[ Thanks to Mike
Weber for this link. ]
“It was almost 20 years ago now I received a very
disturbing email, someone stated, “your server has been hacked
… you need to check it out.” Sure enough my dedicated server
at one of the largest hosting companies, can you say “disaster
magnet”, was hacked. This event forever changed the way I viewed
the Internet and the necessity of security, specifically firewalls.
I have kept that email for all these years just as a reminder of
what can happen. A incomplete firewall led to a compromise.“These days almost everyone understands the importance of a good
firewall guarding the ports that allow access to our servers.
However, what many people do not realize is that there is a serious
danger lurking on one of those ports. Port 80 typically used for
web servers needs to be open to allow access to web content, but
what is really happening on port 80? The Apache web server as good
as it is has little protection when port 80 is open. This is where
ModSecurity comes in providing an application firewall to monitor
and manage the transactions on port 80. What follows is a review of
one of the best books that I have read in a long time. A book that
will challenge your thinking and provide answers to security issues
you may not have realized exist.”