The Second Commandment of system administration (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

The Second Commandment of system administration (NewsForge)

Posted May 3, 2005 20:43 UTC (Tue) by crouchet (guest, #1084)
Parent article: The Second Commandment of system administration (NewsForge)

2nd Commandment, huh? Did I miss seeing the list? Is their a new (and apparently not too bright) security deity handing down commandments?

While integrity checking is important I think there are several other practices that would have to come before it. Some examples might be:

Physically secure your system.
Protect your system with secure password access.
Don't allow other systems to connect to yours in an insecure way.
Don't run insecure software.
Don't operate as root/administrator.

Just to name a few. Just think, if you had to CHOOSE whether to have passwords OR integrity checking but not both, which would you choose? This "what if" process makes the real priorities clear.

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