newbie/rookie/starter

[MEDICINEAARON]

Get the idea? Where do I look to learn what I need to know to do and prevent comp nasties. THANKS beforehand.

[dstevens1958]

Google is a great place to look for info.
There are also a few books I've been reading that are alright for security. (Thats what your lookin for I hope!) These books will help you understand how evil crackers (I winced typing that) learn of your system and exploit it. These books give you a general idea on the topic. (They tend to cover windows and linux)

Hacking Exposed Second Edition (ISBN 0-07-212748-1)
Hack Attacks Denied (ISBN 0-471-41625-8) There are also more books in this series!
Maximum Security Third Edition (ISBN 0-672-31871-7)

The best thing to do is READ!!! READ EVERYTHING! I'm sortta a newb too (I'm just starting to learn Linux) But I read lots of stuff and learn new things every day.

I suggest reading a bit on TCP/IP because everything will make more sense then. Also, just for the hell of it, get a packet sniffer and watch your computer communicate w/ others. This gives you a real life example of what all that fancy tech language is really talking about!

Another good thing is to get experience. Set up a network and test what you learn at home. Figure out how to block access to different ports and stuff. For firewalls, well, do some research. Since I have a network, I use hardware and software firewalls. Its good enough for a home Winblows ME based network. (What professional cracker would want a WinME system, and what Script Kiddy would try to hack all those firewalls?) Guess that leaves me in the middle!!!

[Syini666]

it really is suprising to see the amount of connections going on while simply browsing the internet and using a chat program isint it? Another must would be a good antivirus program like AVG (www.grisoft.com) or Innoculate, or if you have the money, a retail one like McAfee or Norton.

[er0k]

yeah like said before, you can get antivirus programs all over the place. also, a firewall would be a good way to keep the skidmarks out. a completely free and internet based AV program is at http://housecall.antivirus.com it is a good one, they are the makers of pccillin. a decent newbie firewall you can get is at www.zonelabs.com although you can find better av and firewalls, these are both easy to use.

[aeallison]

What OS are you using anyway? You will get alot of suggestions and a pro for every con. One thing is for sure you will get the answers real quick. I reccomend Win2k advanced server if you really want to learn networking. Although some of the *nix variations are equally good, the latter will require a lot of research, compared to an out-of-the-box solution.

[allenb1963]

You can also glean some good knowledge by reading some of the tutorials.

[Sylum]

I am also new to all this stuff but there is this cool book that I read called: The Unofficial Guide To Ethical Hacking by Ankit Fadia. It is very user friendly especially for newbies.

[aeallison]

I meant to say that too .....not really, good point Al.

You can also glean some good knowledge by reading some of the tutorials.


__________________
Al

[jethro]

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/

[MEDICINEAARON]

Thanks guys I will get cracking, oops!! I mean reading.