Selfhosted
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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As an offensive security worker.... I can't help but read people listing out their attack surface π
My RISV-V server (I have removed all binary blobs and have no closed source code ofc) is airgapped inside a Faraday cage.
For security reasons I never turn it on.
I like how you think.
All my deploys are written in binary on a stack of index cards that we then burn, put in a zip lock bag, encase in concrete, surround in a welded closed steel box, and throw in the Mariana Trench. The documentation sucks though.
I'm not sure the list is really that big of a deal for a home gamer. They're probably more in danger from their choice of home audio appliances and that microwave that has been sitting on their network for 10 years which no longer gets updates. Or that 2019 Plex server they have put forwarded straight outside.
It's actually one of my beefs with containers, You can't keep track of The versions for everything and you're at the mercy of the maintainers to keep individual packages updated.
Nah, it's all safe, it's in containers
It was meant more as a joke than criticizing hosting your own services. I personally have a VPN with MFA, and services that I host for my self that are segmented to a paranoid level (home camera system on own vlan, restricted from being able to reach any other vlan or the Internet, etc) with a deny all and explicit allows on per host and traffic type. The amount of work that went into building the network is probably overkill, and it is still susceptible to nation state and supply chain compromise but hopefully whoever gets in will curse me if they try to move around the network.
Realistically, every added service and host is added attack surface and chances for misconfiguration \ supply chain attack, but being alive is a risk too....
I'm guessing system admins and dev op is over represented here so some of our home networks may be targeted as a path into a corporate environment, but I'm guessing the chances are low. Sadly even the most secure networks are not an impossible target. The attackers are well ahead of defenders of networks. Attackers need exceptions, while defenders need everything perfect. Much harder to accomplish.
For best practice, my personal recommendation would be to not have any service public facing besides a VPN that requires MFA. segment self hosted services into separate VLANs based on how sensitive the content is. Disallow all traffic between VLANs unless required and only allow based on port number, specific resources needed. Don't forgot to disable outgoing Internet access unless required. Devices like Chinese made video cameras should never have an Internet connection.
My network looks something like: home vlan, work vlan, Netflix \ hulu streaming devices, cctv, wireless work, wireless home, wireless guest, iot, servers, network management. Would be way overkill for vast majority of people, but I would be hypocritical not to considering what I do and I do have a different threat profile than most.
Another thought: self hosted through VPN with MFA and nothing public facing is probably safer than cloud as long as you have cold backups.
A lot of them are likely behind wireguard. At least, I hope a lot of them are.
You'd hope, but I have a few friends who simply port-expose their media servers.
I guess it could be worse if they had ssh exposed.
I'll have to disagree with you there. SSH is super well maintained and understood, and massively useful for the risk you do run. Who knows what's going on with all the random projects people are hosting. I'd rather have SSH exposed than almost anything else.
What would you do to provide access to some less tech savvy friends. I'm thinking of dropping a SBC with wireguard and a proxy onto a friend's network, that way everything is under my control, and I can lock down the wireguard connection however I want, but I haven't gone down that route yet.
I was thinking more along the lines of simply thowing up a port to SSH into. No Fail2Ban and no keys, just a password.
I would just containerize and reverse proxy, but I understand the hesitation, wireguard would be preferable.