Hardening Glossary

Browse 24 hardening terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

24 Hardening Terms

Baseline Security
The minimum acceptable set of security controls, settings, and practices required across systems or environments. Baseline security gives organizations a floor...
Bastion Host
Bastion Host is a hardened administrative jump system placed at a network boundary to control and log privileged access. Security teams use it to enforce...
Configuration Audit
A review of system, cloud, or application settings to verify they match approved security baselines and do not expose risky misconfigurations. Configuration...
Container Security
The set of practices and controls used to protect container images, runtimes, registries, orchestration platforms, and workload boundaries. It spans build-time...
Database Security
The set of controls used to protect database systems and the data inside them, including authentication, authorization, encryption, patching, monitoring, and...
Default Credentials
Default Credentials is factory-set usernames and passwords that remain dangerous if not changed before deployment. Security teams use it to enforce trust,...
Default Password
A vendor-supplied password that ships with a device, application, or service before the owner changes it. Default passwords are a common initial-access path...
Desktop Security
The protection of employee or user desktop systems through controls such as patching, endpoint protection, disk encryption, configuration policy, and privilege...
Docker Security
The set of practices and controls used to secure container images, runtimes, registries, and hosts in Docker-based environments. It includes image provenance,...
Endpoint Hardening
The process of configuring user and server endpoints to minimize attack surface, such as disabling risky features, restricting privileges, enforcing secure...
Endpoint Protection
Endpoint Protection is preventive endpoint controls such as anti-malware, exploit mitigation, device policy, and application control. Security teams use it to...
Filesystem Security
The protection of files, directories, metadata, and mount behavior through permissions, ownership, encryption, auditing, and safe configuration. Filesystem...
Harden
To reduce attack surface and improve resistance to compromise by tightening configuration, removing unnecessary components, limiting privileges, and enabling...
Hardened Image
Hardened Image is a system or container image preconfigured to remove unnecessary exposure and enforce secure defaults. Security teams use it to enforce trust,...
Hardening
Hardening is the reduction of unnecessary functionality, privileges, and weak defaults to lower attack surface. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
Host Security
The protection of an individual computer or server through configuration hardening, patching, endpoint controls, access restrictions, and monitoring. Host...
Least Functionality
A hardening principle that systems should expose only the functions, services, ports, protocols, and features necessary for their mission. Removing unnecessary...
Legacy Protocol
An older communication protocol that remains in use for compatibility but often lacks modern security properties such as strong encryption, mutual...
Lockdown
A state or action in which systems, accounts, or environments are tightly restricted to prevent further abuse, spread, or change. Lockdown can refer to...
Minimum Privilege
A policy of granting users, services, and applications only the lowest set of permissions necessary to perform their tasks. The phrase is often used...
Minimum Security Baseline
The lowest acceptable set of security controls, settings, and practices that systems or environments must meet before they are considered compliant or trusted....
Production Security
The controls, practices, and protections applied specifically to live production environments where real customers, data, and business operations are at stake....
RDP Security
The hardening, monitoring, and access control practices used to protect Remote Desktop Protocol services and sessions. RDP security typically involves network...
Registry Security
The protection of Windows registry settings and related permissions against unauthorized modification, persistence abuse, and unsafe configuration. Registry...

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