D3FEND — Harden

When to Use

• Implementing authentication controls (MFA, certificates, biometrics, tokens)
• Hardening applications and platforms (configuration, patches, encryption)
• Managing credential lifecycle (rotation, pinning, scrubbing, policies)
• Validating input and enforcing domain/operational logic
• Securing source code (memory safety, pointer validation, dead code elimination)
• Reviewing boot integrity, driver signing, and firmware protections

When NOT to Use

• Detection engineering or monitoring → d3fend-detect
• Network segmentation or access mediation → d3fend-isolate
• Decoy and deception operations → d3fend-deceive
• Incident response or eviction → d3fend-evict
• Secure coding deep dives → devsecops / senior-software-engineer

Core Workflows

1. Authentication Hardening

See references/authentication.md

2. Application & Platform Hardening

• Application config hardening (disable unused features, remote access)
• Control flow integrity (CFI, stack canaries, ASLR, pointer auth)
• Bootloader authentication, TPM boot integrity
• Disk/file encryption, hardware write protection
• Software update management, driver load integrity

See references/application_platform.md

3. Credential & Message Hardening

• Credential rotation (certs, passwords, tokens)
• Certificate pinning (mobile, embedded)
• Message authentication (HMAC, MAC) and encryption
• Token binding to prevent session hijacking

See references/credential_message.md

4. Source Code Hardening

• Input validation (range, type, pointer, null checks)
• Memory safety (initialization, nullification, bounds)
• Use trusted libraries, eliminate dead code
• Exception handler validation, domain logic checks

See references/source_code.md

When to load references

• Authentication → references/authentication.md
• Application & platform → references/application_platform.md
• Credential & message → references/credential_message.md
• Source code → references/source_code.md