This project simulates a real-world system administration and cybersecurity scenario where user access, permissions, and file security are managed using Linux.
This project demonstrates how access control and permission management are implemented in Linux systems in a real-world security scenario.
- Managing users and groups
- Assigning and restricting permissions
- Protecting sensitive files
- Simulating onboarding and offboarding processes
A new employee joins the company and needs access to internal security documents.
The security team must:
- Create a user account
- Assign the user to the correct group
- Restrict access to sensitive files
- Ensure proper file permissions
- Remove access when the employee leaves
- Created a security team group
- Added users and assigned group memberships
- Created structured directories:
security_docsonboardingbackup
- Generated and managed files
- Applied Linux permissions using
chmodandchown - Simulated real-world file operations (copy, rename, restrict access)
- Removed users to simulate offboarding
This configuration ensures that sensitive data is protected and only accessible to authorized users.
chmod 750 security_docs
chmod 640 security_docs/*- Owner: full access
- Group: read access
- Others: no access
This configuration enforces least privilege access control
Initially incorrect permissions (777) were identified and corrected to enforce least privilege.
This reflects a real-world scenario where misconfigured permissions can expose sensitive data.
linux-access-control-project/
│
├── security_docs/
│ ├── incident_report.txt
│ └── access_policy.txt
│
├── onboarding/
│ └── employee_notes.txt
│
├── backup/
│ └── incident_report.txt
│
├── commands.sh
├── scenario.txt
└── README.md
- useradd, userdel
- groupadd, usermod
- chmod, chown
- ls, cat
- cp, mv
- mkdir, touch
- Learned how Linux permission model works (user, group, others)
- Practiced secure file access control
- Understood importance of least privilege
- Simulated real system administration tasks
- Identified and fixed security misconfiguration
- Linux (WSL - Ubuntu)
- Bash Terminal
Emir Sözal
This project was built for hands-on practice and to simulate real-world cybersecurity and system administration scenarios.
This project highlights how improper permissions can lead to serious security risks and demonstrates how to apply secure configurations using the principle of least privilege.
It also reflects real-world scenarios where misconfigured access control can expose sensitive data to unauthorized users.