Confidentiality
This means that secret data should remain secret. Your private information must not get into the public eye. That Eastern European kiddie porn syndicate should not get your credit card number.
Integrity
This means that data on the system should not be changed without authorization. Your records should remain intact. That intruder should not change the shipping address on an order, making your staff ship a crate of really expensive stuff to an abandoned warehouse in Detroit.
Availability
This means that the system keeps running. If your business depends on your website, losing the website means losing business. Someone who can take your website down can starve your company. And all kinds of people are willing to shut you down, either to compete or just for laughs.
Having been a system administrator for longer than some of you have been alive, I have a less formal idea of security. Security means eliminating bad days caused by computer problems. Spending a day getting a piece of software to compile is not a bad day. Is it an annoying day? Sure, but it’s not bad. A day when I need to get intruders out of my systems is bad. A day when I have a meeting due to computer intrusions is bad. A day when I realize that I cannot trust any computer on the network, and I must reinstall every blasted piece of gear I own, is really bad. I still have bad days due to people, mind you, but I largely solve them by other means. Don’t ask about the mounds of dirt in my backyard.
While OpenBSD cannot change the fact that some of my servers are old enough to leave elementary school, it can fix the software aspects of security.
Absolute OpenBSD: UNIX for the practical paranoid / Michael W. Lucas.
Absolute OpenBSD: UNIX for the practical paranoid / Michael W. Lucas.
