In the following discussion, we will highlight and provide recommended solutions for the most significant security issues of a freshly installed Solaris system. The discussion will focus on protecting a Solaris host from network attack. Services Sun, like most operating system vendors, would prefer that its systems be installed with the most functionality possible. Unfortunately, on a system that is going to be accessible on a network, this functionality brings considerable risk. This is the reason that most security professionals recommend that systems be installed with the minimum set of services necessary for the system to fulfill its role.
Chances are the answer is no.
So, the first step to securing a new host is to determine what that machine's role will be and only enable the services necessary for the role. Services that are frequently unnecessary but are enabled by default include sendmail, login, exec, uucp, sadmind, sprayd, and a host of other default services. Click here to view Table 1, which lists services that you should consider disabling. Because new attacks are created daily, it is essential that any service that is not going to be used be disabled. Even services that have no apparent vulnerabilities should still be disabled.