Fedora includes SELinux preconfigured with some policies to confine system daemons (background processes). OpenSUSE uses a unique ID to count systems, which can be disabled by emptying the /var/lib/zypp/AnonymousUniqueId file. Most runtime solutions are not designed for the world of cloud and Linux environments. They are usually a migrated Windows endpoint solution, creating high CPU issues and slowing down production environments.

By making this simple commitment, you can optimize your server and keep it running at peak efficiency, even as you add new programs. This best practice goes hand-in-hand with our last suggestion for greater Linux server security. If you struggle with handling a myriad of necessary security updates, consider implementing an automatic approach. Enabling automatic updates ensures that software security measures remain current, even when you neglect to pursue necessary updates because you’re occupied by other concerns.

Restrict Users to Use Old Passwords

Email alerts provide prompt warnings of attacks to ensure that the server is brought under control as quickly as possible. Linux Security and Hardening involve implementing practices and tools to protect Linux systems from unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security threats. It encompasses securing the operating system, applications, network, and users.

• Nixarmor is a set of shell scripts to harden Linux systems and help with security automation.
• Worse still, they can install malware, viruses, or backdoors on your servers.
• This guide explains how what configuration hardening is and how to establish hardened build standards for your Linux and Unix systems.
• Therefore it makes sense to have technical controls in place to disable accounts.

You should inspect it for getting a broad overview of your server. Inspect the results thoroughly to make sure there aren’t any unwanted noowner files in your server. Finally, run the below command linux hardening and security lessons to load the changes in your server. IPv6 or Internet Protocol version 6 is the latest version of the TCP/IP protocol. It comes with an extended feature list and many usability benefits.

1 Additional entropy sources

This will provide you essential information about your network. It will display if there’re any user accounts that have an empty password in your server. To increase Linux server hardening, lock any user that uses empty passphrases. You can use the below command to do this from your Linux terminal. You can increase password strength by making sure that users can’t set or use weak passwords. Password crackers can easily brute force them and gain unauthorized access.

It exposes a large amount of useful kernel debugging information, but this can often leak sensitive information, such as kernel pointers. Changing the above sysctl restricts the kernel log to the CAP_SYSLOG capability. Similarly for Linux Mint, as an Ubuntu-derived Desktop Linux platform, the same hardening procedures used for Debian-Linux should be adopted. Work through the earlier Linux Hardening Checklist steps and apply these to your Linux Mint systems. For example, the open-source Android platform developed by Google is optimized for smart phones and TVs, and the OpenWrt router firmware is used for a wide range of broadband routers. Restart the computer to make sure all settings have been loaded.

3 Locking the root account

There are two useful tools called ‘psacct‘ and ‘acct‘ are used for monitoring user activities and processes on a system. These tools runs in a system background and continuously tracks each user activity on a system and resources consumed by services such as Apache, MySQL, SSH, FTP, etc. For more information about installation, configuration and usage, visit the below url. In most Linux distributions, pressing ‘CTRL-ALT-DELETE’ will takes your system to reboot process. So, it’s not a good idea to have this option enabled at least on production servers, if someone by mistakenly does this. Use the RPM package manager such as “yum” or “apt-get” tools to list all installed packages on a system and remove them using the following command.

And security teams and require changes to the default configuration according to industry benchmarks. SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) is a security module that provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies. It helps to limit the resources a process can access, enhancing overall system security. Secure user accounts by using strong passwords, limiting root access, regularly reviewing user privileges, and using account expiration policies.

OpenSSH is a software suite consisting of networking utilities that provide secure communication over public networks. The OpenSSH server has become the de-facto application for facilitating ssh connections. However, the bad guys also know this and they frequently target OpenSSH implementations. So, hardening this application should be a top concern for all Linux sysadmin. You can install in on Ubuntu/Debian and RHEL/Centos using the above commands. Plus, you should also install rootkit checkers if you want to maintain Linux security.

Secure your Apache server by adding the below lines in the configuration file. Admins should employ strong network policies in order to protect their secure servers against malicious hackers. We have already outlined the necessity of using intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems. However, you can harden your host network further by doing the following tasks. You can find service-specific configuration files of logrotate in the /etc/logrotate.d directory.