Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker, Second Edition

Chapter 14. Safe Hosts in a Hostile Environment

Probably the biggest cause of insecurity on the Internet is that the average host is not reasonably secure when it arrives from the manufacturer. The manufacturers know this, but they tend to focus on features and time-to-market instead of security. A secure computer usually has fewer services, and may be less convenient to use. Unless the product has security as its specific target, security tends to be overlooked. Most people tend to choose convenience over security. (Even reputable “security people” often take shortcuts and cheat a little.)

In this chapter, we supply a definition of “secure,” and discuss the characteristics of various Internet hosts that we think meet this definition. Then we can ...