Author Archives: Michael Boelen

Livepatch: Linux kernel updates without rebooting

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Maximize uptime with livepatch If you run a Linux server, software patching is a task that will have to be performed on a weekly (or daily) basis. Although most programs can be auto-restarted with a tool like needrestart, there is one exception: the kernel. Wouldn’t it be a nice if we could patch the kernel, without the mandatory reboot? Here is livepatch, the feature of the Linux kernel that makes it possible. Kernel Live Patching Core Although there are more […]

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Interview: MalwareMustDie and their Linux malware research

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Linux malware, research, and more With great pleasure, we interviewed unixfreakjp. He is the leader and founder of the malware research group MalwareMustDie. We want to learn about their activities, Linux malware, and useful skills for security professionals. Keep reading! Interview MalwareMustDie About the MalwareMustDie organization So for those never heard about MalwareMustDie, can you tell us who you are? As stated on our web site. MalwareMustDie, is a white-hat anti cybercrime security research workgroup. launched in August 2012, is an Non […]

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Changing file permissions on macOS (and using flags)

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Using file flags on macOS While performing system hardening on macOS, you may encounter a typical chmod error. Something like this: chmod: Unable to change file mode on /usr/bin/gcc: Operation not permitted Even with root permissions, you can’t change the permissions of some files. How is this possible? This is caused by flags. Showing file permissions and flags To see if a file has any flags set, use the ls command with the l (el) and O (capital o). ls -lO /usr/bin/gcc […]

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Tools compared: rkhunter VS Lynis

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Rootkit Hunter and Lynis compared The question about what the differences are between rkhunter and Lynis is showing up more and more. Time to share the purpose of both and show the difference in its usage. As the author of both tools, I should have done this nine years ago. So with some little delay, here it is. Rootkit Hunter Written in 2003, rkhunter had the goal to detect malware on Linux and UNIX-based systems. The main target was rootkits, with […]

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Why we use your open source project (or not)

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Common mistakes in open source software projects While ‘shopping’ for some libraries, it struck me how many open source software projects are suffering from basic mistakes. Well, mistakes might sound too harsh. What I mean are those things you find on a project, which could be better. They are usually things not considered by the developer, as we (developers) were never told about them. Doing 10+ years of open source development now, I can safely say I made many mistakes. Time to […]

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How to see the version of Oracle Linux

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What version of Oracle Linux do I have? Oracle Linux is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. At first, it may be confusing to determine what specific operating system is running. This is because both have the /etc/redhat-release file. If that file exists, use the cat command to display the contents. Next step is to determine if there is a /etc/oracle-release file as well. If so, then you can be sure that Oracle Linux is running.   cat /etc/oracle-release Sample output might be: […]

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Show vulnerable packages on Arch Linux with arch-audit

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Vulnerable Software Packages on Arch Linux Vulnerabilities happen and are usually fairly quickly fixed. This is also true for Arch Linux. This rolling distribution can be considered to be always up-to-date, as it uses the latest versions of software packages from the upstream. When there is an update, it doesn’t take long that is becomes available in the package manager pacman. One problem that remained was the inability to quickly test if you have any vulnerable packages. After all running pacman -Suy daily […]

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Linux Security Guide (extended version)

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Linux Security Guide (extended version) With so many articles about Linux security on the internet, you may feel overwhelmed by how to properly secure your Linux systems. With this guide, we walk through different steps, tools, and resources. The main goal is to have you make an educated choice on what security defenses to implement on Linux. For this reason, this article won’t show any specific configuration values, as it would implicate a possible best value. Instead, related articles and […]

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Discover to which package a file belongs to

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Determine the package a file belongs do Sometimes you want to know the related package of a file, before installation, or when it is already there. This is of great help during system hardening or general system cleanups. In this article we have a look at several ways to determine the relationships between files and the package they belong to. CentOS, Fedora, RHEL Show files per installed package To show what files are in a package, use the rpm command. rpm -ql […]

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