Linux Identity & Security Audit
The sudo rule you forgot about is the one attackers will find first.
Audit preparation costs $232K+ per cycle (Forrester TEI)
Replace weeks of manual gathering with a single structured output
Credential-based breaches take 292 days to detect. Our audit maps every identity, privilege, and access path across your Linux estate in 28 days — with continuous monitoring detecting changes in 1.2 seconds.
Most security teams know who logs into their Linux servers. Almost none know what those users can actually do. That gap — between authentication and actual privilege — is where attackers live.
Peter Cummings
CEO & Founder | 20+ years IAM at Mastercard, EY, Lonza, UBS
The Identity Visibility Gap
- What is our actual exposure from Linux identity and privilege misconfiguration?
- Which privilege paths would an attacker exploit first?
- Are we compliance-ready for identity governance on Linux?
- What should we prioritize next quarter to close the biggest gaps?
- If an incident happened right now, how long would it take your team to produce a complete privilege map of who had access to what?
What We Typically Find
Across every Linux estate we audit, these five categories account for the highest-risk findings.
Orphaned and stale accounts
Former employees, contractors, and service accounts that were never deprovisioned — still active, still capable of authenticating.
Sudo drift and NOPASSWD rules
Sudo configurations that were expanded temporarily and never locked back down. NOPASSWD entries that bypass the last authentication checkpoint on a server.
Shared and unrotated SSH keys
SSH keys shared across multiple users or systems, and authorised_keys entries that haven't been rotated in years — often pointing to accounts that no longer exist.
Service account privilege creep
Service accounts created with broad group memberships for convenience, never reviewed, and now carrying privileges far beyond what the service actually needs.
Undocumented privilege escalation paths
Multi-hop paths from a low-privilege account to root that exist through combinations of group memberships, sudo rules, and setuid binaries — none of which are individually alarming, but together create a clear escalation route.
What You Get in 28 Days
- Identity & Privilege Inventory — Every user, group, sudo rule, SSH key, and service account across your Linux estate, showing who can do what
- Risk-Scored Findings Report — Prioritized findings based on real exploit patterns, highlighting the privilege paths attackers would use first
- Compliance Evidence Package — Identity governance gaps mapped to Major regulatory frameworks with remediation guidance
- Prioritized Remediation Plan — Phased plan to reduce privilege drift and move toward least-privilege, with a zero trust alignment overlay where applicable
- Board-Ready Executive Summary — Executive summary for boards and a technical deep-dive for your security team
Format: Fixed scope, fixed fee, fully remote. Completed within 4 weeks. Weekly progress updates via video conference. All deliverables in digital format.
Case Study
Customer Story
How a global payments firm cut Linux audit prep from weeks to a single export
A multi-country payments provider with hundreds of Linux systems used the Linux Identity & Security Audit to inventory every sudo rule, SSH key, and orphaned account. The audit uncovered 247 orphaned accounts with active sudo rules, 4 environments with GTFOBins-exploitable privilege escalation paths, and 31 shared SSH keys — then generated auditor-ready evidence for NIS2, DORA, and PCI DSS in a single structured package.
Read the full case study →Compliance Framework Alignment
Our methodology aligns with industry-recognized security frameworks to ensure your identity infrastructure meets regulatory requirements.
| Framework | Alignment | Key Controls Covered | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| NIS2 | Mapped to | Identity governance, access control, logging, incident reporting | Mandatory |
| DORA | Mapped to | ICT risk management, access control, third-party oversight | Mandatory |
| PCI DSS | Aligned with | User authentication, access restrictions, audit logging | Mandatory |
| CIS Benchmarks | Aligned with | Linux hardening, privilege management, authentication | — |
| NIST CSF | Aligned with | Identity management, access control, audit trails | — |
| SOC 2 | Aligned with | Logical access, least privilege, access reviews | — |
| ISO 27001 | Aligned with | Access control, identity management, operational security | — |
| GDPR | Aligned with | Access governance, data protection, accountability | — |
| SOX | Aligned with | Access controls, segregation of duties, audit trails | — |
| HIPAA | Aligned with | Access controls, audit logging, unique user identification | — |
Audit findings and recommendations are mapped to specific framework controls for straightforward compliance documentation.
How It Works
Discovery & Scoping
Week 1Align scope, identify in-scope systems, and establish secure data access. Stakeholder interviews set priorities and compliance requirements.
Identity & Privilege Mapping (Weeks 1-2)
Deploy lightweight, read-only collectors to gather Linux identity and privilege data across your estate. Users, groups, sudo rules, SSH keys, PAM configurations, and service accounts.
Security & Compliance Assessment (Weeks 2-3)
Build privilege paths, identify drift patterns, and map identity governance gaps to compliance framework controls (NIS2, DORA, CIS, NIST, SOC 2, PCI DSS). Score risks based on real exploit patterns.
Reporting & Remediation
Week 4Deliver the identity and privilege map, risk report, compliance gap analysis, and least-privilege roadmap. Two readouts: executive summary and technical deep-dive.
How We Work
Fixed scope, fixed fee, fully remote. Completed in 4 weeks with weekly progress updates.
All deliverables in digital format.
Designed to deliver concrete outcomes and board-ready evidence.
The audit is designed to deliver concrete outcomes and board-ready evidence while setting the foundation for ongoing platform adoption.