Questions tagged [hardening]
the process of tightening security on a system.
0
votes
0answers
33 views
Current generally recommended minimum Android API level for security reasons (Late Dec 2018) [on hold]
I am currently reviewing some Android application build hardening guidelines which specify a minimum allowable supported API level. This was set internally at API level 15 and has been for some time, ...
1
vote
1answer
114 views
WIN 10 hardening: Importance of “Allow system to be shut down without having to log on” policy
I am enforcing a hardening policy on my organization's work stations.
One of the policies I removed, under Shutdown, is called "Allow system to be shut own without having to log on".
Users started to ...
1
vote
2answers
54 views
How to protect your anti virus program or logging agent?
its a very simple question but might not be too trivial. Imagine an attacker has access to your device and gained SYSTEM privilege. Your company has installed a logging agent on your device to capture ...
0
votes
2answers
71 views
How to hide device files on linux?
I want to hide /dev files on Linux because some files can be dumped and used for reverse engineering/attack purposes.
My primary goal is to avoid users able to see those files from a shell: lurking ...
1
vote
2answers
144 views
Where to find the security hardened docker images
Is there any service that provides certified, security hardened Docker images for common platforms like Python, PHP, Node, Java, etc. with 0 major/critical CVEs.
Currently, we are using the ones from ...
0
votes
1answer
39 views
How to restrict plugins/tools like Netcraft and Builtwith to detect server side technologies?
My organization wants to restrict all the plugins/tools like Netcraft and Builtwith to detect all the server side technologies for security reason like platform, operating system name and version, web ...
0
votes
2answers
102 views
Best Source of Security Configuration Guidance
Over the years I have used a number of different sources of security configuration guidance for a spectrum of systems including for example:
https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks/
https://www....
1
vote
0answers
26 views
Hardening evaluation of shared objects files
In order to evaluate if security mechanisms are applied on binary files during compilation I usually use the checksec tool.
My question is: if I want to check an .so file, which checksec's fields ...
1
vote
1answer
73 views
How to mitigate the risks of using new, third party imported electronic accessories?
As someone who is naturally good at recognizing risk and who are striving to maintain a wholistic view on security, I’m wondering how to evaluate and reduce the risks of hardware accessories (I.e. ...
12
votes
2answers
713 views
Securing a Laptop from a Foreign Intelligence Agency
What would be the best practices for securing a single-purpose Windows laptop against a determined foreign intelligence agency from tampering with data on the machine? The machine would be used ...
1
vote
1answer
106 views
the state of ASLR, PIE, SSP on Debian in 2018?
As far as I remember,
most Debian Wheezy packages were not compiled with those useful security flags (ASLR, PIE, SSP, and more).
Did the situation improve with Debian Squeeze or the upcoming Debian ...
0
votes
0answers
15 views
Hyper-V keep enhanced session while blocking redirected drives
I'm creating a nested vm user desktop inside Windows 10 Enterprise. I'm using the hyper-v console, not mstsc.exe. The user desktop vm needs to use a headset and microphone which requires Enhanced ...
0
votes
1answer
68 views
Is it ok to delete SSH configuration files? [closed]
From what I read, SSH is mainly used for remotely accessing a machine. If I don't want anyone remotely accessing my machine, nor myself included, is it ok to delete these configuration files from my ...
0
votes
1answer
1k views
Filter TLS in Wireshark or other monitoring tool
As part of the new best practices in hardening server communications I need to deny TLS 1.0 on the web server, before doing so I wish to identify the amount of clients whom connect with this level of ...
1
vote
3answers
183 views
When hardening a LINUX system what command line tools would you remove first in order to make an attackers life really difficult? [closed]
When hardening a LINUX system what command line tools would you remove first in order to make an attackers life really difficult?
1
vote
1answer
47 views
Remove sync user to harden the system
I read a book about linux hardening (Hardening Linux by James Turnbull, 2005). The book suggests to remove the sync user. If I remove the sync user I am not able to call commands like ls and shutdown, ...
2
votes
1answer
567 views
How can I set a password for single user mode?
