14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical announced that UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published a new document advising users on how to secure their Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) installations.
Dubbed Bionic Beaver, the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS operating system was launched in April 2018 as the latest release of Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux OS, and it's a long-term support release that will receive security and software updates for the next five years, until April 2023. The Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS point release is also available for download and includes all the latest security updates.
Being based on the Linux kernel, Ubuntu is already a secure computer operating system compared to Windows or macOS, but if you're living in the UK (United Kingdom) and you need to configure your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installations for maximum security, the National Cyber Security Centre tells you how.
"The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is the UK government department responsible for providing guidance on Information Security to the UK public and private sectors as well as responding to online security incidents and securing networks," reads the announcement published by Canonical's Will Cooke.
Here's how UK's NCSC recommends securing Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
NCSC's security guide gives advice and instructions on how to configure your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Desktop installations to meet the twelve End User Device (EUD) principles. According to the document, users will learn how to configure remote access via VPN (Virtual Private Network), set up a strong password, and configure UEFI for maximum boot protection.
Additionally, National Cyber Security Centre's security guide for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) will advise users on how to enable Canonical's Livepatch service for rebootless kernel updates, enable and configure firewalling, prevent the execution of binary files or shell scripts from the Home partition, as well as the basics of system auditing.
If you want to configure your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installations for maximum security, we recommend reading National Cyber Security Centre's latest security guide here. As mentioned before, Ubuntu Linux already uses industry-leading and enterprise-grade security practices, but, in the end, it's essential for users to know how to set up their computers to avoid hacking attempts.