I'm being hacked! + Partition Q's

[SpaceGhost]

Hi,

I recently installed Mandrake8 as a 'triple-boot' system, along with WinME and Win2kPro.

Everything went fine :)

Except, my PC occasionally 'powers on' by itself and because of GRUB, will boot into Mandrake by default. I had no problem with this as I thought Linux was secure enough to prevent security breaches (You may have gathered, I'm a complete Linux newbie!).

One day I got home, my PC was already on and logged into KDE(It automatically logs-in as one of my users- configured to do so when I installed M8). I thought nothing of it, until I saw small green rectangles along the top of the screen and my mouse wouldn't work!

Th keyboard worked fine, so while trying to navigate to the 'shutdown' option, I noticed a file on my desktop which I have definately NOT created! The spooky part is, this file was named after me!
This is 'spooky' because I make a point of not saving any personal details on my PC, not in windows, not in Linux. How the intruder knew my name is beyond me and I don't know anyone capable of doing this who knows me and my IP address.

>>> I haven't logged into Linux since, as I don't want to activate any 'dormant' scripts. Basically, I'm going to format my whole hardrive and re-install everything.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to explain what happend before asking:

- When I re-install Linux, what security measures can I take?
Is there a simple firewall like ZoneAlarm for windows?
Do I need a 'thrid-party' firewall, or does M8 have a built-in wall... which I obviously missed!
Any other tips on 'Security Overkill' would be nice :)

- As I'm re-installing Linux, I wanted to ask the best way to partition my drive.
I have 512MB of RAM, I saw no need to have a 1GB swap partition, so I made it 512MB aswell. But, this time I think I'll make the swap 256MB, will this be ok?

I'm going to give Linux around 5GB, but I could stretch to 10GB if any of you experianced users reccomend doing so.
(I'm primarily installing Linux to learn it, but I'll want to use it for programming and graphics)

So, how should I partition my drive? I currently have this in mind, please advice:
256MB /swap
30MB /boot
3GB /
2GB /home

Should I make any others?

...did I mention I'm an eXtreme newbie?
Thanks :)

[SlCKB0Y's_Ghost]

id try something like
/swap 256mb
/boot 8mb
/var 400mb
/home 2.5gb
/ ~2gb

[ 25 June 2001: Message edited by: SlCKB0Y's_Ghost ]

[solo]

If I were you; I'd only surf the net in Windows, until you have a good understanding of Linux security (programs like PortSentry, and the like). There's an NHF here for learning about your logs (how to read them; what to look for... ). Having /var as a separate partition is a good security measure as well (as SickBoy has pointed out).

Ummm... How, exactly is it possible for your computer to be remotely powered on? I always thought you had to have a special power box connected to the phone line to do this?!

[SpaceGhost]

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

I'm using a Cable Modem and my network card has the WOL feature(Wake On Lan). I think someone can 'ping' my IP which 'wakes up' the PC!
Although I've disabled it in the BIOS, it still happens :(

What is the /var partition used for?
I think I'll go with that set-up anyway, thanks.

[sledge_hmr]

Sounds scary--apparently cable modems are full of security problems. Although I am not to familiar with Mandrake, I use ipchains on my Slackware system as a secure messure. As root type ipchains -L This should tell you how your system is set up for sending and receiving info over a network. If everything is set to accept, then that is a major security hole if you have not other firewall. Also there are several daemons (small programs that run in the background) that pose security threats. Read the NHF on security.