CertiGuide to Security+  9  Chapter 3:  Infrastructure Security (Domain 3.0; 20%)       9  3.5  Security Baselines

3.5.2.2.2  Access Control Lists 1 2 3.5.3.1  Updates

Application hardening is the process of securing applications in use on a network. It can be a major issue simply because there are so many different applications in use on the average network. It’s simply difficult to keep track of what’s installed where, let alone what the latest security baseline recommendations are for each product. Nevertheless, it’s a task that needs to be performed.

The difficulty of keeping up with all applications, as well as the OS’s used in an organization, is part of the reason that applications were prominently featured in the SANS/FBI Top 20 Vulnerability lists for both Windows (IIS, SQL Server) and UNIX (Apache, sendmail, SSH).

The Security+ objectives primarily concern the hardening of network applications rather than those which work on a standalone system without communicating over the network, so that is what we will focus on in this section.

3.5.2.2.2  Access Control Lists 1 2 3.5.3.1  Updates