On Wed, Sep 08, 2010, Timothy Murphy wrote: >Giles Coochey wrote: > >> The likelihood is that someone ran a vulnerability scanner against all >> your available services, logwatch found evidence of that vulnerability >> scan, and you should check whether any other vulnerabilities were scanned >> for and perhaps found... >> >> To do that you should manually check your log files or use a better tool. > >Such as ... While fail2ban and swatch are good tools, apache mod_security is probably better for dealing with this type of thing as it is designed to minimize attacks on web services. I think it's a mistake to discount any attacks involving php as the vast majority of the systems I have had to clean up after cracks have been compromised through php vulnerabilities, usually in conjunction with weak user level passwords. IHMO, admin tools like phpMyAdmin, webmin, and usermin should be carefully restricted, preferably only accessible via a private LAN, not from the public internet. Use a VPN to access from the public internet if necessary. We don't install usermin in most cases as I have seen it used to exploit security bugs on old SuSE systems that permit root access. Bill -- INTERNET: bill at celestial.com Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC URL: http://www.celestial.com/ PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way Voice: (206) 236-1676 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820 Fax: (206) 232-9186 Skype: jwccsllc (206) 855-5792 all bureaucracies will bear close watching, and none more so than that which comes into power in a wave of popular enthusiasm, and with the avowed purpose of saving the country from ruin. -- H.L. Mencken