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Security Intermediate

What is Security Hardening?

The process of reducing a system's attack surface by disabling unnecessary services, applying patches, and configuring security controls.

Security hardening systematically reduces vulnerabilities in servers, applications, and networks. Steps include removing unused software and services, applying security patches promptly, configuring firewalls (deny by default), enabling SELinux/AppArmor, setting strong password policies, disabling root SSH login, using key-based authentication, implementing file integrity monitoring, securing boot processes, and following CIS Benchmarks. For web servers: disable directory listing, remove version headers, configure secure TLS ciphers, set security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options). Hardening should be automated through configuration management tools (Ansible, Chef) and validated regularly through vulnerability scanning.

Related Terms

Brute Force Attack
An attack method that systematically tries all possible combinations of passwords or keys until the correct one is found.
Phishing
A social engineering attack that uses fraudulent communications to trick people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
A security method requiring two different forms of identification before granting access to an account.
Input Validation
The process of verifying that user-supplied data meets expected formats, types, and ranges before processing it.
Session Hijacking
An attack where an adversary takes over a legitimate user session by stealing or predicting the session identifier.
WAF (Web Application Firewall)
A security solution that filters and monitors HTTP traffic between a web application and the internet, blocking common attacks.
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