How to Secure Your VPS in 10 Steps

Prerequisites

Before securing your VPS, make sure you have:

• SSH access to your VPS
• Root or sudo privileges

Step 1: Update Your System

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Create a Sudo User

adduser username
usermod -aG sudo username

Step 3: Set Up SSH Key Authentication

On local machine:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
ssh-copy-id username@YOUR_SERVER_IP

Step 4: Disable Root Login and Password Auth

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no

systemctl restart sshd

Step 5: Change SSH Port

Port 2222

Step 6: Set Up UFW Firewall

ufw allow 2222/tcp
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Step 7: Install Fail2ban

apt install fail2ban -y

Step 8: Enable Automatic Security Updates

apt install unattended-upgrades -y
dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low unattended-upgrades

Step 9: Set Up Regular Backups

Create backup script and add to cron.

Step 10: Monitor Logs Regularly

journalctl -u ssh -n 50
grep "Failed password" /var/log/auth.log