por Lynis is an audit tool focused on maintaining the security of operating systems based on Linux, MacOS and the Unix environment. Its operation is based on comprehensively analyze the state of your systemsidentifying possible vulnerabilities or problems in it.
Your analysis allows the user to know if they need to correct any errors, install update packages or make any changes to the processes. This contributes to strengthening the system and its security, as well as compliance testing.
Lynis It is open source software (open source), that is, its source code is available for use by any user.
For reuse and adaptation to various contexts, this security tool has had since 2007 the General Public License (GPL) or General Public License, which allows end users to use, analyze, share and modify the code.
Lynis Features
One of the features of this tool is that is written in the shell script from Posix, that allows and facilitates the development of multiplatform software. Additionally, Lynis is resource-light and uses few dependencies, ensuring it is useful in processes such as hardening or system assurance, or the pentestingalso known as cyber attack simulation.
On the other hand, Its execution is carried out directly from the device that you want to analyze and not remotely, as other security tools do; This means that it allows greater visibility and identification of elements that could not have been determined through a traditional type of scan.
Therefore, the scan performed by lynis is of type modular and opportunistic, that is, to carry out your audit you will only use and test the tools and components that you find, such as the elements available in the system and their libraries, without it being necessary to install other tools. In the same way, each audit could expand or reduce its lengthdepending on the number of components that lynis linux discovers.
Regarding its operation, it can be said that perform a suite of automated tests which are responsible for inspecting the different components and configurations of the Linux system, among others. Additionally, after running Lynis, this present your results in an ASCII report (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), which codes through colors and shows categories such as a list of preventions or warnings, suggestions and other types of graduated actions that must be carried out to maintain the safety and proper functioning of the equipment.
Lynis Use Cases
The Lynis tool allows its use for different purposes, such as:
Security audit
It refers to a process where the security status is evaluated of a computer system, detecting failures or weaknesses that third parties could take advantage of to infect the system, prevent its operation, steal data or cause some type of damage. This tool carries out an audit that includes at least 9 steps, which they start with their initialization and go through basic checks to then determine the operating system and continue searching for available software components to use in the audit.
The following steps focus on checking the latest version of lynys, running the enabled plugins and the security tests of each category (user-customized tests can also be included), finally resulting in a report indicating the results of the security analysis.
This report, as well as the technical details of the scan, are stored in a log file (lynis.log), while information related to warnings and change suggestions is saved in a separate report file (lynis-report.dat).
Compliance testing
Its function is collect information that shows the compliance of a system with regard to control procedures. Lynis security controls perform a large number of individual tests that help determine security status. Includes categories such as email, storage, malwarelogin, database, web servers, file systems or firewalls, among others.
Pentesting and Hardening
He pentestingalso Known as penetration testing, it is responsible for design and promotion of cyber attacks against an organization’s system, with the aim of detecting its security vulnerabilities.
For his part, the hardening or system hardening It consists of securing a certain system and reducing security holes.
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