During a Lynis audit I found this on a system that uses Fedora 28:
Checking Linux single user mode authentication WARNING
And under results I got:
No password set for single mode [AUTH-...
3
votes
1answer
210 views
protection from Backdoor hacks from disgruntled developer/ employee
I created a ecommerce site with a developer. He completed almost all his work but in the end we had some financial disagreements so our partnership ended in a bitter dispute. That developer threatened ...
0
votes
1answer
383 views
Modify Win OS banner to avoid OS detection
I would like to modify Win OS banner to defeat OS detection from scanning tools like Nmap for example. Although, I know that Nmap does not take into account just the banner to do OS detection.
5
votes
2answers
226 views
securing Ubuntu bootloader using TPM
I am currently working with Ubuntu 16.04 , with an Intel CPU that supports TPM2 module.
I am trying to harden my boot-loader, i tried using trustedgrub2 fork that supports TPM2 , i understand that ...
0
votes
0answers
34 views
Electron app generating one-time access codes vs server generated codes
I'm designing a kiosk to use one-time SMS codes as a method of authentication. The method I'm using to generate codes happens inside of an Electron application running on a locked down kiosk, hardened ...
1
vote
1answer
374 views
what are the disadvantages of running SSH daemon without root?
Is there any risk in running ssh daemon with no root privilege using this method: how-can-i-make-this-daemon-init-run-as-a-non-root-user?
Debian Developer's Best Practices for OS Security says the ...
27
votes
4answers
7k views
What are the toughest SSH daemon settings in terms of encryption, handshake, or other cryptographic settings? [duplicate]
I work heavily with SSH and SFTP, to be specific between two machines, both of which have their SSH port open on a public IP address.
What are the toughest SSH daemon settings in terms of encryption, ...
3
votes
1answer
173 views
How to set basic defense on Nginx-CMS?
As an Information Security amateur I did all in my might to protect my Ubuntu-Nginx-CMS (WordPress) environment from BFAs, MITMs, and database injections.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot -...
0
votes
2answers
526 views
How to secure a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 install [closed]
I have a service that's spinning up fresh Ubuntu 16.04 instances onto a VPS (on behalf of users) and would really like to do what I can in terms of putting good privacy and security practices in by ...
0
votes
1answer
191 views
Is this some sort of hacker attack?
I'm using a tool on my website that detects any error and sends me an email when a code error happens. Recently, I've received some requests not allowed on my IP - not url - where only GET is allowed.
...
-2
votes
1answer
170 views
making a site DDoS proof without the use of CloudFlare? [closed]
So just a random thought as were doing the Info Sec unit on my college course, how would you make a website DDoS proof without cloud-flare? Would it just be case of logging IP address, MAC address and ...
0
votes
2answers
802 views
hundreds of users creating mail.ru and projectgold.ru accounts on my application db
I am working on Ubuntu Server with mysql installed, I have a forum application vbulletin 5 installed and there are hundreds of mail.ru and projectgold.ru created on my application, it looks like this:
...
1
vote
1answer
135 views
Limit information disclosed in AD Anonymous Bind
What I am trying to do
For reasons I may not go into, we must allow Anonymous Bind in AD on a private network. I am fully aware of the risks associated with this. I have found a myriad of ...
0
votes
3answers
219 views
Pitfalls of using SELinux for LAMP servers
I'm considering the usage of SELinux for several lamp (linux+apache+mysql+php) servers. I have tested SELinux in a virtual machine and have configured some basic rules (allow PHP, email, etc.) and for ...
1
vote
1answer
80 views
Is it possible to ensure that only two specific services are allowed to talk to each other?
So last semester I studied a bit about network hardening and one of the things that we did was write IP table rules to ensure that only a whitelisted set of services are able to talk to each other ...
1
vote
1answer
136 views
Handling toxic data in a microservice architecture
I'm trying to apply the principle that data is toxic asset in a system with many services through which this toxic asset must flow.
The system can be abstracted to 3 actors: clients, intermediaries, ...
4
votes
1answer
284 views
Storing UK bank account and sort code in MongoDB database
The company I work for has to send monthly payments to 20 to 50 users at a time. These users can change from month to month. Generally, each user will receive money from us for 2-3 months.
