Good evening, Thanks for your answer, my comments within.
Regards, Jean-Frangois Nick Holland a icrit : > Jean-Francois wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> My question is in two parts. >> >> First considering the default install, assuming that one box should be >> only used for exapample as a firewall, how good is the security level ? > > what kind of rating system are you looking for? I intend to use the box as a simple firewall so I do not intend to have possible break into. The simple task is NAT rule > My answer is, "better than anything else", but even that would require > massive amounts of qualifications. Compared to a machine that is off? > (what if the machine has Wake On LAN active, and someone manages to > throw the right magic packet at it to wake it up to an insecure config?) No wake on lan activated. > Compared to a machine which can't run an IP-aware OS? (but then, what > use is it in this discussion?). I don't understand. >> I mean I know there are only 2 remote holes in 10 years, but my question >> is do we have any experience about the level of security such as studies >> that demonstrated the failure to break into the default system for >> example ? or any other experience in regards with that ? > > and these would relate to you..how? > Those kinds of "studies" get people various advanced degrees, but don't > tend to relate to the real world any better than the seekers of those > degrees. Sorry I don't understand. I have just simple questions. >> On the other side, now if we assume that one box should be used to host >> a website, there are ways that the code such as php + mysql will be >> breakable into. My question is that considering the chroot, can we >> consider that the supposed hacker can never evade from the chroot by any >> mean, even after he will be able to upload and execute files directly on >> the web server ? > > that would be a foolish assumption, even if a "known way" doesn't exist. > Using OpenBSD does not excuse you from good design practices, including > minimizing the amount of data exposed should there be a security breach. > For example: if you were building an order processing system, you would > probably want to "unload" user data from the web-exposed machines ASAP, > rather than letting it accumulate, so if there is a breach on this > machine, only an hour's or a day's worth of users have had their data > potentially compromised, rather than every customer of the last five > years. Of course, the unloading process has to not introduce additional > exposures. Get too fancy, you can create bigger problems than you > solve. Thanks for this clarification, agree, however the question is rather 'if the web server is compromized, is the OS safe due to chroot' ? By OS I mean the configuation files, etc ... > Note well that executing files directly on the webserver is ONLY ONE > risk. Many others exist. Ok, would you please give me some sources of informations so I can learn more about this. > For example, administrators who refuses to do basic research, but > rather resorts to posting basic questions on public mail lists rather > than reading documentation or hiring a qualified administrator opens > themselves to "social engineering" exploits which no OS can protect > them from. Ok understand. No no, this is personal server and nothing else ;) > Nick.
