After hardening SSH, setting up a firewall, and configuring Fail2Ban, it’s easy to wonder what else might still be misconfigured or overlooked. Running a Lynis security audit on Linux answers that question directly, systematically checking your entire system against hundreds of hardening best practices and giving you a concrete list of what to improve next….
Network-level tools like Nmap tell you which ports are open, but they can’t tell you whether the web application running behind one of those ports has an actual vulnerability in its code or configuration. An OWASP ZAP web vulnerability scan fills that gap, testing self-hosted applications directly for common web security issues before someone else…
Firewalls and intrusion detection systems tell you about traffic hitting real, legitimate services — but what about connections aimed at things that shouldn’t exist at all? A home network honeypot flips that question around, deploying a decoy service designed purely to attract and log unauthorized access attempts, giving you clear, unambiguous evidence that something is…
A firewall blocks traffic based on rules you define upfront, but it can’t tell you what’s actually happening inside the traffic that’s already allowed through. Setting up Suricata for intrusion detection adds a deeper layer of visibility, inspecting network traffic content itself to spot malicious patterns, known exploit signatures, and suspicious behavior that a simple…
An open port with no firewall rule is an open invitation for automated scanners and attackers. Setting up a UFW firewall on Linux is one of the simplest ways to control exactly which network traffic reaches your server, blocking everything by default except the specific ports and services you explicitly allow. What Is UFW? UFW…
Even with key-based authentication and a hardened configuration, adding two-factor authentication for SSH provides an extra layer of protection that ensures a stolen key or compromised credential alone isn’t enough to gain access to your server. It’s one of the last remaining gaps in a fully hardened SSH setup, and it’s easier to configure than…
Before you can secure a network, you need to know what’s actually on it. Nmap network security scanning is the industry-standard way to discover devices, open ports, and running services on any network, making it one of the first tools every sysadmin and security enthusiast learns — whether you’re auditing your own homelab or studying…