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We have furthermore added settings which we believe are missing in the CIS baselines. All our recommended settings are collected in a set of hardening GPOs. The purpose of this guide is to provide a reference to many of the security settings available in the current versions of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. You want to keep the remote access feature turned off, except when you are actively using it. The settings below can be defined locally using the Windows Local Security Policy editor or the Local Group Policy editor. Alternatively, in a domain environment, use the Active Directory GPO Management features on your domain controller to create centralized configuration policies to deploy to all member computers. File and print sharing could allow anyone to connect to a server and access critical data without requiring a user ID or password.
The name and path of the backup can be specified with the parameter BackupFile. First create the directory HardeningKitty and for every version a sub directory like 0.9.0 in a path listed in the PSModulePath environment variable.
HardeningKitty and Windows 10 Hardening
Protect new servers from potentially hostile network traffic until the operating system is fully hardened. Harden new servers in a network that is not open to the internet. Make sure that any urgent security update is installed immediately. The faster you apply a new security patch, the faster you can fix vulnerabilities and protect yourself from the latest known threats. In particular, earlier PowerShell versions are dangerous due to their security vulnerabilities, so you should remove PowerShell 2.0 and under from your operating system.
- This can prevent attackers from emailing malware to users, convincing them to download and install malware, or deploying malware via drive-by downloads or deceptive links on malicious websites.
- For users, the Hysolate Workspace mimics their native Windows 10 experience, with minimal lag and latency issues.
- It’s like upgrading from a tiny safe in your house to a vault in a world-class bank.
- The security hardening will mitigate common and modern attack techniques within obtaining remote access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and data exfiltration.
- 4Configuring the minimum password length settings is important only if another method of ensuring compliance withuniversity password standardsis not in place.
Support for Windows 7 ended in January 2020, and so any end-user device running Windows 7 or earlier is at immediate risk of cyberattacks. If users are running an older version of Windows that is no longer supported, upgrade it to a supported version urgently, and in cases where upgrades are not possible, isolate the outdated systems from the network. Disable unused services—many services that run by default on Windows Server may not be required in your specific use case, and should be disabled.
Windows Hello
Operating system vendors, like Microsoft, usually release updates, service packs, and patches, which users can manually or automatically install. Ensure all key systems and services are logging to Splunk and that verbosity is appropriately set. Ensure Splunk alerts are in place for root-level GPO creation, Domain Administrator account activity occurring outside of PAWS workstations, GPO created by Domain Administrators. 50It is highly recommended that logs are shipped from any Confidential cdevices to a service like Splunk, which provides log aggregation, processing, and real-time monitoring of events among many other things. This helps to ensure that logs are preserved and unaltered in the event of a compromise, in addition to allowing proactive log analysis of multiple devices.Splunk licenses are available through ITS at no charge. ITS also maintains a centrally-managed Splunk service that may be leveraged.
Unfortunately, attackers can also exploit this to fully control your system. Windows Defender Antivirus is built into Windows, and does not require any manual configuration or support . This is a major advantage compared to third party antivirus solutions. Verify DNS records—ensure the server has an A record and PTR record for reverse DNS lookups.
Windows Network Configuration
In Windows 10 versions, from 1709 and onwards, as well as Windows Server version 2016 and onwards, EMET comes as part of the exploit protection function of the operating system. The Secure Boot feature safeguards a user’s UEFI/BIOS to protect against ransomware. Windows 10 users can configure the Secure Boot feature so that all code that runs immediately after the operating system starts must be signed by Microsoft or the hardware manufacturer. Security hardening for your Window computers will help your Windows infrastructure withstand modern hackers.
- The server that is authoritative for the credentials must have this audit policy enabled.
- Some companies give the responsibility for updating operating systems to the IT team.
- Additionally, it lets you wipe company data from enrolled Intune MDM devices without having to delete personal data.
- Windows Information Protection is designed to protect against potential data leaks without disrupting user experience.
- Another major advantage of WIP is that it provides audit reports that let you track issues as well as remedial actions.
- Every attempt should be made to remove Guest, Everyone and ANONYMOUS LOGON from user rights.
- These days companies develop information security policies, which set guidelines and communicate anything employees are responsible for doing.
BitLocker was designed by Microsoft to provide encryption for disk volumes. It is a free and built-in feature in many Windows versions, including Windows Vista and Windows 10. BitLocker asks users for a password, generates a recovery key, and proceeds to encrypt the entire hard drive.
