You could use **nmap** to get a better view of the (network)services it is running: nmap -sS -v <your_server> -sV -p1-65535 and **lsof** to view the current inbound/outbound connections to the box. lsof -i If there are no processes listening on any port then the server is reasonably safe. If new services are installed(i.e. ssh server) it is recommended that strong(>8 characters, alpha numeric, upper case, lower case, special characters) passwords are used(with SSH some argue it's better to use public key authentication). For added safety you could also install **fail2ban** and run an updating string regularly(i.e. as a cron job). For example, an update script(on Debian/Ubuntu) may look like: #!/bin/bash sudo sh -c "apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade;apt-get autoremove;apt-get autoclean"