The users ...
6
votes
1answer
700 views
Security essentials for a embedded Linux device
We are prototyping a security camera product using Raspberry Pi 3 as the hardware platform. The camera has capability to connect to the cloud over internet as well as offline processing when the ...
4
votes
1answer
740 views
Why does checksec.sh highlight rpath and runpath as security issues?
The tool checksec.sh is used to examine compile time hardening options such as NX, RELRO, PIE and so on.
It also reports if the binary has RPATH or RUNPATH set, using the following logic:
These are ...
5
votes
1answer
436 views
Hardening/Security considerations for torrent clients
I am running Synology's DSM torrent client on a NAS. As I have to (?) open and forward one UDP port for DHT and another one (UDP/TCP) for data transmission I am exposing myself to threats originating ...
1
vote
1answer
455 views
Difference between Lynis and Nessus and yet another hardening tool
I am writing an open source python tool aimed at inventoring/auditing and hardening of a system. When I started off with the project, I did some research around it and figured out that there were not ...
5
votes
0answers
139 views
Using instruction set architecture (ISA) to stop stack overflows
I have been learning about using stack overflows to get arbitrary code execution, one of the tricks used is overwriting the return address to make control flow go the way you want it. Assuming our ...
0
votes
1answer
114 views
Are Optimization Flags Harmful?
There seems to be a consensus, that
-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -O1
is a hardening measure that should be applied as compiler option. This was also a recommendation in the Dovecot Pentest Report.
What I'm ...
4
votes
2answers
212 views
What should I do with the hidden/disabled Administrator account?
In Windows 10, there is the Administrator account that is disabled by default. What should I do with it, with regards to hardening Windows?
I have heard of adding a password to it, but is that ...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
Limiting a standard user on Windows
I'm setting up a limited user account. I would like it as limited as possible, while retaining the capabilities of: running a handful of programs, and saving files into one folder.
Can I use ACL ...
7
votes
2answers
5k views
Hardening SSH security on a Debian 9 server
I am running the following version of GNU/Linux Debian:
cat /etc/issue
says:
Debian GNU/Linux 9
Using the following kernel:
uname -r
says:
4.9.0-2-amd64
And running the following version of ...
1
vote
0answers
126 views
Secured Web Browsing
What can be done to make a setup for super secured web browsing?
I've been looking at something like this: Windows host > Sandboxie > Virtualbox > Linux Guest > Web Browser (Chrome with uBlock ...
44
votes
5answers
9k views
Does adding a password to BIOS prevent malware from infecting it?
I'm looking into ways of hardening a computer's security. One of the things is the BIOS.
Does adding a password to the BIOS prevent malware from infecting it?
I have seen this article: Protecting ...
0
votes
2answers
592 views
How to lock down iSCSI mounted NAS against ransomware
If you lock down an iSCSI mounted NAS volume (on Windows Server) so that Administrators have read-only access and your backups account has write access to the file system, the Administrator account ...
4
votes
1answer
491 views
Drop privileges after startup or start as unprivileged user?
Given a service that needs access to some secrets from a config file to start, I can imagine three approaches:
1) Keep the file readable only by root. Start the process as root, read the config and ...
5
votes
1answer
781 views
Does Linux support the NX-bit on ARM processors?
Does Linux (kernel and applications) support the NX-bit on ARM processors? If so, how can I check if an ARM-binary is compiled with this protection enabled?
2
votes
0answers
262 views
Harden / Lock down SMB share
We have to use an embedded SMB server to transfer medical records to and from patients' phones.
The medical records are AES-encrypted on the phones, in transit and on the embedded device. But then... ...
3
votes
2answers
215 views
What's the point of buying a Blackberry that runs the Android OS?
Recently, Blackberry began selling smartphones that run the Android OS. If the Android OS has so many security issues out-of-the box, then why bother paying extra for it?
Blackberry claims that the ...
1
vote
1answer
112 views
How can I harden a system against malicious actions from within?
I wasn't sure on the title, so please edit it if you think it can be improved.
I run a multiplayer gaming network (the backend system that handles accounts and player lists, and I want to expand my ...
