Security

What we have implemented to maintain the integrity or our /home.

SUDO

switch user
eg when logged in as betty, "su billy" or "su - billy" will let you log in as billy
"su root" = "su -" and "su", writing nothing implies user root

ssh-keygen -t RSA -b 4096 (or 8192) plus passphrase is required these days!
when asked the question give a file name, if you don't the resulting files are called id_rsa and id_rsa.pub. if you do then they're called filename and filename.pub
reset the password with ssh-keygen -p
make a backup of your .ssh directory (burn it on a cd) and write the passphrase on a piece of paper and keep the two in two separate vaults at different locations
copy the public key to the servers where you want to start using it:
cat ~/.ssh/filename.pub | ssh id@host -p2222 'cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'
or use the script:
ssh-copy-id user@host (which does not work on all unices)
if your private key is not the standard ~/.ssh/id_rsa:
ssh -i /path/to/private_key remoteuser@remotehost

edit /ssh/sshd_config -> change port, although this only prevents the bruteforce scripts, with a portscanner you can quickly find which port is being used for ssh
use fail2ban to remedy the bots
and edit /ssh/sshd_config -> PermitRootLogin no is one option, another is PermitRootLogin keyonly
ssh is not installed by default