Hardening is one of the many ways to protect your systems and environment from attack. Be it remote or insider threats that you are protecting against. However, with the increasing connectivity between different IT and industrial environments for data transfer to the business, for remote access or for integration between different industrial environments, these systems and environments are increasingly exposed to multiple threats. As a result, these systems and environments need to be protected with additional measures. Along with patching and the like, hardening is one way to reduce the risks to the environment, but it requires a well thought out approach and actions to be taken.
Hardening is not only part of security best practice, but is also (lightly) enforced through policies and standards. Therefore, the links and references to IEC62443 will be highlighted in the course.
This course will give the student an insight into the various aspects of a hardening process, the ins and outs of hardening, how to perform hardening, why the hardening settings in question are important and what needs to be strengthened to reduce potential attack vectors. Possible consequences of the hardening steps taken will be explained, and students will be guided through the creation of a (basic) hardening script and system policies to assist in the actual hardening of similar systems in their environments. The potential pitfalls that can be encountered when hardening standalone or domain-joined systems are also explained.
The course covers operating systems such as Microsoft Windows 10/11 and Microsoft Windows Server (as this is the most commonly used operating system to provide human-machine interfaces to operators), but also Linux elements, network component security and industrial control system devices. Students will understand how to verify hardening using common security tools and what steps to take to harden systems and environments.
Through real-world scenario-based exercises, students will gain a thorough understanding of what can and should be done to protect their industrial environments.
More information on the Training page or contact me on info@secudea.be for more information or pricing.
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