3. Host Security Problems

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.^3.1

This is the first of the chapters that take on a technical content. The previous chapter dealt with the hacker and the system administrator, how to merge them into one ``syshackadminer''. We noted that part of the part of the process of becoming a syshackadminer is being able to react to technical problems with technical solutions. This chapter introduces the technical problems, at a host level, in a theoretical and then a practical sense. In the theoretical section we define and discuss theoretical aspects of host security issues. The practical section shows how these problems and vulnerabilities can be used to gain access and privilege on the host. While [22] is a good starting point for the reader not familiar with the basics of security, [1] is more in sync with our approach to the problems.