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Security & Compliance Cron Expressions
Automated security scanning, certificate checks, IAM reviews, secrets rotation, vulnerability audits, and compliance cron schedules for modern infrastructure.
Featured Patterns
0 3 * * 0
Security Scan — Weekly Sunday at 3 AM
Schedules a full security vulnerability scan every Sunday at 3:00 AM during the deepest off-peak window. Ideal for dependency audits, container image scanning, and weekly automated security assessments.
Weekly security vulnerability scanDependency audit Sunday
0 6 1 * *
SSL Certificate Check — Monthly on the 1st
Checks SSL certificate expiry and validity on the 1st of every month at 6:00 AM. A monthly TLS certificate monitoring cron to alert before expiry, validate cert chains, and audit HTTPS health.
Monthly SSL expiry checkTLS certificate validation
0 8 * * *
npm Security Audit — Daily at 8 AM
Automated 'npm audit' or 'npm audit fix' running daily at 8:00 AM to check for vulnerable dependencies. Integrates with Slack or email notifications for newly discovered CVEs in your Node.js project.
npm audit daily security checkNode.js CVE detection
0 2 * * *
Security Vulnerability Scan — Daily 2 AM
Daily automated vulnerability scan running at 2:00 AM. Runs Trivy, Grype, or Snyk against container images and dependencies. Creates GitHub Issues for new HIGH/CRITICAL CVEs discovered.
Daily CVE vulnerability scanTrivy container scan nightly
0 7 * * *
TLS Certificate Expiry Check — Daily 7 AM
Daily TLS/SSL certificate expiration monitoring at 7:00 AM. Checks all configured domains for certificates expiring within 30/14/7 days and sends email/Slack alerts before automatic renewal fails.
TLS cert expiry check dailySSL certificate monitor cron
0 8 * * 2
Security Dependency Audit — Tuesday 8 AM
Weekly security audit of all project dependencies every Tuesday at 8:00 AM. Runs 'npm audit', 'pip-audit', 'bundler-audit', and 'go mod audit' to detect known vulnerabilities in transitive dependencies.
npm audit weekly Tuesdaypip-audit security weekly
0 9 1 * *
IAM Access Review — 1st of Month
Monthly IAM and access permission review running on the 1st at 9 AM. Enumerates all user/service-account permissions across AWS, GCP, and Okta. Flags over-provisioned accounts and inactive users for cleanup.
Monthly IAM access reviewOkta user permission audit
0 * * * *
Security Log Analysis — Hourly
Hourly SIEM log analysis job that scans authentication logs, API access logs, and network traffic for anomalous patterns (brute force, privilege escalation, data exfiltration indicators).
SIEM log analysis hourlyAuthentication anomaly detection
0 3 * * 0
Backup Integrity Check — Sunday 3 AM
Weekly backup integrity verification running Sunday at 3:00 AM. Restores sample backup to isolated environment, verifies data checksums, and confirms restore procedure works before it's needed in production.
Backup restore test weeklyData integrity verification Sunday
0 2 1 * *
Secrets Rotation — 1st of Month 2 AM
Monthly automated secrets rotation running on the 1st at 2 AM. Rotates API keys, database credentials, and service account tokens in Vault/AWS Secrets Manager and updates downstream consumers.
Monthly secrets rotation cronHashiCorp Vault key rotation
0 4 * * *
WAF Rule Update — Daily 4 AM
Daily Web Application Firewall rule update at 4:00 AM. Pulls latest OWASP ModSecurity ruleset updates, tests rules in detection mode, and promotes to blocking mode after validation.
WAF rule update dailyModSecurity ruleset refresh
30 * * * *
IDS Signature Update — Every Hour :30
Hourly intrusion detection system (IDS) signature update at the :30 mark. Pulls latest Snort/Suricata rules, validates syntax, and hot-reloads without service interruption.
Snort IDS rule update hourlySuricata signature refresh
0 10 * * 4
Firewall Rules Audit — Thursday 10 AM
Weekly firewall rule audit running Thursday at 10:00 AM. Reviews all security group rules, NACLs, and firewall policies for unused rules, overly permissive ingress (0.0.0.0/0), and shadow IT backdoors.
AWS security group audit weeklyFirewall rule cleanup Thursday
0 6 1 * *
IAM Access Review — 1st of Month 6 AM
Monthly IAM access review on the 1st of each month. Enumerates all IAM users, roles, and policies, flags unused credentials (>90 days), over-permissive wildcard policies, and missing MFA for privileged accounts for security team review.
IAM access review monthly cronAWS IAM credential audit 1st
0 2 1 * *
API Secrets Rotation — Monthly 1st at 2 AM
Triggers automatic API key / secret rotation on the 1st of every month at 2 AM. Generates new credentials in the secrets manager, updates dependent services, and revokes the previous secrets.
Secrets rotation monthly cronAPI key rotation automation
Related Patterns
* * * * *
Every Minute
Runs every single minute of every hour, every day. This is the highest possible cron frequency — 1,440 executions per day.
*/5 * * * *
Every 5 Minutes
Runs every 5 minutes, 288 times per day. One of the most popular cron schedules for frequent background jobs.
*/45 * * * *
Every 45 Minutes
Runs every 45 minutes. Note: because 45 doesn't divide 60 evenly, runs occur at :00 and :45 each hour.
0 * * * *
Every Hour (at :00)
Runs once at the top of every hour (:00), 24 times per day. The standard hourly cron schedule.
15 * * * *
Hourly at :15
Runs at 15 minutes past every hour (:15), 24 times per day. Useful when you want to offset from other hourly jobs.
30 * * * *
Hourly at :30
Runs at 30 minutes past every hour (:30), 24 times per day.
45 * * * *
Hourly at :45
Runs at 45 minutes past every hour (:45), 24 times per day.
0 */4 * * *
Every 4 Hours
Runs every 4 hours (00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00), 6 times per day.