...In This paper we will talk about SELinux what it is, what it does, and who uses such a product. What is SELinux? In short, Security-Enhanced Linux or SELinux is a Linux feature that provides a way for supporting access control security policies, through the use of Linux Security Module or LSM in the Linux kernel. Its architecture works in a way to separate enforcement of security decisions from the security policy itself and streamlines the volume of software charged with security policy enforcement. So, what does it do? Here is list I found on the internet for all techs out there who love this technical stuff. * Clean separation of policy from enforcement * Well-defined policy interfaces * Support for applications querying the policy and enforcing access control (for example, crond running jobs in the correct context) * Independent of specific policies and policy languages * Independent of specific security label formats and contents * Individual labels and controls for kernel objects and services * Support for policy changes * Separate measures for protecting system integrity (domain-type) and data confidential multileveled security * Flexible policy * Controls over process initialization and inheritance and program execution * Controls over file systems, directories, files, and open file descriptors * Controls over sockets, messages, and network interfaces * Controls over use of "capabilities" * Cached information...
Words: 656 - Pages: 3
...several security measures with Linux programming, which the majority of the software is free. Some of those security technologies are SELinux, TCP Wrappers, IPtables and Chroot Jail to name a few. In basic Linux security, Discretionary Access Control is based practically by users and groups. The process is run by a user and then has access to anything other users has access to, making it not so secure. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) developed the SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) to combat the lack of strong security. The SELinux implements Mandatory Access Control (MAC) in the Linux kernel which enforces policies that limits the user or a program of what they can do. It is designed to prevent process from reading and/or tampering of data and programs. MAC is an important tool for containing security threats made by user errors, hackers or software errors. It’s pretty hard to bypass the security measure since the kernel is checking the MAC rules right after checking the DAC rules on a constant basis. There are three states you can place SELinux to run in; Enforcing, Permissive and Disabled. Enforcing is the default setting where no program or user can do anything not permitted by the security policy. Permissive is a diagnostic state where it sends warning but does not enforce the policy but you can use to build a new security policy. Disabled is where it does not enforce any security policies at all. Another Linux based security program...
Words: 827 - Pages: 4
...Term paper Linux Security Technologies There are many ways to have internet access these days. Coffee shops, libraries, airports and even public buses have free wireless access. With all these free accesses to the World Wide Web, there is also many potential ways for hackers to potentially get your personal information and use it for their gain. There are many ways to combat this situation by using several security measures with Linux programming, which the majority of the software is free. Some of those security technologies are SELinux, TCP Wrappers, IPtables and Chroot Jail to name a few. In basic Linux security, Discretionary Access Control is based practically by users and groups. The process is ran by a user and then has access to anything other users has access to, making it not so secure. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) developed the SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) to combat the lack of strong security. The SELinux implements Mandatory Access Control (MAC) in the Linux kernel which enforces policies that limits the user or a program of what they can do. It is designed to prevent process from reading and/or tampering of data and programs. MAC is an important tool for containing security threats made by user errors, hackers or software errors. It’s pretty hard to bypass the security measure since the kernel is checking the MAC rules right after checking the DAC rules on a constant basis. There are three states you can place SELinux to run in; Enforcing...
Words: 311 - Pages: 2
...Research Assignment 1 IT 302 Linux System Administration January 21, 2013 The purpose of this paper is to secure UNIX/Linux operating systems from unscrupulous people. It shall be focused on SELinux, chroot jail, and iptables. Each of the three focus areas will be detailed, with specific interest in the following. What organization is behind it and reason entity is involved. How each technology changes the operating system to enforce security, and if the security measure can be easily bypassed. And finally, describe the types of threats each of the technologies is designed to eliminate. Since no two UNIX-based operating system builds are exactly alike, it is important to note that each build may have its own inherent security flaws. SELinux was developed by The United States National Security Agency (NSA). The first version was made available to the open source development community under the GNU GPL on December 22, 2000. The software merged into the mainline Linux kernel 2.6.0-test3, released on 8 August 2003. Other significant contributors include Network Associates, Red Hat, Secure Computing Corporation, Tresys Technology, and Trusted Computer Solutions. Experimental ports of the FLASK/TE implementation have been made available via the TrustedBSD Project for the FreeBSD and Darwin operating systems. The reason NSA is involved in this project is because this organization is responsible for carrying out the research and advanced development of technologies...
