Linux.About.com: Workstation Security Primer

“There are an awful lot of crackers and “script kiddies” out
there, and the number increases every day. If you administer a
Linux network or a series of Linux servers, you’re probably already
security conscious, but if you’re in the fastest growing segment of
Linux users — the Linux on the desktop or Linux at home camp —
you probably are in need of a little security advice, even if you
don’t know it yet.”

“Believe it or not, network security can be just as
important on a personal desktop workstation as it can be in a
corporate datacenter, at least from your point of view. There
are any number of heartless small-time vandals out there who won’t
think twice about breaking into and rooting (in a sense, taking
over) your Linux workstation, even if you’re just using a modem and
a local ISP to access the ‘net. If you’re using a broadband
connection like cable or full-time DSL, your desktop machine’s
chances of being hacked are even greater.”

“What happens when your machine is hacked by one of these
persons? Well, in the best case, anything and everything on your
system will become available to them, including your work, your
e-mail, your personal letters and/or diaries, and even credit card
or other sensitive information that may be stored in money
applications or browser cookies. In the worse case, you could wake
up one morning after leaving your system “connected” all night to
find that you can’t log in, or even that everything on your system
has been erased in its entirety — not a scenario to make the
average home computer user jump up and down with glee, to say the
least.”

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