having these vulnerabilities.

Several other important standards are derived from and are complementary to WS-Security; they relate to such fundamental security topics as trust, access control, and rights. In this chapter, we review the family of WS-Security–related technologies. This is part 1 of chapter 9 from Securing Web Services with WS-Security, by Rosenberg and Remy (ISBN 0672326515, Sams, 2004).

With all the benefits of e-commerce there are dangers such as identity theft for consumers and cyber attacks on websites. Site owners need take preventative measures. Wellman presents some security procedures and scripts for PHP driven sites.

PHP-Nuke is spreading over the Internet as a popular CMS system. If you have a PHP-Nuke installation which has been hacked into, read on to find out how to regain control of your site. If your site hasn't been hacked, read on to learn how to secure your installation.

This chapter provides a thorough guide to many security issues. The authors encourage writing strong enforcement statements of acceptable use policies (AUPs) and provide examples of wordings and a best practices checklist. They cover how to limit authority and separate duties and how to pinpoint accountability. The chapter is from Network Security: The Complete Reference, by Mark Rhodes-Ousley, Roberta Bragg and Keith Strassberg; ISBN:0-072-22697-8, McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003.