LetsDefend Walkthrough | Password Management
What is LetsDefend?
LetsDefend is a hands-on Blue Team training platform designed to give learners real-world SOC experience by investigating simulated cyberattacks in an interactive environment.
Lab: Password Management
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just beginning your cybersecurity journey, this course offers practical insights on protecting online accounts and sensitive information.
Table of Contents
- Password Creation Principles
- Password Update and Change
- Password Storage and Encryption
- Password Sharing and Communication
- Password Theft and Threats
- Password Managers and Automatic Encryption Tools
- Password Creation Principles
Task 1
This lab takes place in a virtual Linux environment.
After launching the machine, I opened the terminal and checked which account I was using:
whoami
From there, I navigated to the /etc/ directory:
cd /etc/
To confirm I was in the correct directory:
ls
Inside this folder, I located the login.defs file, which contains password aging policies.
1) What file is used to set the password policy on Linux?
Answer: login.defs
To view its contents:
cat login.defs
2) What is the minimum password length on the Linux lab machine?
Answer: 12
3) What is the maximum password validity (expiration)?
Answer: 60 days
4) What is the minimum number of numeric characters required?
Answer: 3
Password Update and Change
Task 2
1) What is the recommended frequency for changing passwords?
Answer: 90 days
Password Storage and Encryption
Task 3
Next, I reviewed the /etc/shadow file.
This file stores password hashes and additional password-related properties.
1) Where are password hashes stored in Linux?
Answer: /etc/shadow
2) How many users have password hashes on the lab machine?
Answer: 3
Password Sharing and Communication
Task 4
This section covered secure password sharing.
Passwords should never be shared in plaintext. Tools like PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) can be used to encrypt passwords before sharing them.
(No questions for this section.)
Password Theft and Threats
Task 5
This part of the course explored different methods attackers use to steal passwords — including phishing, keyloggers, brute-force attacks, social engineering, and dictionary attacks.
1) Which attack attempts login by guessing passwords from a word list?
Answer: Dictionary Attack
Password Managers and Automatic Encryption Tools
Task 6
This section explained the importance of password managers and tools that automatically handle secure password creation, storage, and encryption.
