Whonix-Workstation Security Hardening

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Whonix comes with many security features. Whonix is Kicksecure^™ hardened by default and also provides extensive Documentation including a System Hardening Checklist. The more you know, the safer you can be.

This page is targeted at users who wish to improve the security of their Whonix-Workstation to become even more secure.

Introduction

Whonix is by no means a perfectly hardened system. Additional hardening measures are most welcome, but at the same time hardening by default is very difficult. Until the Whonix project realizes a significant increase in resources or community assistance, extra measures will remain out of scope and hardening will be left to the upstream operating system. See Virtualization Platform for further details.

AppArmor

Learn more about AppArmor, which helps to protect against vulnerabilities by confining a program's file access based upon strict rule-sets. It is recommended to apply the available Whonix AppArmor profiles to contain various applications which are run in Whonix-Gateway^™ (sys-whonix) and/or Whonix-Workstation (anon-whonix), like Tor, Tor Browser, Thunderbird and others.

Disable TCP SACK

TCP Selective Acknowledgement (SACK) is a commonly exploited option in the TCP protocol and not needed for many people. For this reason, it is recommended to disable it unless required.

Open file /etc/sysctl.d/30_security-misc.conf in an editor with root rights.

Select your platform.

Non-Qubes-Whonix

See Open File with Root Rights for detailed instructions on why using sudoedit improves security and how to use it.

Note: Mousepad (or the chosen text editor) must be closed before running the sudoedit command.

sudoedit /etc/sysctl.d/30_security-misc.conf

Qubes-Whonix

Notes:

• When using Qubes-Whonix, this must be done inside the Template.

sudoedit /etc/sysctl.d/30_security-misc.conf

• After applying this change, shut down the Template.
• All App Qubes based on the Template need to be restarted if they were already running.
• This is a general procedure required for Qubes and is unspecific to Qubes-Whonix.

Others and Alternatives

Notes:

• This is just an example. Other tools could achieve the same goal.
• If this example does not work for you, or if you are not using Whonix, please refer to Open File with Root Rights.

sudoedit /etc/sysctl.d/30_security-misc.conf

Uncomment all lines starting with net.ipv4.

This procedure can also be repeated on the Whonix-Gateway.

TCP SACK is not disabled by default because on some systems it can greatly decrease network performance.

Restrict Hardware Information to Root

See Restrict Hardware Information to Root.

Footnotes

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Whonix is proudly supported until 2026 by Power Up Privacy, a privacy advocacy group that seeks to supercharge privacy projects with resources so they can complete their mission of making our world a better place. (Strictly subject to our sponsorship policy.)

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