This guide arose out of the need for system administrators to have an updated, solid, well researched and thought-through guide for configuring SSL, PGP, SSH and other cryptographic tools in the post-Snowden age. Triggered by the NSA leaks in the summer of 2013, many system administrators and IT security officers saw the need to strengthen their encryption settings. This guide is specifically written for these system administrators.

The focus of this guide is merely to give current best practices for configuring complex cipher suites and related parameters in a copy & paste-able manner. The guide tries to stay as concise as is possible for such a complex topic as cryptography. Naturally, it can not be complete. There are many excellent guides (II & SYM, 2012) and best practice documents available when it comes to cryptography. However none of them focuses specifically on what an average system administrator needs for hardening his or her systems' crypto settings.