Words: 900 - Pages: 4
...Security of a system when you are open to the internet is paramount in the world of servers. Linux has many layers of ever evolving security in order to keep up with the would be attackers in cyberspace. This is one of the reasons that Linux is one of the most used servers for internet sites and has few viruses engineered towards it. IP Tables Developed by the Netfilter organization the IP tables package for Linux is an evolution of the IP chains which came from the IPv4 Linux firewall package. Paul Russel was the initial head author of the organization and also behind the IP chains project The Netfilter organization began to come together in 1999 and through collaboration and research recognized the shortcomings of the IP chains package and developed this new product in order to address these concerns and make needed improvements. The improvements added to the new IP tables package helped improve performance and overall security. Better integration with the kernel led to improved speed and reliability but the true value came from the new security features. Stateful packet inspection allows the firewall to keep track of every connection passing through it allowing for better monitoring and can even view certain contents and attempt to anticipate actions of certain protocols. Also the ability to filter packets based on MAC address and TCP header flags helps to prevent attacks using malformed packets. Even a rate limiting feature that is designed to eliminate some denial...
Words: 1131 - Pages: 5
...threats to consumers alike. Such as hackers, viruses, people who don’t know what they are doing, and even people who you may call your best friend. Threat comes in many shapes and sizes which is why operating systems such as Linux develop ways to keep your personal files safe from these unwarranted threats. Some of these measures include, but is not limited to; iptables, SELinux, chroot jail, TCP Wrappers, firewalls, PolicyKit, NX or No eXecute, PIE or Position Independent Executables, Netfilter, and the list goes on (“Fedora Projects” & Vepstas). When a user first approaches Linux it looks similar to what a windows operating system would resemble. With Linux a user has the ability to access every file within the operating system through the use of a terminal or command prompt. Through the use of Linux programming potential threats can gain access to you file system and everything housed within it. Linux is free software that comes with many great security features that any user or administrator greater access and control over the system. The choice can be a bit much for most, but we will discuss a few of these choices here. Security-Enhanced Linux also known as SELinux is a security program that was developed in partner by the National Security Agency or NSA and Red Hat Developers (“Fedora Project”). So what exactly is it that SELinux does? SELinux was designed so that the Administrator could enforce policies that will limit what a user or particular program...
Words: 1082 - Pages: 5
...qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwer...
Words: 1010 - Pages: 5
...Linux Security Technologies SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) is a mandatory access control in the Linux kernel that was originally developed by NSA (National Security Agency) with direct contributions provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) via the Fedora Project. In the day and age of identity theft and attempted sabotage from terrorists against our country, it should be very apparent why an organization like NSA had such an interest in heading up development of a more secure way to better protect our nation’s computer systems. In a world so largely dependent on computer systems, inadequate security measures could lead to anything from having a single person’s financial information compromised to an electronic 9/11 against some of our country’s most secure federal computer networks. In the modern computer based society we live in, security is essential to protecting everything from personal desktops all the way up to the most secure federal databases. And many corporate and government level computers are based on the Linux kernel. SELinux has 3 states it can be in if on a system: Enabled, Disabled, and Permissive. Enforcing means SELinux security policy is active, Disabled means SELinux security policy is not active, and Permissive is a diagnostic state commonly used for troubleshooting. To better understand what improvements Mandatory Access Control (MAC) can provide for security, one needs to know about the standard Linux security provision called Discretionary...
