🛡️ Service Auditing Playbook

Windows (Desktop & Server)

• Objective: Reduce the system’s attack surface by enabling, disabling, or reconfiguring system services.
• Tools:
  • services.msc
• Common Actions:
  • Review Running Services: Open services.msc and sort by “Status” to see what is running.
  • Disable Unnecessary Services: Find services that are not required for the system’s function (e.g., FTP Service, Telnet).
  • Right-click the service, click Stop.
  • Right-click again, go to Properties, and set “Startup type” to Disabled.

Linux (Mint 21 & Ubuntu 22)

• Objective: Reduce the system’s attack surface by enabling, disabling, or reconfiguring system services (daemons).
• Tools:
  • Terminal
• Common Actions:
  • Review Running Services: Use systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running.
  • Disable Unnecessary Services: Find services that are not required (e.g., apache2, vsftpd, telnetd).
  • sudo systemctl stop <service-name>.
  • sudo systemctl disable <service-name>.