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Manipulation detection with AFICK
Checker
AFICK (another file integrity checker) detects changes to the system and sounds an alert. The tool first creates a unique fingerprint of selected files in the form of a checksum. If a different checksum is computed during a later check, a malicious program, an attacker, or a defect is likely to have modified the files under investigation. In this way, AFICK not only detects manipulation attempts, but also acts as a small intrusion detection system.
The tool is licensed under the liberal GNU GPLv3 license, which also allows free use in the enterprise. AFICK only requires Perl v5.10 or newer. Developer Eric Gerbier has tested his tool under all Windows versions from XP upward, various Unix systems (e.g., HPUX and AIX), and numerous Linux distributions (e.g., SUSE, Red Hat, Debian, and Ubuntu). Windows users can easily install Perl with the ActivePerl [1] package.
Most Unix and Linux systems come with Perl by default or support simple installation from the package manager. In addition to the Perl package, you will also want the Digest::MD5, Digest::SHA1, and Perl/Tk modules. The latter two are optional; Perl/Tk is only required for the graphical user interface.
Installation
To install AFICK, first download the latest version from SourceForge [2]. Windows users need the EXE file – at the editorial deadline this was afick-setup-3.6.1.exe. All you have to do is start this program and leave the installation to the wizard, which downloads a few additional Perl modules, so you must have Internet access.
Linux users, on the other hand, have the choice between several packages. Only the packages that start with afick
and are immediately followed by the version number (e.g., afick_3.6.1-1_all.deb) are of importance. If you have an Ubuntu-based
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