On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Show me an OS that you can't break into with
physical access to the system
console, and I'll show you a dangerous OS! With Operating Systems like
OpenVMS the physical security is an important part keeping that system
secure. A secure system should be locked in a computer room with mulitiple
levels of physical protection to insure that only authorized personal gain
access to it. If you want it to be truely secure, even the terminals should
be in areas with limited access.
You need an IBM OS tape/CD to regain a lost root login for recent versions
of AIX. Simple console access won't do. I seem to recall that various
other unices running "enhanced security" option might be similar.
Definitely there is a point of diminishing returns for security
requirements that significantly reduce the speed of recovery after
security problems.
If you can't break into the system when you have
physical access to the
system, then what do you do when you forget your passwords. Remember
passwords shouldn't be written down.
Whoops, think I missed the smiley. What can I say, I take data security
seriously!
Zane