Automate Your Server Security With GrapheneX

Summary

The internet is rife with bots and bad actors trying to compromise your servers. To counteract these threats it is necessary to diligently harden your systems to improve server security. Unfortunately, the hardening process can be complex or confusing. In this week’s episode 18 year old Orhun Parmaksiz shares the story of how he and his friends created the GrapheneX framework to simplify the process of securing and maintaining your servers using the power and flexibility of Python. If you run your own software then this is definitely worth a listen.

Announcements

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• Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Orhun Parmaksiz about GrapheneX, a framework for simplifying the process of hardening your servers

Interview

• Introductions
• How did you get introduced to Python?
• Can you start by explaining what we mean when we talk about hardening of servers?
• What are the common ways of hardening a system, which techniques can we use for this purpose?
• What are some of the high level categories of threats that operators should be considering?
• What is GrapheneX and what was your motivation for creating it?
  • How does GrapheneX aid users in the process of increasing the security of their infrastructure?
  • Is any extra operating system knowledge required for using GrapheneX?
• Can you talk through the workflow for someone using GrapheneX to harden their systems?
  • What options does it support for managing deployment across a fleet of servers?
• Some security controls can actually prevent proper operation of the applications and services that are deployed on a server. How do you approach preventing those scenarios or educating the users in determining which controls are appropriate?
• Why did you choose Python for a project like GrapheneX?
• How is GrapheneX implemented?
  • How has the design evolved since you first began working on it?
  • If you were to start the project over today, what would you do differently?
• Do you accept contributions to the framework? If so, what kind of contributions are needed for improving GrapheneX?
• For someone who is interested in adding a new module to the framework, what is involved?
• What have you found to be the most interesting or challenging aspects of your work on GrapheneX?
• What, if any, aspects of server security have you consciously avoided implementing in GrapheneX?
• What are your future plans about the GrapheneX?

Keep In Touch

• Orhun
  • GitHub
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Picks

• Tobias
  • Chess
• Orhun
  • Creeping in My Soul by Cryoshell
  • Gravity Hurts by Cryoshell

Closing Announcements

• Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to check out our other show, the Data Engineering Podcast for the latest on modern data management.
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Links

• GrapheneX
  • GitHub
  • Website
  • PyPI
  • Twitter
  • Trello
• Graphene
• New Modules for GNU/Linux & Windows (Issue)
• Flask
  • Flask-SocketIO
• React
• trimstray/linux-hardening-checklist
• The Windows Server Hardening Checklist
• Firewall
  • Windows Firewall
  • Linux iptables
• PCI-DSS 2.2 requirement- server hardening standards
• CIS Benchmarks

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA