Locking down your machines (shields up)

In this and the following chapters, we will dive a bit more into some basic defense and protection strategies that the various operating systems offer. This includes highlighting ideas for locking down systems and providing guidance for auditing, deploying decoys, alerting, and notifications for suspicious activity that might occur on the hosts.

Important Note

You might ask yourself, why is this important? The reason we spend time on this as part of red team strategies is that pen testers are prime targets of real-world adversaries. Some of my pen testing friends have been compromised in the past by real adversaries and that is not fun. I hope that this and the following chapters will help raise awareness around these important topics. Being able to detect when your red teaming machines and assets are under attack is crucial for maturing an adversarial security program and elevating your red teaming skills.

First, a couple of general...