Harden Your Systems with OpenSCAP
Security Check
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If you're operating a large collection of Linux servers, OpenSCAP can help with regular auditing and system hardening.
Ever since the boom in Linux-based container technology, new tools for auditing and system hardening have been popping up like mushrooms, but older tools can still be useful. OpenSCAP [1] is an example of an older tool that supports comprehensive system analysis and offers actionable suggestions for improvement.
OpenSCAP is a free implementation of the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) standard. The Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) refers to SCAP as "…a suite of interoperable specifications for the standardized expression, exchange, and processing of security configuration and vulnerability information." The purpose of SCAP is to provide a framework for automating vulnerability and compliance testing. OpenSCAP checks the system for known vulnerabilities and maps compliance on a scale between 0 and 100 percent. Growing demand for IT standardization prompted NIST to launch the SCAP initiative in the mid-noughties. Since the first version in 2007, the framework has seen successive development.
OpenSCAP offers an easy, automated solution for checking whether your systems are secure. You can check against ready-made policies and profiles available through SCAP, or you can customize a catalog to define your own checks.
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