WSM Reference Guide - WatchGuard Technologies

Mailing Lists
Mailing Lists
wg-users@watchguard.com
WatchGuard sponsors a listserv for our customers. For more information, see the Technical
Support chapter in the User Guide.
firewall-wizards@nfr.net
Firewall gurus from around the world discuss and answer all types of questions.
Full Disclosure
When Symantec bought Security Focus and its lists, suspicious security expersts and network
administrators fled. Where did they go? Largely to FullDisclosure. Pros: Cannot be biased by any
vendor because it's completely unmoderated. First choice for posting latest discoveries by
some big-name researchers. Black-hat hackers like to harass this list, inadvertently providing
useful perspective on the "script kiddie" mindset. Con: Because it's unmoderated, this highvolume
list will drown you in 20 irrelevant flame-war e-mails for every on-topic comment. Net:
You get what you pay for, and this list is free. Try it briefly to familiarize yourself with it, but use
Outlook rules to divert Full Disclosure e-mails to a folder you can read at leisure.
VulnWatch and VulnDiscuss
These lists are, respectively, moderated and unmoderated. Pro: You can not only get security
advisories from vendors, you can also see what the rest of the IT community thinks and feels
about them. Con: Fairly large volume of highly technical alerts difficult for newcomers to
understand. Net: While you wouldn't want this as your only source of security news, it provides
a solid source for confirmation and alternate opinions on security trends.
Secunia
Pro: This list notifies on every vulnerability under the sun. Con: Secunia mostly reproduces
vendor releases, without analysis or suggested remediation for IT beginners. And did I mention
they report on everything under the sun? If you don't know Linux/Unix, you won't understand a
lot of the bulletins. Net: High volume, but all on topic (unlike FullDisclosure). Try it to see if it's
for you.
General IT and Security Web Sites
First, a note to any intrepid beginner who is reading this: not all of these sites are sponsored by good
guys. Some of them post malicious code that hackers use. Do not download or execute anything you do
not fully understand.
WatchGuard Frequently Asked Questions
www.watchguard.com (Click Support, Log into LiveSecurityService, click Knowledge Base, click
FAQs)
www.cerias.purdue.edu/
The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) is
currently viewed as one of the world’s largest centers for research and education in areas of
information security that are crucial to the protection of critical computing and communication
infrastructure. CERIAS is unique among such national centers in its multidisciplinary approach
to the problems, ranging from purely technical issues (e.g., intrusion detection, network
security, etc.) to ethical, legal, educational, communicational, linguistic, and economic issues,
and the subtle interactions and dependencies among them.
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