well after a possible hack last week that was a pain in the as* i have reinstalled and i am setting up my security settings before i connect to the internet this time...

problem is that when i try to change the security setting using in the control setting the left panel (where the change is made) turns gray and the mouse pointer turns into a watch and stays like this for 20 minutes plus... i finally gave up and after reopening the security window i seems to be unchanged...

is it supposed to take more than 20 minutes?
its not like i have a slow computer??
how do i raise the security level, is there another way to change it??

thanks

here is a little bit more detailed account of my problem:

in the mandrake control center under security you are given the following options:
"cracker welcom"
"low"
"medium"
"high"
"paranoid"
however when i try to choose one of these options i get the problem i described above...

Hi,


Looks like there some kind of problem with your Mandrake Control Panel software.
Here are some steps to secure your Linux box:

1 Turn off unwanted services, only use telnet, finger,rsh,portmap,nfs.nis if you have to.

2 add "ALL: ALL" to /etc/hosts.deny and then add the list of tcp wrapper compiled services that you want to allow access to in /etc/hosts.allow.

3 Services that only need to listen for requests on your lan should be configured to bind to the lan nic's ip address, i.e. pop3/imap4, ssh, ftp etc, most services can be configured either via the relevant xinetd config file or the own config file.

4 If you need services to listen on your machine's internet interface turn off the service's banner or falsify it, to make it harder for a hacker.
Also ensure these services are the latest versions, to prevent against any security vulnerablilities.

5 You could also recompile your kernel with the ip personality module, this allows your machine to look like it's running another OS when scanned, i.e. Amiga, Windows 2000, etc, this should confuse any potential hackers.

6 Setup a firewall with a DENY all default policy, only allow required services in and out of the firewall.

7 Don't use the same passwords for internet sites and your system.

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask, myself and the other members of unix.com will do our best to help you.


Andy H