FreeBSD Security features

[Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P.]

bsd hack wrote:

>Hi,
>    I have been trying to understand the security features of FreeBSD. I have read the FreeBSD handbook... I have seen that FreeBSD is mentioned as the most secure OS to use. I dont understand why it's security features are considered to be better than that of the other OS's. I'm kind of new to this and haven't done much research on this.
> 
>I'm basically trying to understand the security features of FreeBSD... Can somebody give me pointers to  a few useful links which will help me in understanding the security features in different OS's and how FreeBSD differs.
> 
>-HKR
>  
>

Actually, among the BSD's, OpenBSD has the reputation of being
"most secure."

And, as far as security goes, it's a matter of how the machine
and operating system are configured, and monitored.  IOW, a
paranoid sysadmin goes a long way toward making a system,
any system, secure. 

Also, remember that in reality, the most secure system is one that's
not connected to any other system inside something like a bank
vault.  However, that's not very usable.  With FreeBSD, one of the
nice things is that you don't have to run any services that are open
to the outside world if you don't have to, (compare that to some
Windows issues), and the firewall is fully configurable, given some
knowledge of the command syntax (try filtering outbound traffic
with WinXP's builtin firewall....)

Unix-like operating systems had filesystem permissions and uid's
before Windows and the like came into existence.  Maybe that's
part of what someone was thinking when they told you "FreeBSD
was the most secure."

Now, given that, I certainly feel much more secure with FreeBSD
than MS Windows...but it's probably not a really well-founded feeling,
other than those things mentioned above. 

KDK