syslog

Sys Admin's online sister publication, UnixReview.com, has been updated to a new format. If you haven't visited UnixReview.com in a while, I invite you to visit and see what you think. You can check out Peter Salus's book reviews, Zonker's reviews of open source tools, Emmett Dulaney's certification news, Ed Schaefer's shell corner, and more on UnixReview.com. If you see broken links or other problems with the new design, please let us know.

One of the featured articles in this March issue of Sys Admin is "Intrusion Prevention and Active Response: Implementing an Open Source Defense" by Angela Orebaugh and Eric Cole. As the article states, "while commercial intrusion prevention products are often technologically diverse and contain a rich feature set, they also often come with a hefty price tag." Orebaugh and Cole's article describes free, open source alternatives for implementing intrusion prevention systems.

Eric Cole will be presenting more security tips at the upcoming SANS 2005 Conference, April 5-12 in San Diego, CA, where he will be teaching "Management 414: SANS +S Training Program for the CISSP Certification Exam." This review course will cover the security concepts needed to take the CISSP exam. It's an accelerated course that assumes a basic understanding of networks and operating systems.

Hal Pomeranz will also be presenting at the SANS Conference. He'll be teaching "Security 506: Securing Unix/Linux", which provides in-depth coverage of Unix security issues. In this course, participants will "examine how to mitigate or eliminate general problems that apply to all Unix-like operating systems including vulnerabilities in the password authentication system, file system, virtual memory system, and in common network protocols such as NFS, NIS, and the Unix RPC mechanism." You will learn the exact steps necessary to secure the two most common Unix flavors -- Solaris and Linux -- and get specific advice for securing some of the most common Internet services on the Unix platform, including Apache, WU-FTPD, Sendmail, and BIND.

Also, don't forget about the Sys Admin tracks at the upcoming Software Development Conference & Expo, March 14-18 in Santa Clara, CA. Randal Schwartz will be on hand to teach "Learning Perl" and "Intermediate Perl". Æleen Frisch will teach "Beyond Shell Scripts: 21st Century Automation Tools" and "Essential Python for Systems Administrators". Hal Pomeranz will present "How They Do It: Unix Hacking 101" and "Simple Unix Tricks: Spotting Break-ins". And, Peter Galvin will present "New Security Features in Solaris X" as well as "Surveying the Current Computer Security Landscape". See page 56 for more information. I hope you'll be able to attend.

Sincerely yours,

Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief