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How to Guess an Admin’s Password Without Them Knowing You Are Trying

Explains an old trick on how to guess someone else's password without anything getting logged in the domain controller's event logs Read More...

Published Thu, Mar 03 2007 10:30 PM by MB's Windows Security

Filed under: General, Windows Security, Passwords, Security Policy, Hardening

Two New Vista Papers by Symantec

Today Symantec released two new whitepapers about security protections in Vista: Analysis of GS Protection in Windows Vista and Analysis of Address Space Layout Randomization on Windows Vista. Although my last blog post criticized Symantec for its hyped...

Published Thu, Mar 03 2007 2:35 PM by MB's Windows Security

Filed under: General, Windows Security, Hardening, Malware

Really, Vista Security Isn’t Lame

Recently a friend was complaining to me about the “screen flickering” that occurs whenever a User Account Control (UAC) prompt comes up in Vista and he wanted to know how to turn it off—not UAC, just the dimming and flickering effects. He...

Published Sun, Feb 02 2007 4:25 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Windows Security, Hardening, Malware, NTFS, Uncategorized, Windows File Protection

Is UAC a Fence That Falls Short?

When I was a teenager in California there was private oil pier near Rincon that we liked to jump off. It was great—you’d throw your surf board off first so there was no backing out, because it was scary looking down at the dark green ocean so far below...

Published Mon, Feb 02 2007 1:50 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Windows Security, Hardening, Malware

More on Program.exe

I thought I would add a bit more to my original post to clarify the problem. Half of the problem is the way Windows searches paths, and the other half is software developers who don’t quote their paths in the Registry or when calling CreateProcess...

Published Sat, Feb 02 2007 6:57 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening, Malware

The Program.exe Problem

A couple years ago I mentioned in a SecurityFocus column that Windows has a problem when you put a file named “program.exe” in the system root directory. The problem is basically in how it deals with spaces in paths that don’t have quotes...

Published Sat, Feb 02 2007 1:30 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening, Malware, Application Security, Tools

Time for a Windows Cleanup

I have always been annoyed with the huge number of files under the Windows directory, but I was very surprised when I looked at my Windows directory under Vista: 39,609 files and 7,411 folders! Read More...

Published Mon, Feb 02 2007 4:28 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Windows Security, Hardening, Windows File Protection

The Application Experience Lookup Service

If you have ever locked down a Windows 2003 or Vista machine you have probably run across the Application Experience Lookup Service, also known as Application Experience or AeLookupSvc. The documentation on this service is pretty vague and sometimes contradictory...

Published Mon, Feb 02 2007 1:03 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening

Using Filescreens for Server Lockdowns

I recently got a chance to play around with file screens feature in Windows Server 2003 R2 and found it to be very interesting. Although it appears to be designed to provide general content control on a file server, it has some features that allow you...

Published Thu, Feb 02 2007 6:42 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening

Does Windows Server 2003 Even Need Hardening?

Many people tell me they are surprised with how much effort I put into hardening Windows Server 2003–the last hardening document I wrote for a client was 112 pages long. That’s not 112 pages of writing, policy, and how-to’s, that’s...

Published Wed, Jan 01 2007 7:22 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Security Policy, Hardening

Windows Vista Security Guide

Microsoft has released v1.2 of the Windows Vista Security Guide: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5639874 Read More...

Published Mon, Jan 01 2007 10:22 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening

Pointless Permissions

One thing I have always liked about NTFS security is the fine-grained control you have over file permissions. But this power comes at a price—you must understand a whole new world of acronyms, confusing metaphors, and expanded definition of words such...

Published Thu, Jan 01 2007 11:12 AM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening, NTFS

Don’t forget the KB’s

With Microsoft’s ongoing improvements to the patch management process, you may find yourself letting automation take over on patch Tuesday. I sat down at my PC this morning and saw that it had rebooted because it automatically installed new updates...

Published Thu, Dec 12 2006 11:57 AM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Patch Management, Hardening

Audit the Start Menu

Have you ever needed to audit which icons users click on the Start Menu? It makes quite an impressive forensics report when you can say exactly who clicked what and when. Well you can do it in Windows pretty easily. First, enable auditing on all files...

Published Thu, Oct 10 2006 6:09 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening, Auditing

Article: How I Secured One Company’s Network

Using Log Parser, virtualization, and a little psychology. The article is available here to subscribers of Windows IT Security. . Click abuse: http://click-abu.zers.net/ Read More...

Published Sun, Oct 10 2006 7:53 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening

What’s with this WMPUB directory?

I was recently going through my windows lockdown procedure, cleaning up unnecessary files and noticed that every Windows 2003 Server I own has a wmpub directory in the root of my C drive. The only thing in the directory is an empty subdirectory named...

Published Mon, Sep 09 2006 11:09 PM by MBs Windows Security

Filed under: Hardening, Windows File Protection

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How to Guess an Admin’s Password Without Them Knowing You Are Trying

Two New Vista Papers by Symantec

Really, Vista Security Isn’t Lame

Is UAC a Fence That Falls Short?

More on Program.exe

The Program.exe Problem

Time for a Windows Cleanup

The Application Experience Lookup Service

Using Filescreens for Server Lockdowns

Does Windows Server 2003 Even Need Hardening?

Windows Vista Security Guide

Pointless Permissions

Don’t forget the KB’s

Audit the Start Menu

Article: How I Secured One Company’s Network

What’s with this WMPUB directory?