Hack Proofing Sun Solaris 8 (Paperback)

by Syngress (Editor), Ed Mitchell (Author), Ido Dubrawsky (Author), Wyman Miles (Author), F. William Lynch (Author) "Default installations of almost any operating system are prime targets for hackers, and Solaris is no exception..." (more)
Key Phrases: solaris inetd, brute force hacks, warn root, Frequently Asked Questions, Solutions Fast Track, Trusted Solaris (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Two of Sun Solaris's prime attractions are its reliability and the high availability of servers running it. These advantages can be, however, negated by carelessness. Forget to apply a patch, or neglect to synchronize your servers' system clocks, and someone who's paying more attention will exploit the holes you've left in your system. The authors of Hack Proofing Sun Solaris 8 teach you how to run Solaris with flair. They show you how to implement wise security rules and implement popular services--like Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts--with a focus on improving security without reducing function. Most of the advice here has to do with Solaris boxes as Web servers, mail servers, and firewalls.

A lot of the authors' advice will be familiar to readers who have done security work before--their advice to disable all nonessential services, for example, falls into this category. Other information, such as the particular syntax of Solaris's native security utilities and third-party programs that are designed for Solaris, is very handy. It'll prove especially nice for people coming to Solaris from security administration on other operating systems. The organizational approach balances quick reference--the ability to quickly locate some detail via the index--with informative background that will help you head off emerging, undocumented attacks. There aren't many earth-shaking revelations in this book, but it contains good documentation of Solaris security tools and procedures. --David Wall

Topics covered: Sun Solaris 8 defensive policies and procedures. Native Solaris tools (like audit log) are documented, as are outside tools like Snort. There's advice on setting user and file permissions, and hints on how to configure network services like HTTP, SMTP, DHCP, and network address translation (NAT) in a secure way. Caching with Squid gets attention, too.

Product Description
Hack Proofing Sun Solaris 8 is written for system administrators and security professionals concerned with protecting their Sun Solaris operating system. Covering everything from the motivation of a hacker to the tools and techniques that hackers use; security professionals proficient in the Solaris OS will provide the information needed to fortify the operating system and network.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Syngress; 1 edition (October 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 192899444X
• ISBN-13: 978-1928994442
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,296,471 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #65 in

  Books > Computers & Internet > Operating Systems > Solaris

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-organized approach to securing Solaris systems, January 9, 2002

By	Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity.com" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I am not a Solaris system administrator, but I read "Hack Proofing Sun Solaris 8" (HPSS8) to learn more about securing Solaris systems. HPSS8 addresses a wide variety of Solaris security issues, and is suitable for beginning and intermediate system administrators.

HPSS8 is not a Solaris version of "Hack Proofing Linux" (HPL), which I reviewed in October. While HPL seems more like a catalog of open source security tools, HPSS8 focuses on explaining the features and configuration of Solaris hosts. The authors provide useful explanations of Trusted Solaris, with enhancements like Role Based Access Control and Mandatory Access Control. Admins unwilling to deploy Trusted Solaris can experiment with the SunSCREEN Basic Security Module (BSM), which raises a default Solaris 8 installation to the C2 security level. HPSS8 describes how to deploy Sun's Kerberos implementation, called Sun Enterprise Authentication Mechanism (SEAM). The book also introduced me to Sun's implementation of file-based access control lists to protect SUID files.

As a casual reader, not responsible for implementing these tools, I found HPSS8's coverage adequate. I learned about enterprise-grade security features I never knew existed. I'm not sure if admins needing in-depth explanations will find what they need in HPSS8.

HPSS8 appears to be written by authors who know their material. I found no errors, although I admit I am not a Solaris expert. The network security discussions, with which I am more familiar, seemed error-free as well. I appreciated the heavily technical buffer overflow explanation in ch. 10, and was surprised to learn in ch. 8 that Solaris by default routes packets between multiple interfaces. The only slip in editing appeared to be unnecessary "double coverage" of Snort (in ch. 3 and ch. 8), probably written by different authors.

If you're a junior Solaris admin and you need to lock down your machines, securely operate web, email, caching, routing, firewalling, and related services, HPSS8 will definitely help you. Senior Solaris admins will probably not learn new tricks. Security professionals who want to familiarize themselves with Solaris features will enjoy reading HPSS8, as I did.

(Disclaimer: I received a free review copy from the publisher.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Information, But Dated Material Now, February 9, 2005

By	Tony Bradley "s3kur3.com" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

I have never used a Sun Solaris system, but I found this book to be very informative and enlightening nonetheless. Hack Proofing Sun Solaris 8: Protect Your Network From Attack provides an excellent introduction to securing a Solaris 8 system. It covers everything from securing the installation out of the box, to securely implementing Solaris 8 as a web server, email server, firewall or router. The information is presented in a way that will teach someone new to administering Solaris security what they need to know, but it may lack the depth to teach a Solaris guru any new tricks. Although this book doesn't relate to the most current release of Solaris, most people trying to learn about securing Solaris will still benefit from reading it.

(...)