Words: 1124 - Pages: 5
...IT302 7/9/2012 Research Linux Security Basics Linux, being one of the most secure operating systems in the world, has many features and services that enhance security to the maximum. Linux isn’t completely secure, like some people like to claim, but many distributions strive to make security a key feature. One of the greatest reasons Linux is more secure, is the simple fact of having a smaller user base than other operating systems; this means that Linux is a smaller target for most malicious intents. That doesn’t mean that distributions rely on this to secure their OS. There are many great and complex security features and services that come with Linux. One of the most complicated security features, I believe, is SELinux. Security Enhanced Linux is a security model developed by the NSA and provides a fine grained permissions system for files, users, groups, sockets, ports, and processes. SELinux was conceived because the current user level security system that Linux, and other operating systems, offer is insufficient for. To ensure a maximum security environment, SELinux uses the MAC security model. This means that an object only has the minimal set of permissions it requires to operate. SELinux uses sets of policies to handle permissions providing the system with a great level of security. These policies can be assigned as roles to users enabling specific rules and regulations for specific individuals. SELinux may be a powerful security feature, but it can also be a pain...
Words: 1200 - Pages: 5
...| Linux Security | A review of some current technologies | | | | | In the pre-Internet world you have criminals looking for “hard” assets: money, jewelry and other items that could be easily turned into hard currency. We have always had “white-collar” crime such as embezzlement, fraud and insider trading. With the proliferation of the Internet and our personal and professional lives stored in the cloud; criminals can now take one ubiquitous piece of information and turn themselves into a whole other person. The ease in which such information can be used has turned people who would never think of ever holding up a bank, mugging someone or other physical crime, into criminals. This type crime has spawned a whole new “industry”: cyber security. One of the most important aspects of a network administrator’s job is to secure the system from any person who wishes to do criminal activities. These people are both within and outside the organization. With the Linux system there are three main technologies that are in use today. They are SELinux, chroot jail, and iptables. The first line of defense in a Linux system is chroot jail. Chroot is a process or application that changes the root directory for a user. To the user it appears that they are in their root directory, but they are actually in a modified root directory. This modified root directory is called jail. Without a chroot jail, a user with limited file permissions would still be able to navigate...
Words: 942 - Pages: 4
...The Linux security technologies I researched are SELinux, chroot jail and iptables. SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) is a Linux feature that provides the mechanism for supporting access control security policies, including United States Department of Defense-style mandatory access controls, through the use of Linux Security Modules (LSM) in the Linux kernel. It is not a Linux distribution, but rather a set of kernel modifications and user-space tools that can be added to various Linux distributions. Its architecture strives to separate enforcement of security decisions from the security policy itself and streamlines the volume of software charged with security policy enforcement. The key concepts underlying SELinux can be traced to several earlier projects by the United States National Security Agency. The United States National Security Agency (NSA), the original primary developer of SELinux, released the first version to the open source development community under the GNU GPL on December 22, 2000. The software merged into the mainline Linux kernel 2.6.0-test3, released on 8 August 2003. Other significant contributors include Network Associates, Red Hat, Secure Computing Corporation, Tresys Technology, and Trusted Computer Solutions. Experimental ports of the FLASK/TE implementation have been made available via the TrustedBSD Project for the FreeBSD and Darwin operating systems. It provides an enhanced mechanism to enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality...
Words: 1300 - Pages: 6
...types of Linux security technologies are Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux), chroot jail, and iptables. These security measures aide in the subversion of theft and malicious activity. We will discuss these items in depth to address who created them and for what reason. Along with how these technologies changed the operating system to enforce security, and the types of threats that these security systems are design to eliminate. Security Enhanced Linux was released in December of 2000 from the National Security Agency (NSA), under the GNU general public license. SELinux is not a Linux distribution; it is a set of kernel modifications and tools that can be added to a variety of Linux distributions. SELinux is currently a part of Fedora Core, and it is supported by Red Hat. Incarnations of SELinux packages are also available for Debian, SuSe, and Gentoo. Security-enhanced Linux is a set of patches to the Linux kernel and some utilities to incorporate a strong, flexible Mandatory Access Control (MAC). MAC provides an enhanced process to enforce the separation of information based on confidentiality and integrity requirements, as well as the confinement of damage that can be caused by malicious or flawed applications. The previous security structure, discretionary access control (DAC), allowed threats of tampering and avoidance of security mechanisms, because DAC gives the user ownership of files and allows users the ability to make policy decisions and assign security attributes...
