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The Linux Service That Almost Let Attackers Slip In (And How I Found It Just in Time)
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Intro: Even the most hardened Linux systems can fall victim to misconfigured or forgotten services. In one case, a low-priority daemon was the weak link in my server’s armor. Here’s how I discovered it — and what you can learn from it.
1. A Strange Spike in CPU Load
While monitoring server health, I noticed unexplained CPU usage. No cron jobs were running, and user activity was low. Something didn’t add up.
✅ Action Taken:
top
I found an obscure service — rpcbind—consuming resources unexpectedly.
2. Discovering the Culprit with systemd
I traced the service startup:
sudo systemctl status rpcbindsudo systemctl list-dependencies rpcbind
It had been enabled by a package install I’d done earlier — but I never used it.
3. Checking for Network Exposure
I confirmed the service was listening on a public interface:
sudo ss -tulnp
This exposed my server to potential remote exploits. An open door I didn’t know…
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