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Investigating Break-ins

Finally, with his network as secure as it could be, he checked each server for any remains of past break-ins, both to make sure nothing had been left behind and to see if he could determine who had done the dirty work. Using system-level utilities such as wtmp and lsof, and a program called The Coroner's Toolkit, Tom was able to identify the probable culprits responsible for the past break-ins (Chapter 11). While his evidence wasn't hard enough to turn in to authorities for criminal prosecution, he blocked the offending IP addresses at his new firewall so they couldn't come back to haunt him. He also used this information to file an abuse complaint with their Internet provider.

Tom had accomplished an impressive turnabout in his first few months on the job. And the most amazing thing of all was that he had been able to do it with almost no budget. How did he do this? His training in the information security field helped him develop his plan of attack and carry it out. He was able to leverage this knowledge to install low-cost but effective security solutions by using open source software to build all his systems. Using these packages, Tom was able to turn a poorly secured network into one that could rival the security of much larger networks. And he did this with no staff and a minimal amount of money.

You too can use open source software to secure your company or organization. This book will introduce you to dozens of software packages that will help you accomplish this as well as educate you on the proper policies and procedures to help keep your information secure. As I emphasize many times in this book, software tools are a great help, but they are only half the equation. A well-rounded information security program is also comprised of polices and procedures to maximize the benefits of the software. So, before you start installing software, let's first discuss the basics of information security and the background of open source software.

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