The Computer Oracle and Password System (COPS) was the first

vulnerability scanner A vulnerability scanner is a computer program designed to assess computers, networks or applications for known weaknesses. These scanners are used to discover the weaknesses of a given system. They are utilized in the identification and detectio ...

for

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s to achieve widespread use. It was created by

Dan Farmer Dan Farmer (born April 5, 1962) is an American computer security researcher and programmer who was a pioneer in the development of vulnerability scanners for Unix operating systems and computer networks. Life and career Farmer developed his ...

while he was a student at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

Gene Spafford Eugene Howard Spafford (born 1956), known as Spaf, is an American professor of computer science at Purdue University and a computer security expert. Spafford serves as an advisor to U.S. government agencies and corporations. In 1998, he founded ...

helped Farmer start the project in 1989.

Features

COPS is a

software suite A software suite (also known as an application suite) is a collection of computer programs (application software, or programming software) of related functionality, sharing a similar user interface and the ability to easily exchange data with each ...

comprising at least 12 small vulnerability scanners, each programmed to audit one part of the operating system:COPS README.1 file *

File permissions Most file systems include attributes of files and directories that control the ability of users to read, change, navigate, and execute the contents of the file system. In some cases, menu options or functions may be made visible or hidden dependin ...

, including device permissions/nodes *

Password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

strength * Content, format, and security of password and group files (e.g.,

passwd passwd is a command on Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and most Unix-like operating systems used to change a user's password. The password entered by the user is run through a key derivation function to create a hashed version of the new password, whi ...

) * Programs and files run in /etc/rc* and

cron The cron command-line utility is a job scheduler on Unix-like operating systems. Users who set up and maintain software environments use cron to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts), also known as cron jobs, to run periodically at fixed ti ...

(tab) files * Root-SUID files: Which users can modify them? Are they

shell script A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be scripting languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manip ...

s? * A

cyclic redundancy check A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is an error-detecting code commonly used in digital networks and storage devices to detect accidental changes to digital data. Blocks of data entering these systems get a short ''check value'' attached, based on t ...

of important files * Writability of users' home directories and startup files *

Anonymous FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

configuration * Unrestricted

TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple lockstep File Transfer Protocol which allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of nodes booting from a local area netwo ...

, decode alias in

sendmail Sendmail is a general purpose internetwork email routing facility that supports many kinds of mail-transfer and delivery methods, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) used for email transport over the Internet. A descendant of the ...

, SUID uudecode problems, hidden shells inside inetd.conf, rexd in inetd.conf * Various root checks: Is the current directory in the search path? Is there a plus sign ("+") in the /etc/host.equiv file? Are NFS mounts unrestricted? Is root in /etc/ftpusers? * Compare the modification dates of crucial files with dates of advisories from the

CERT Coordination Center The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) is the coordination center of the computer emergency response team (CERT) for the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a non-profit United States federally funded research and development center. The CERT/C ...

* Kuang expert system After COPS, Farmer developed another vulnerability scanner called SATAN (

Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks (SATAN) was a free software vulnerability scanner for analyzing networked computers. SATAN captured the attention of a broad technical audience, appearing in ''PC Magazine'' and drawing threats ...

). COPS is generally considered obsolete, but it is not uncommon to find systems which are set up in an insecure manner that COPS will identify.

References

External links

COPS
1989 software Linux security software Unix security-related software {{security-software-stub