Hardening Your Robot Project from the Start
As robotics becomes more accessible and developers take the leap into building their own intelligent machines, the importance of security cannot be overstated. Whether you’re tinkering with your first robot at home or developing a prototype for industrial use, it’s critical to think beyond just getting ROS2 installed and your nodes communicating.
Welcome to the first post in a new series focused on securing your ROS2 environment — starting from the ground up, at the Linux OS level. This guide is crafted to walk you through practical and effective steps to immediately improve the security posture of your robot projects. Our goal is to empower builders and developers to safeguard their work from common attack vectors without getting lost in complexity.
🛡️ Why Create This Series
There’s no shortage of great tutorials out there that walk you through setting up ROS2, spinning up topics, or launching nodes. But once you have ROS2 up and running, what comes next? How do you ensure your system isn’t just functional, but secure?
Robots are complex systems with internal hardware communication and often external network access. These connections—if left unsecured—can become points of vulnerability. Especially when you’re dealing with expensive hardware or devices that interact with the real world, protecting your infrastructure becomes essential.
This series aims to fill that gap—bridging the world of ROS2 functionality with practical cybersecurity strategies.
🔧 What This Series Covers
In this series, we’ll walk through key steps to build a more secure ROS2 setup from the OS level and beyond:
- ✅ Post-install system updates
- 👤 Creating a dedicated ROS user
- 🤖 Installing ROS2 securely
- 🔐 Configuring AppArmor and Auditd
- 🌐 Setting up basic firewall rules
- 🧰 Enabling SROS2 for secure communication
- 🔎 Installing and configuring Suricata for network intrusion detection
- 📄 Creating a baseline security report
- 🗓️ Automating periodic security checks with scheduled reports
Each topic will have its own deep-dive post, so you can follow along step by step or jump to the parts that are most relevant to your setup.
🚀 Next Steps
Stay tuned for the first hands-on guide: “Post-Install Hardening for Linux on a ROS2 Host”, where we’ll cover system updates, user creation, and setting up your environment securely from the beginning.
You can follow this series here and subscribe via RSS for updates when new parts are released.
🧩 Closing Thoughts
Securing robotics projects might seem daunting at first, but just a few well-placed security practices can make a world of difference. Whether you’re a hobbyist, educator, or professional, adopting a “security-first” mindset from the beginning of your ROS2 journey will help protect both your hardware and your data.
If you have questions, suggestions, or topics you’d love to see covered, drop a comment below or reach out via GitHub Discussions. Let’s make robotics not just exciting and innovative—but secure as well.