Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Black Screen of Death!!

[Michael Dorrington]

Pater Mann wrote:
[snip]
> I agree that it could be seen as a Windows
> vulnerability that by denying access to a particular key in the
> registry you can prevent a user from getting to the desktop but
> Unix/Linux systems have a similar "vulnerability". I accidentally
> renamed my home directory once and that prevented me logging in as
> that user at all - denying access to the home directory would have the
> same effect.

Although desktops like GNOME and KDE may not work in this case you can
switch to a virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and login using the 'login'
program. It will complain if it can't find your home directory but will
still log you in. Then you can fix the home directory problem.

> Even worse, just imagine the chaos it would cause if all
> access was denied to the /etc directory!

If you didn't have a root login session at the time then you'd most
likely have to reboot and do something like put init=/bin/sh in the
kernel options or boot from a CD/stick (like a Live CD) with tools to
repair it.

> Although Unix/Linux-based systems are inherently more secure than
> Windows (and are easier to harden), people tend to forget that
> rootkits were originally created for Unix(-like) systems (hence the
> name "rootkit") and have only been created for Windows relatively
> recently so attention to security is still important whatever the
> operating system.

I agree that attention to security is important whatever the OS. People
say that "Linux is more secure" and often do so to promote "Linux"[1].
While the sentiment is welcome, such a simple statement about security
is not meaningful because the security of a system is so highly
dependant on its administrators, users and uses.

If people can do one extra security measure that they aren't doing
currently, then it should be to keep up to date with the (security)
updates for their system. There are many security issues found with free
software which are then quickly fixed but you need to make sure you are
installing those fixes.

Regards,
Mike.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html