Operating Systems Security

Overall security of your Web serving machine depends on many factors. A secure CG I program is useless if your server is misconfigured or if there are other holds on your system.

A common question is which platform is more secure for a Web serve Macintosh running System 7, a UNIX workstation, a PC running OS/2, an,on. There have been many wars on this topic, each of which reflects people different biases toward different operating systems.

No operating system is clearly more secure than another. UNIX is arguably more secure than a single user platform such as a Macintosh or a PC running Window because once a user breaks into one of these latter machines, he or she access to all your files. UNIX, however, has a fundamental understanding of ownerships and permissions. If your server is configured correctly and is owned by a safe user, then if someone unauthorized breaks in, he or she can do limited dama ge.

On the other hand, because UNIX often comes preconfigured with many different types of network services such as mail, FTP, Gopher, WWW, and so on, there more potential ",doors" for someone to enter. Securing all of these servere is a difficult and time consuming process, even for the experience administrator. Even if you configure everything correctly, you are still at the mercy of possible bugs in each individual package. Security flaws in various packages are not uncommon, as is clear from the frequency of notices insecurities in various common UNIX network services from organizationss as the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Every different platform has its own different security implications, but one not more secure than another. Although you should be aware of the implication of each operating system, it should not be your primary criteria when choosing a platform. Choose your platform, seal off the holes associated with that platform. a and then configure your Web server securely and correctly. Only after you completed these steps should you concern yourself with writing secure CGI scripts.

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