Security hardening
Security hardening is the practice of reducing a system’s vulnerabilities and attack surface through secure configuration, protective controls, and removal of unnecessary functionality.
Secure APIs
Server hardening is the practice of reducing a server's attack surface by disabling unnecessary services, restricting access, and applying restrictive security configurations.
- How it is used
- Protects managed API servers against unauthorized access and infrastructure-level malicious traffic.
- How deep it goes
- Details a hardening checklist but stops short of provider-specific configuration procedures.
- Examples
- Uses an exposed Jenkins server on port 8080 to demonstrate how port scanning supports service hijacking.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure managed servers by reducing exposed services, restricting privileged access, and securing remote endpoints.
Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition
Security hardening is the practice of reducing exploitable weaknesses by applying restrictive configuration and removing unnecessary capabilities.
- How it is used
- Applies restrictive container and deployment configuration while checking whether applications continue to run.
- How deep it goes
- Works through image and configuration scans, then stops short of automatic fixes by requiring pragmatic review and end-to-end testing.
- Examples
- Uses Trivy image scans, repository misconfiguration scans, non-root users, and read-only container filesystems.
- What you can do after
- Diagnose vulnerabilities and deployment misconfigurations, apply compatible hardening changes, and verify them with end-to-end tests.
Read how Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition explains security hardening →
Related concepts
- vulnerabilityaddresses · A vulnerability is a weakness or susceptibility in a system, process, or person that can expose it to harm, misuse, failure, or compromise.
- attack surfaceaddresses · An attack surface is the set of exposed or reachable interfaces, components, capabilities, and pathways through which an attacker could access or affect a system.
- SQL Server instanceconfigures · A SQL Server instance is an independently configured and running installation of SQL Server that hosts databases, provides database services, and accepts connections.
- principle of least privilegeuses · The principle of least privilege is a security principle that grants each user, process, or other subject only the access rights necessary for its authorized tasks.
- monitoringuses · Monitoring is the ongoing observation and measurement of a system’s behavior, state, or performance to assess its operation and detect changes or problems.
- change managementuses · Change management is the structured process of planning, evaluating, coordinating, implementing, and reviewing changes to organizations, systems, processes, or practices.
These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.