Hardening

Hardening is the process of configuring a system — operating system, application, network device, or database — to reduce its attack surface and resist compromise. Hardening typically involves disabling unnecessary services and ports, removing default accounts, applying current patches, configuring security settings according to a published baseline, and enabling audit logging.

The most common hardening references are the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks and the DISA Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs).