SCAP policy compliance configuration in GNU/Linux installations

One of the biggest problems of IT security is that even though there are many known principles and rules which should be followed to prevent attacks and misuse, they are hardly ever deployed, leaving systems with vulnerabilities caused by wrong configuration. This book focuses on the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) and the possibilities of semi-automated evaluation and remediation of systems according to rules provided as a content following that specification. As a result of analyzing the SCAP and examples of SCAP content an approach based on two-phase application of the content during the installation process is suggested and implemented as an extension for the Fedora and RHEL GNU/Linux distributions' installer, Anaconda, with the goal to provide administrators an easy way to choose and apply the right security profile for their newly installed systems.