Lesson 5.1: Capstone: a host security review

A host review asks the questions of this course in one sitting: who can become root without sudo, what root runs from places others can write, whether anything changed since the baseline, what Windows-style weaknesses have Linux equivalents here, and which secrets are lying around. In the capstone you re-check Northwind's order server after last month's fixes, find what's still open, and write a short, sealed review with concrete next steps.

20 min

You will learn to

Re-check privileged group memberships
Re-check writable paths
Run an integrity check
Re-check secrets and SSH posture
Write and seal a host review

Key terms

Host review: A periodic, repeatable check of one system's security posture.
Drift: Configuration slowly moving away from the approved baseline.
Regression: A fixed issue that comes back.
Evidence: Command output that supports each finding and can be reproduced.

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