Book Image

Mastering Defensive Security

By : Cesar Bravo
Book Image

Mastering Defensive Security

By: Cesar Bravo

Overview of this book

Every organization has its own data and digital assets that need to be protected against an ever-growing threat landscape that compromises the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of crucial data. Therefore, it is important to train professionals in the latest defensive security skills and tools to secure them. Mastering Defensive Security provides you with in-depth knowledge of the latest cybersecurity threats along with the best tools and techniques needed to keep your infrastructure secure. The book begins by establishing a strong foundation of cybersecurity concepts and advances to explore the latest security technologies such as Wireshark, Damn Vulnerable Web App (DVWA), Burp Suite, OpenVAS, and Nmap, hardware threats such as a weaponized Raspberry Pi, and hardening techniques for Unix, Windows, web applications, and cloud infrastructures. As you make progress through the chapters, you'll get to grips with several advanced techniques such as malware analysis, security automation, computer forensics, and vulnerability assessment, which will help you to leverage pentesting for security. By the end of this book, you'll have become familiar with creating your own defensive security tools using IoT devices and developed advanced defensive security skills.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Section 1: Mastering Defensive Security Concepts
7
Section 2: Applying Defensive Security
15
Section 3: Deep Dive into Defensive Security

Applying Windows hardening

Nothing is impossible to break; just make it hard enough to make them want another target.

As you know, hardening is a fancy name for all the techniques used to protect a given server from attacks. While hardening is not a bullet-proof solution, its aim is to increase the security of a server to an acceptable level to prevent the majority of attacks.

In general, a properly hardened server should be protected against all scripted or automated attacks.

There are normally two ways to apply hardening, as outlined here:

  • Applied by a separate team (information technology (IT) infrastructure)
  • Another applied by the security team (you)

Let's take a look at your responsibilities when hardening is performed by the infrastructure team.

Hardening by the infrastructure team

In this case, the hardening is performed (executed) by another team; however, you may still be accountable for ensuring that the server is secure, so in that...