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May 7, 2025 | Joe Dibley

What Is SPN and What is It’s Role in Active Directory and Security

Service Principal Names (SPNs) are unique identifiers in Active Directory used to map service instances to service accounts for Kerberos authentication. This article explains SPN structure, registration, uniqueness requirements, tools (e.g., setspn), and security implications. It covers attacks...
March 27, 2025 | Tyler Reese

PowerShell Grep Command

The Unix/Linux grep command is a versatile text search utility used for log analysis, code scanning, and system diagnostics. It supports case-insensitive searches, recursive directory scans, inverted matches, line numbers, and advanced regex patterns like lookahead and lookbehind. On Windows,...
March 26, 2025 | Joe Dibley

Understanding NTLM and Kerberos: Key Differences and Use Cases

Introduction to NTLM and Kerberos Connecting all your company resources in a network for sharing is valuable, but you need a way to verify that only authorized users and devices can access these resources. Authentication serves this purpose by providing methods for users and devices to prove...
November 20, 2024 | Tyler Reese

Add Alias in Active Directory

Active Directory supports email aliases through the proxyAddresses attribute, which stores primary and secondary addresses. Aliases allow role-based addresses, simplify administration, and centralize communication in Exchange or Microsoft 365 without extra mailboxes. You can manage them via ADUC...
October 30, 2024 | Dirk Schrader

What are Active Directory Service Accounts?

Just like human users, computer programs also need access to resources on a network to function properly. There’s a difference in how these two groups—individuals and programs—access these resources, though. While humans utilize user accounts, computer programs use Active Directory...
October 10, 2024 | Tyler Reese

How to Create New Active Directory Users with PowerShell

The New-ADUser cmdlet enables administrators to create Active Directory user accounts with precision and at scale. While ADUC and ADAC allow for single-user creation, PowerShell supports bulk provisioning via scripts or CSV imports, making it ideal for large environments. With 60+ parameters,...
October 2, 2024 | Tyler Reese

How to Install & Use Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC)?

Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) is an MMC snap-in used to manage AD objects like users, groups, OUs, and computers. On Windows Server, it installs via Server Manager; on Windows 10/11, it’s part of RSAT (enabled through Optional Features). Once installed, admins can create OUs, reset...
September 6, 2024 | Tyler Reese

Understanding FSMO Roles in Active Directory

Understanding FSMO roles in Active Directory is critical for ensuring stability and preventing conflicts in a multi-master environment. The five roles—Schema Master, Domain Naming Master, RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Master—assign specific responsibilities to designated domain...
July 8, 2024 | Kevin Joyce

How to Backup Active Directory: A Step-by-Step Guide

Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is the primary authentication service used by a majority of organizations worldwide (roughly 90 percent). It stores critical business information on domain controllers (DCs) like user accounts, their permissions, the number of computers in your organization’s...
May 6, 2024 | Kate Fleming

Identity and Access Management Assessment: Key Features

An Identity and Access Management (IAM) assessment helps organizations choose solutions that balance security, compliance, and usability. Key features to evaluate include deployment model, onboarding and deprovisioning, role-based access control, automated workflows, Zero Trust support, password...
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