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Month: June 2015

Handling the Threat of Internal Breaches

Every time you listen to the news, read a newspaper, or scan online news, you learn of another security breach that involves consumer’s personal information. Consumers assume that breaches occur by direct attack from external entities or by clever individuals who break into networks from outside the company or via the Internet. That scenario is … Continued

Configure Audit Policy and Security Using the Security Configuration Wizard

Windows Server security has improved markedly over the last decade, putting it up there with Unix-based operating systems, which traditionally are considered more secure than Windows. Much of this work is due to the infamous Vista reset, which saw Microsoft plough resources into Windows XP Service Pack 3, and delay the release of what was … Continued

How to Get Notified of an Expired Password in Active Directory with PowerShell

This article will go over how to write a script to read all users’ last expired password and detect the time it will expire. It will then send an email. Passwords aren’t the most secure way to protect information these days but still are used nearly everywhere you look. IT professionals in the enterprise sector … Continued

10 Security Tips for the US Government

The recent Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack reveals that the US Government needs to significantly “up” its security game. Upping the game means that government security staff needs to impose greater restrictions on information access. But, one should ask, “Why were these secret documents so easily accessible to intruders?” And why wasn’t the information … Continued

Single Sign On: Questions to Ask

Grandpa always said, “Never try anything new. Wait and see if it kills someone first”. Recently, I’ve been involved in bringing several Single Sign On projects to fruition, and his words have been hovering in the back on my mind constantly. Part of me says, “It’s a bad idea to have just one username and … Continued

How to Get Notified of Changes to Important Active Directory Groups

As an Active Directory administrator you’re probably familiar with important groups like Domain Admins, Schema Admins and Enterprise Admins. When an account is a member of one or more of these groups that account has some major power in your AD environment. Just like the old saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility”, members … Continued

Manage Local Administrator Account Passwords using LAPS

Active Directory is a centralized directory service that manages domain computer and user accounts, and device configuration using Group Policy. But with the exception of domain controllers (DCs), devices joined to a domain retain local user accounts. In a domain environment, local administrator accounts that share the same password across all PCs and servers, or … Continued

Phishing Attack Catches Another Organization Off Guard

Saint Agnes Health Care, Inc. announced that an attacker successfully phished an employee and obtained personally identifiable information of approximately 25,000 patients. The information included names, dates of birth, gender, medical record number, insurance information, and limited clinical information. In addition, Social Security numbers were obtained for 4 of the patients. Based on their news … Continued