Since Ubuntu is getting so fantastically popular nowadays I thought this might be useful to some of you.

I personally think Ubuntu is great, the features, ease of installation, stability and especially the work they have done on things like wireless drivers make it a breeze to get up and running.

It is a pretty secure distro by default, but there are a few little things you can do to tighten it up.

If you don’t know what Ubuntu is you can check it out here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu is a community developed, linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need – a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.

If you wan’t to get into Linux I suggest you try this and Mandriva first.

Anyway recently I found a good security guide for Ubuntu, so run through the steps and lock your OS down.

If you’ve recently switched from Windows to the Linux distribution Ubuntu, you’ve probably experienced a decrease in spyware — and malware in general — on your system. But although Ubuntu is billed as the ultra-secure solution, you should know that even though Ubuntu’s default install has its flaws, like every other operating system.

The Big Ol’ Ubuntu Security Resource

BackTrack v.2.0 is finally released, it’s been a long wait that’s for sure, it does look good though so perhaps it was worth waiting.

You can find some screenshots here.

BackTrack ranked number one in Darknet’s well regarded list 10 Best Security Live CD Distros (Pen-Test, Forensics & Recovery).

It’s taken BackTrack almost 5 months to pull themselves out of the beta stage. Many features have been added and many of the persistent bugs have been fixed.

New exciting features in BackTrack 2, to mention a few:

• Updated Kernel-Running 2.6.20, with several patches.
• Broadcom based wireless card support
• Most wireless drivers are built to support raw packet injection
• Metasploit2 and Metasploit3 framework integration
• Alignment to open standards and frameworks like ISSAF and OSSTMM
• Redesigned menu structure to assist the novice as well as the pro
• Japanese input support-reading and writing in Hiragana / Katakana / Kanji.

As usual, Nessus is not included into BackTrack as Tenable forbid redistribution.

The public wiki project is available at http://backtrack.offensive-security.com. Please help us by providing entries in HCL (Hardware compatibility list).

Read more about BackTrack here.

You can download BackTrack here:

BackTrack 2 Stable release Mar 06 2007