See also: Programming | Well written code | Malicious code | Cracker
The process of securing a system against external threats; to make more difficult to penetrate. Taken from the real-world term as to “firing” clay to make pottery or manufacturing stronger metal alloys.
A term for a user taking countermeasures to avoid being infected with malicious code by Bad Guys such as applying a hardware or software firewall, configuring or disabling services running on the system, and anti-virus (for Windows) among others.
Related Links
- Hardening HOWTOs
- OpenWall – OpenWall (aka OW) Linux kernel patch by Solar Designer. This was the first Linux kernel patch which provided hardening.
- HAP-Linux patch – Hank Approved Paranoid Linux. A patch to be applied after OW. Provides some additional features like chroot hardening and ptrace protection.
- GrSecurity – A complete security patch for Linux with many features
- PaX – Documentation and source from the PaX team (PaX is a part of GrSecurity).
- Stephanie – Patch for OpenBSD. Patches kernel, manpages and a few other programs like sysctl. Many ‘hardening’ features like random PID’s and W^X are already in OpenBSD by default.
- Papillon – Solaris 8/9 security module. Code inspired by OpenWall.
TakeDown.NET -> “Harden”