Words: 848 - Pages: 4
...Security in Linux Linux, like any other computing platform, is constantly changing. There are a few major focus points for new and upgraded platforms, one of which is how user friendly it is. User friendliness goes beyond the ability to simply point and click, it also goes behind the lines deep into the inner workings of the system. Security is one of the most important functions of any operating system, very commonly overlooked and taken for granted. A system administrator can configure tables that are provided by the Linux kernel firewall in a program called iptables. Iptables has the ability to redirect, modify or stop packets of data all based on the state of a connection at any given time. There are many different tables that can be defined and each table contains built in chains or user defined chains. Every chain is essentially a list of rules that matches a set of packets and it specifies what to do with a packet that matches the rules. For the casual user it is best to use the predefined rules, they are often more than adequate. In an enterprise situation the administrator would likely want to define additional rules in order to best suit the business needs. Before iptables Linux mainly used ipchains as a firewall package. Iptables is an improvement on ipchains because it monitors the state of connections. Iptables can use the state of the connection as opposed to ipchains using the source destination and content only, to redirect, modify or drop a packet. At least...
Words: 965 - Pages: 4
...Chapter 2 Installation Overview 1. A Net Boot CD is a way to install a new system from a hard disk or over a network. 2. Three considerations for planning an installation are; a. SELinux improves system security by implementing mandatory access control policies in the Fedora kernel b. Install a Graphical desktop environment (GUI) such as GNOME and/or KDE. c. Install additional software and services packages to fit the need of the user. 3. By default Fedora divides the disk into three partitions, including ‘/boot’ and Logical Volume Manager (LVM). 4. Manual partitioning the hard disk has its advantages, such as being able to isolate a filesystem for security or backup needs. 5. The / (root) partition is the main filesystem on the hard disk. Any new created directories will become part of the root filesystem unless a filesystem is created. 6. The swap partition is where Linux temporarily stores programs and data when it does not have enough RAM to hold all the information it is processing. 7. The /boot partition holds the hernel and other data the system needs when it boots. In order for the /boot partition to work properly it must be one of the first partitions on the disk. 8. The /var (variable) partition holds the bulk of system logs, package information, and accounting data. The /var/log partition is commonly used in a separate partition to isolate system logs from other files in the /var directory. 9. The /home partition is...
Words: 831 - Pages: 4
...Paper 07/13/2012 Linux Security Technologies In today’s world there are many ways to gain access to the internet. You can go to your local library, a Starbucks, any airport, or even a McDonald’s. With all of these ways to have free access to the Web, the opportunity for hacker’s to get to your personal information is at an all time high. Linux programming has many ways to combat this situation with security technologies such as SELinux, chroot jail, iptables, and virtual private networks (VPN’s) to name a few. The basics of Linux security start with Discretionary Access Control, which is based by users and groups. The process starts with a user, who has access to anything that any other user can have access to. At first, it may seem great to be able to have that access, but the security in it is not so great. The US National Security Agency (NSA) developed the SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) to combat the lack of strong security. (National Security Agency Central Security Service, 2009) Other organizations behind SELinux include the Network Associate Laboratories (NAI) labs which implemented several additional kernel mandatory access controls, developed the example security policy configuration, ported to the Linux 2.4 kernel, contributed to the development of the Linux Security Modules kernel patch, and adapted the SELinux prototype to LSM. The MITRE Corporation which enhanced several utilities to be SELinux-aware, and developed application security policies. And the...
Words: 1207 - Pages: 5
