System Hardening Checklist
Mission
A freshly deployed system has hit your desk with deliberate misconfigurations. Find them, fix them, and understand what each one would have cost you.
Scenario
A Cloudflare Worker presents a randomized target system — could be a Windows Server, a Linux box, a network switch, or a cloud VM. Each has 8-12 deliberately planted misconfigurations: default credentials, unnecessary services, open ports, missing patches, permissive firewall rules, disabled audit logging, and more.
What You’ll Do
- Audit the system configuration presented by the Worker
- Identify each misconfiguration and select the correct remediation action
- Apply fixes: disable services, change credentials, close ports, enable logging, enforce baselines
- Learn what attack vector each misconfiguration enabled — the Worker shows the exploitation path for every issue you find
Timed exercise with a running compliance score.
Offensive Context
Every hardening action is a friction multiplier. You’re not making the system “unbreakable” — you’re making it too expensive to bother with. Nation-state or script kiddie, every attacker runs the same ROI calculation. The compliance score isn’t the real metric. The real metric is how many attack paths you’ve eliminated.