2FA in Linux

Two Factor Authentication is one of those cybersecurity topics that comes up a lot, because it’s something that should be done. However, at first it seems kind of esoteric and unapproachable from a practical point of view, at least if your aim is to use it in a homelab environment for a cybersecurity project. That was my point of view. However, I found that getting hands on with 2FA is a simple process, and while I’m sure that going deeper can get really complex and time consuming, there are methods of implementing 2FA in a homelab that aren’t difficult at all.
In Linux, not only can you implement 2FA with pluggable authentication modules, I was able to understand the steps and get it up and running in about 30 minutes. Also, you can do the same with user logins, which I think is something that would be great to put on a resume.
Also, Duo is a popular 2FA platform that you can integrate with all sorts of things, and they have a free version that works for up to 10 users. I know Duo is in place at many large organizations, and I don’t think it would hurt to say that you set up an internal web server that used 2FA with Duo.

Links:
SSH with 2FA
Ubuntu User Logins with 2FA
Duo

Current Homelabbing

I’ve been having a lot of fun working on this video series where I take different topics in cybersecurity, and theme the video based on a certain domain, such as user accounts and least permission. I think doing videos is an incredible way to reinforce topics you learn, as by doing so you verbalize the steps and make them as clear as they can be for an audience of many different people who understand things in different ways.
The past 3 weeks I wanted to do a video on firewalls, and in doing so I thought I could go all out and set up an environment in VMWare Workstation that simulated an ISP or the Internet in a way. It turned out to be more difficult than I had anticipated, and I wanted to stick to this deadline I had given myself of 3 weeks per video. While the time taken going down a lot of dead ends and down many rabbit holes set me back a week, I was happy to have had the experience anyway. In the end I found that I could still learn a bit about firewalls by focusing on networks connected to the same router, so I was content to stick with that.