Topic Ways to harden a system network

Read and respond to below two student’s discussions. (150 words for each response) reflecting on your own experience, challenging assumptions, pointing out something new you learned, offering suggestions

#1. Posted by Naresh

System hardening is a way of applying collection of policies and procedures to secure from the cyber hackers and also from inside treats. The main intension of the motivation towards system hardening is to reduce vulnerability in technology applications, systems, infrastructure, firmware, and other areas. The goal of systems hardening is to reduce security risk by eliminating potential attack vectors and condensing the system’s attack surface. There are several ways to applying these procedures to systems and network to protect from attacks. As mentioned system hardening is collection of application hardening, operating system hardening, Server hardening, and Database hardening and Network hardening. Administrators develop the strategies concurrently taking care of different aspects of system elements security and plan for the periodic tasks as well.

Administrators mainly concentrate on reduce the effect of the attack surface, which is” is the combination of all the potential flaws and backdoors in technology that can be exploited by hackers. One of the procedure is to harden the all kinds of Passwords, including users, systems and applications. Password policy needs to address the complexity of password which dictates that passwords must include upper, lower case letters, numbers and special characters and needs to change every 60 to 90 days. Another step is to audit the current system with help of security experts and gather information about any known vulnerabilities and correct them immediately before any hackers tries to get into system. Prevention is better than cure, this not only applies in medical systems also applies in system and networking , as create a strategy and keep on perform this cycle wise and install antivirus, anti-malware application to protect from external and internal threats. Implementation of firewalls and web filters will definitely help from internet threats. Make sure all systems and server has patched latest and greatest security patches and makes habit of doing automated patching process. Ransomware is one of the big problem these days, which attackers targeting not only on systems, also on backup systems, so take appropriate security procedures by installing anti-malware softwares on servers to minimize the effect. Database is heart of all systems and servers, so make sure only user gets the privilege levels which needed to perform his/her job role and implement role based access control (RBAC) across company. Track and apply operating system updates, service packs, and patches automatically; remove unnecessary drivers, file sharing, libraries, software, services, and functionality; encrypt local storage. By imlemention mentioned strategies and procedures the administrators can harden the systems and network.

#2. Posted by Manoj

System hardening is all about practices and measures directed towards minimization of system vulnerabilities. There are tools techniques and procedures that have to be followed to weed out loopholes in the system and to address them effectively. The primary aim is to reduce security-related risks and if where possible, eradicate the chances. Through hardening g process, application and some account functions can be removed while access is made harder and permission-based access is strengthened. This makes it difficult for hackers and other cybercriminals to breach into the system. The system is also covered and protected from viruses and malware (Choi et al., 2018). To effectively harden the system, the admin has to apply a methodical approach. The system needs to be audited to identify vulnerabilities and come up with a way forward to make the system immune or at least render it less vulnerable. Hardening can be done on any part of the system, and it can be done on the operating system, network, and database, among others.

One way in which a system administrator can use to harden the system is through the use of firewalls. A firewall is used to harden the network. For it to work, it has to be fixed at the point where one’s network interacts with outside networks. It works as a router or can be connected to a router where it protects intrusions from external users who would otherwise gain access to one’s LAN. The firewall should always be the first measure towards protecting the network from risks associated with internet connectivity (Choi et al., 2018). Again it is necessary to do away with unnecessary applications and services which although they add nothing to the system, present security threats.

Patching one’s servers is another way of hardening the system. Patching is all about regular updating system applications. The reasoning here is that hackers often find loopholes in systems, and once they find those vulnerabilities, it becomes easy for them to have their way in (Choi et al., 2018). The good thing is that application vendors also find the holes, and they often put measures to reconfigure and address the issues. Regular updating, therefore, works to make it hard to find their way in.

Week7

Describe some ways that an administrator can harden a system on a network.

An initial post must be between 250-300 words and please be sure safe assign score (plagiarism) is less than 25%.