The common victim is the one who leaves a console logged in, perhaps as root, and leaves the system. Request identification from anyone wishing to access systems for maintenance purposes unless their identities are known. This section discusses technical security procedures for workstations on the vendor network. Although specifics tend to be for Unix systems, general procedures apply to all platforms. Password Security Lack of passwords or easy to guess passwords are a relatively low- tech door into systems, but are responsible for a significant number of breakins.
Good passwords are a cornerstone of system security.
By default, PC operating systems like Windows 95 and MacOS do not provide adequate password security. Password security for these machines is possible, but is beyond the scope of this document. Some vendors ship systems with null passwords, in some cases even for privileged accounts. Change passwords, especially system and root passwords. Mix case, numbers and punctuation, especially on privileged accounts.