hardening

1 abnormal hardening or thickening of tissue

2 the process of becoming hard or solid by cooling or drying or crystallization; "the hardening of concrete"; "he tested the set of the glue" [syn: solidifying, solidification, set, curing]

3 the act of making something harder (firmer or tighter or more compact)

English

Verb

hardening

1. present participle of harden

In computing, hardening is usually the process of securing a system. This work is especially done to protect systems against attackers. This would typically include removal of unnecessary usernames or logins and the disabling or removal of unnecessary services.

There are various methods of hardening Unix and Linux systems. This may involve, among other measures, applying a patch to the kernel such as Exec Shield or PaX; closing open network ports; and setting up intrusion-detection systems, firewalls and intrusion-prevention systems. There are also hardening scripts and tools like Bastille Linux and Apache/PHP Hardener http://www.syhunt.com/hardener/ that can, for example, deactivate unneeded features in configuration files or perform various other protective measures.

See also

• Computer security
• Computer network security
• Network security policy
  • Linux:
    • Security-Enhanced Linux

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