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Protect your vps!

Protect your vps!

February 9, 2023

Everyone connected to the internet is a target for hackers.

The Most Incredible Cyber Attack Statistics of 2021 Find out the number of cyber attacks happening every day around the world.

  • Worldwide, 30,000 websites are hacked every day.

  • 64% of companies worldwide have experienced at least one form of cyber attack.

  • 20 million records compromised in March 2021.

  • In 2020, ransomware cases increased by 150%.

  • Email accounts for approximately 94% of all malware.

  • Every 39 seconds, a new attack occurs somewhere on the network.

  • On average, approximately 24,000 malicious mobile applications are blocked on the Internet every day.

Therefore, network security protection is very important!

Start protection work

This article takes Debian as an example, the operation of Ubuntu is similar, and the CentOS system will be different, please search for relevant content by yourself. (It is strongly recommended that you use Ubuntu or Debian system)

SSH protection

In fact, many vps are regarded as broilers because the ssh login password has been cracked, especially the root user has been cracked by violence and installed a backdoor program, and the whole chick has become a compelling puppet chicken (broiler)

Change ssh port 

vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Then change the port field, which is to change the ssh port. After the changes are saved, use systemctl sshd restart to restart the ssh service

Change ssh password

Very simple, use the psswd command to change the password. Note: Password is not visible when entered!

Create a new normal user

  1. Create a new user
adduseradmin

You can create a new user, and you will be asked to enter the password twice and some information. The information other than the password can be entered all the way to end. If necessary, you can understand the information and set it by yourself.

  1. Install sudo

After creating a new ordinary user, we need to use sudo to allow ordinary users to obtain root privileges

apt install sudo #Debain does not have it by default, Ubuntu itself should have been installed
  1. Make sudo settings
visudo

Use ctrl+K O to save, press Enter, then ctrl + K Q, you can save and exit!

Look for the User Privilege Specification field, and add a new line:

admin ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
#admin is the username

Setting “NOPASSWD” allows the admin user to use root privileges without entering an additional password. If you are required to enter a password when using root privileges, you can change it to sadmin ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

  1. Disable root login

Forbid root to log in to vps through ssh, which can greatly avoid the situation that vps becomes a bot. At the same time, it can also be used by switching to the root user through the su command after logging in through other users ssh

Edit the ssh configuration file:

vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
#If you log in as a normal user, you need to use sudo

Change the PermitRootLogin field to no

Then save and exit, restart the ssh service sudo systemctl sshd restart

After that, when using root for ssh login, the vps will directly deny access, and has been asking for a password

Ufw firewall

Install

Install ufw firewall (based on iptable), Debian needs to be installed manually, Ubuntu already comes with it by default

apt install ufw

Basic configuration

Set basic defaults

ufw default deny incoming
ufw default allow outgoing

Allow ssh connections

ufw allow ssh

Allow http and https connections

ufw allow http
ufw allow https

Start ufw 

ufw enable

Manage firewall rules

View firewall status

ufw status
ufw status numbered

delete rule

ufw delete 5

add rules

Allow port 81, ufw rules are more complicated

ufw allow 81

Overload configuration

ufw reload

Ban ping

Directly edit the rule of ufw, you can also edit the rules of iptable

vim /etc/ufw/before.rules

Find the # ok icmp codes for INPUT area, and change ACCEPT in echo-request -j ACCEPT in the last line to DROP

No brute force cracking

Use file2ban to ban bruteforcing

Install file2ban

apt install fail2ban

copy configuration file

cd /etc/fail2ban # Enter the fail2ban directory
cp fail2ban.conf fail2ban.local # backup

edit configuration file

vim fail2ban.conf
[sshd]
enable = true
port = 22 #port
filter=sshd
logpath = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 3
bantime = -1

service management

service fail2ban restart #restart
fail2ban-client status #View status
fail2ban-client status sshd #View detailed status of sshd

Unban ip

  fail2ban-client set sshd unbanip 192.0.0.1 #Unban the specified IP
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