Lesson 6.2: Capstone: hardening a server before go-live
The final mission of System Security 101. A new database server, db02, is about to go live and IT wants it reviewed against the baseline first. You work through the whole course on one machine: services, sudo rights, SUID files against a baseline, writable files run by root, SSH, kernel protections and audit rules, fixing each finding and proving the fix, then you write a report and seal it.
26 min
You will learn to
- Review a host against a baseline
- Close privilege escalation paths
- Harden services, SSH and the kernel
- Add persistent audit rules
- Report and seal the result
Key terms
- Security baseline
- The minimum security configuration every system of a type must meet.
- Go-live
- The moment a system starts serving real users or data.
- Configuration drift
- Systems slowly moving away from their baseline through manual changes.
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