First, I must say that, I am the author of ProShield, just so you know

I am a long-time user of Knoppix, and have used it many times to do hard drive installs. As we know, once you install knoppix to the hard drive, it "becomes" Debian (unless you choose one of those weird install options, where it doesn't).

I've been working on a Debian security program called ProShield, and I thought, "I should post about this to the knoppix forums!". ProShield is something I very much recommend people use, from newbies, to experienced knoppix/hdinstall users.

Here is the program's homepage: http://proshield.sf.net (there's a new version out today)

(From the homepage

ProShield is a security program for Debian Linux. It helps insure your system is secure and up-to-date by checking many different aspects of your system, including some that you might overlook. Regular use is recommended.

Some of the main features of ProShield include:

* Checks for extra root accounts.
* Checks account & password files for correct permissions.
* Makes sure a few security-hazardous packages are not installed.
* Checks for a packet sniffer.
* Removes unneeded packages from the local package archive.
* Checks for new software releases, in order to see if installed software is reasonably up to date. Smart-suggestion to upgrade if an important package is released.
* Checks to see if 'apt' is fetching unnecessary information when checking for software updates.
* Makes sure system time is accurate.

When the program is done analyzing your system, it displays an "advisory report", and then (if necessary), guides you through a series of interactive questions to help you solve any problems it found.