Book Image

Mastering Windows Security and Hardening

By : Mark Dunkerley, Matt Tumbarello
Book Image

Mastering Windows Security and Hardening

By: Mark Dunkerley, Matt Tumbarello

Overview of this book

Are you looking for effective ways to protect Windows-based systems from being compromised by unauthorized users? Mastering Windows Security and Hardening is a detailed guide that helps you gain expertise when implementing efficient security measures and creating robust defense solutions. We will begin with an introduction to Windows security fundamentals, baselining, and the importance of building a baseline for an organization. As you advance, you will learn how to effectively secure and harden your Windows-based system, protect identities, and even manage access. In the concluding chapters, the book will take you through testing, monitoring, and security operations. In addition to this, you’ll be equipped with the tools you need to ensure compliance and continuous monitoring through security operations. By the end of this book, you’ll have developed a full understanding of the processes and tools involved in securing and hardening your Windows environment.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started
6
Section 2: Applying Security and Hardening
13
Section 3: Protecting, Detecting, and Responding for Windows Environments

Configuring Windows updates

To manage Windows updates for your servers, Microsoft has a well-known tool named Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). For your traditional and IaaS environments, WSUS provides the tools needed to deploy and update your servers as updates are released. Due to moving into the cloud world with Azure, Microsoft now has an Update Management solution as part of Azure Automation. Update Management allows you to manage your servers, both Windows and Linux, within your cloud and on-premises environments. An overview of WSUS was provided in Chapter 3, Server Infrastructure Management within the Using Windows Server Update Services subsection of the Understanding Windows Server management tools section.

Implementing Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)

First, we will review WSUS and how to use it as a follow-up from installing the feature within Windows Server Core earlier in this chapter. Before we access the management console, we will need to run through...