If you want to have fun learning computer security, check out
the latest Hacker Wargames.
Some resources that can help you learn how to secure a computer
include:
- Read The Happy Hacker
book. It has lots of security tips. Check out the archives at
this site, also.
- Read the Guide to (mostly) Harmless Hacking on War
Tools.
- We've tested Internet Security
Systems and their RealSecure software; En
Garde Systems and their free TTY-Watcher program; AG
Group's EtherPeek and the Sniffit program (available at http://www.rootshell.com), on our
wargame. These programs give fantastic abilities to watch
break-in attempts and weird packets and alleged stealth port scan
attempts live! Want to see how EtherPeek can spot a so-called
"stealth" port scan from Fyodor's nmap port scanner?
Click here!
- Set up a firewall.
- Learn how to program in Perl. If you have never programmed before,
it is amazingly easy to learn, yet one of the most powerful of
programming languages. Great tutorials include:
http://www.cgi101.com/class/
http://www.webdesigns1.com/perl/
http://www.builder.com/Programming/Perl/
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9715573/res/perl.html
http://www.perl.com/pub/1999/10/DBI.html
- Learn how to write, link and compile C programs. Most operating systems are written in C. Try this link
for C programming help.
- Are you a total newbie at C? Here's Meinel
Christian Cramer's C tutorial. The Happy
Hacker book also has a chapter on how to program in C.
- Learn how to install and administer OpenBSD.
Better yet, join the team of volunteers that is constantly improving
what is (in our non-humble opinions) the most secure version of
Unix we have yet seen. That's what we for a long time ran
on zlliks.505.org, which in 1998 was the Web server for both the
505 and Happy Hacker Web pages. Once we secured it with Kerberos so no
one could sniff our passwords, no one hacked it! OpenBSD
is designed to prevent buffer overflows from compromising the
system -- a super start on security. There are versions of OpenBSD
for PCs, Macs, Amiga, Sun SPARC, DEC Alpha and MIPS -- and even
Vax! (Sorry, no SGI version yet.) OpenBSD supports binary
emulation of most programs from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux,
BSDI, SunOS, and HPUX. The OpenBSD 2.2 release is available
on two CDROMs for $30 USD + postage. To order, email Austin
Hook, austin@canuck.com. For more information on OpenBSD,
see http://openbsd.org/. Learn
how to install and adminster FreeBSD.
It is the operating system of our first two hacker wargame computers,
and it held up remarkably well. It also tends to resist
buffer overflows.
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For advanced
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