Password Management

hacker stealing password information

Protecting Your Organization Against the Nobelium Attacks

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has recently issued guidance to organizations in response to a series of attacks. This guidance was released following a notification in which Microsoft indicated that it had identified new activity tied to an... Read More

hacker behind desktop screen

Top 5 Hacker Groups and their Attacks

One of the frightening cybersecurity risks for businesses today is undoubtedly ransomware. It doesn’t discriminate and leaves in its wake encrypted, unreadable files, threats of data leaks, and often millions of dollars in damages. Moreover, large-scale and sophisticated ransomware... Read More

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What metrics should sysadmins use to show improvement over time?

To illustrate how essential IT systems are to the proper functioning of the business, system administrators should use a number of metrics to communicate key KPIs with non-technical leadership. This can help justify the overall budget of the IT department, as well as the... Read More

banned passwords

Troubleshooting tips for Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure AD) banned password list

Not all implementations of Microsoft Entra Password Protection (formerly Azure AD Password Protection) go smoothly. This blog explores some quirks with the banned password lists, and offers remediation tips related to them.   Understanding the Scoring System  Many teams get tripped up when establishing their password policies in Entra ID... Read More

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Why cached credentials are causing account lockouts

Active Directory user accounts can get locked out due to a number of reasons, especially when working remotely. Windows systems can cache credentials for users. Yet, cached credentials causing account lockouts is a major problem for remote users.   Cached Active Directory credentials  To understand the purpose of... Read More

laptop with login screen

Microsoft password expiration recommendation

Microsoft Active Directory provides built-in password policies to control various aspects of password management in the environment. One of the password configurations traditionally controlled at the password policy level is password expiration. Many organizations use password expiration policies to secure Active Directory accounts as part of... Read More

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Service account security best practices

There are number of privileges and roles granted to Windows users. However, it’s often necessary to restrict roles to specialized accounts called service accounts. These Active Directory (AD) accounts have deeper access to OS infrastructure, making them both handier and higher-priority... Read More