FreeBSD and User Security

[Frank Shute]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:25:32PM +0200, David Naylor wrote:
>
> Hi All,
> 
> Today I read an article describing how my government had lost ZAR200 000 000 
> from fraud.  This is just under $25 000 000.  The article credited this loss 
> largely due to the use of spyware.  
> 
> My question is how secure is FreeBSD (including KDE, GNOME and XFCE) to 
> attacks, including cracking and spyware.  In addition, is there anyway to 
> prevent a user from executing a program that is not owned by root (i.e. any 
> program installed by the user), this would prevent spyware being installed 
> (assuming root has been properly locked down) and subsequently run.  
> 
> If anyone, in addition, has answers for Linux and *BSD it would be great to 
> know as well.  

You might want to have a look at using a restricted shell for users.

I know bash & pdksh have a restricted mode. A quick look at the
manpages for sh & csh suggests they don't. Bash and pdksh are in
ports.

Can't tell you which is best as I haven't used either in restricted
mode.

> 
> Best Regards
> 
> David


Regards,

-- 

 Frank 


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