Book Image

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Third Edition

By : Donald A. Tevault
3.7 (7)
Book Image

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Third Edition

3.7 (7)
By: Donald A. Tevault

Overview of this book

The third edition of Mastering Linux Security and Hardening is an updated, comprehensive introduction to implementing the latest Linux security measures, using the latest versions of Ubuntu and AlmaLinux. In this new edition, you will learn how to set up a practice lab, create user accounts with appropriate privilege levels, protect sensitive data with permissions settings and encryption, and configure a firewall with the newest firewall technologies. You’ll also explore how to use sudo to set up administrative accounts with only the privileges required to do a specific job, and you’ll get a peek at the new sudo features that have been added over the past couple of years. You’ll also see updated information on how to set up a local certificate authority for both Ubuntu and AlmaLinux, as well as how to automate system auditing. Other important skills that you’ll learn include how to automatically harden systems with OpenSCAP, audit systems with auditd, harden the Linux kernel configuration, protect your systems from malware, and perform vulnerability scans of your systems. As a bonus, you’ll see how to use Security Onion to set up an Intrusion Detection System. By the end of this new edition, you will confidently be able to set up a Linux server that will be secure and harder for malicious actors to compromise.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Section 1: Setting up a Secure Linux System
9
Section 2: Mastering File and Directory Access Control (DAC)
12
Section 3: Advanced System Hardening Techniques
20
Other Books You May Enjoy
21
Index

Security Tips and Tricks for the Busy Bee

In this final chapter, I’d like to do a roundup of some quick tips and tricks that don’t necessarily fit in with the previous chapters. Think of these tips as time savers for the busy administrator. First, you will learn about some quick ways to see which system services are running, in order to ensure that nothing that isn’t needed is running. Then, we’ll look at how to password-protect the GRUB 2 bootloader, how to securely configure BIOS/UEFI to help prevent attacks on a physically accessible machine, and how to use a checklist to perform a secure initial system setup.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Auditing system services
  • Password-protecting the GRUB2 configuration
  • Securely configuring and then password-protecting UEFI/BIOS
  • Using a security checklist when setting up your system

If you’re ready, let’s get going.