Guarding the Fortress Efficient Methods to Monitor Security on 300 Systems

摘要

With the increased proliferation of desktop UNIX workstations, computer security has become an increasingly larger headache for sites which have several hundred to over 1000 systems. Most people would agree that keeping a watchful eye on a handful of workstations or mainframes is a simple task. However, keeping a watchful eye on several hundred workstations of differing architectures can be a security administrator's never-ending nightmare, if not done efficiently. Unlike many other types of UNIX system administration tasks, which can be placed on the queue and done at a later date, delaying the completion of a security task, such as the installation of a security patch, could leave a site very vulnerable to an intruder attack. Therefore, in order to adequately monitor and protect a large number of systems and users, security tasks must be well organized, efficient, and automated, if at all possible. This paper will present an overview of how system security is currently maintained on the over 300 systems at the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) facility at NASA Ames Research Center. The discussion is divided into five areas: why security is needed; what policies and procedures are used; what types of security awareness training is provided; the security monitoring and checking tools that are used, and some future plans for security at the NAS facility.