What is Systems Hardening?Systems hardening is a collection of tools, techniques, and best practices to reduce vulnerability in technology applications, systems, infrastructure, firmware, and other areas. The goal of systems hardening is to reduce security risk by eliminating potential attack vector s and condensing the system’s attack surface. By removing superfluous programs, accounts functions, applications, ports, permissions, access, etc. attackers and malware have fewer opportunities to gain a foothold within your IT ecosystem. Show
Systems hardening demands a methodical approach to audit, identify, close, and control potential security vulnerabilities throughout your organization. There are several types of system hardening activities, including:
Although the principles of system hardening are universal, specific tools and techniques do vary depending on the type of hardening you are carrying out. System hardening is needed throughout the lifecycle of technology, from initial installation, through configuration, maintenance, and support, to end-of-life decommissioning. Systems hardening is also a requirement of mandates such as PCI DSS and HIPAA, and is increasingly demanded by cyber insurers.
How do you Harden a System?You harden a system by reducing the “attack surface,” the combination of all the potential flaws and backdoors in technology can be exploited by threat actors. These vulnerabilities can occur in many ways. Common attack surface vulnerabilities include:
Additionally, the Center for Internet Security (CIS) maintains updated guidelines on their site around best practice system configurations for specific use cases. The CIS Benchmarks include over 100 guidelines across 25 vendor product families (Amazon Linux, Amazon AWS, Apple iOS, Apple macOS, Checkpoint Firewall, Cisco, Docker, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc.). 9 Best Practices for Systems HardeningThe type of hardening you carry out depends on the risks in your existing technology, the resources you have available, and the priority for making fixes.
Benefits of Systems HardeningSystems hardening requires continuous effort, but the diligence will pay off in substantive ways across your organization via:
Which of the following would be considered an advantage of using an automated patch update service?A modern, automated patching platform is specifically designed to make applying updates and patches simpler, more accurate, and more secure. It helps you avoid configuration drift. And it provides peace of mind when you know that you're taking steps to institute good cyber hygiene enterprise wide.
What is patch management process?Patch management is the subset of systems management that involves identifying, acquiring, testing and installing patches, or code changes, that are intended to fix bugs, close security holes or add features.
What security concept states a user should only be given the minimum set of permissions required to perform necessary tasks?The principle of least privilege (PoLP) refers to an information security concept in which a user is given the minimum levels of access – or permissions – needed to perform his/her job functions.
Which of the following is part of Hardening an operating system?Hardening of the operating system is the act of configuring an OS securely, updating it, creating rules and policies to help govern the system in a secure manner, and removing unnecessary applications and services.
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