Linux Hardening with OpenSCAP

The OpenSCAP project is a collection of open source tools for implementing and enforcing this standard, and has been awarded the SCAP 1.2 certification by NIST in 2014. The project provides tools that are free to use anywhere you like, for any purpose.

The OpenSCAP basic tools are:

• OpenSCAP Base
  • Provides a command line tool which enables various SCAP capabilities such as displaying the information about specific security content, vulnerability and configuration scanning, or converting between different SCAP formats.
• SCAP Workbench
  • User friendly graphical utility offering an easy way to tailor SCAP content to your needs, perform local or remote scans, and export results.

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Linux Hardening with OpenVAS

The Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is a framework of several services and tools offering a comprehensive and powerful vulnerability scanning and management solution.

The security scanner is accompanied with a regularly updated feed of Network Vulnerability Tests (NVTs), over 51,000 in total (as of February 2017).

OpenVAS Features

The OpenVAS security suite consists of three parts:

• OpenVAS Scanner
  • The actual scanner that executes the real-time vulnerability tests;
  • It can handle more than one target host at a time;
  • Uses the OpenVAS Transfer Protocol (OTP);
  • OTP supports SSL.
• OpenVAS Manager
  • Handles the SQL Database where all scanning results and configurations are stored;
  • Controls the scanner via OTP and offers XML based OpenVAS Management Protocol (OMP);
  • It can stop, pause or resume scanning operations;
  • Makes user management possible including group level management and access control management.
• OpenVAS CLI
  • Command line tool acting as a client for OMP.

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Linux Hardening with Lynis

Lynis is a powerful open source auditing tool for Unix/Linux like operating systems. It scans the system for security information, general system information, installed software information, configuration mistakes, security issues, user accounts without password, wrong file permissions, firewall auditing, etc.

Lynis is also one of the most trusted automated auditing tools for software patch management, malware scanning and vulnerability detecting in Unix/Linux based systems. This tool is useful for auditors, network and system administrators, security specialists and penetration testers.

Installing Lynis in Ubuntu

This application doesn’t require any installation, it can be used directly from any directory. So, it’s a good idea to create a custom directory for Lynis:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/lynis

Download the stable version of Lynis from the website and unpack it:

cd /usr/local/lynis

sudo wget https://cisofy.com/files/lynis-2.4.0.tar.gz

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Linux Hardening with Tiger

Tiger is a security tool that can be used both as a security audit and as an IDS. It supports multiple UNIX platforms and it is free and provided under a GPL license.

Check all the details on the official website.

Installing Tiger in Ubuntu

Install the application by running the command:

sudo apt-get install tiger

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Windows 7 Hardening (Part II)

Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit

EMET is a free tool built to offer additional security defenses against vulnerable third party applications and assorted vulnerabilities. EMET helps prevent vulnerabilities in software from being successfully exploited by using security mitigation technologies. These technologies function as special protections and obstacles that an exploit author must defeat to exploit software vulnerabilities. These security mitigation technologies work to make exploitation as difficult as possible to perform but do not guarantee that vulnerabilities cannot be exploited.

Download the tool here

and the User’s guide here.

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