Windows 11 is the newest and generally most secure operating system in the Windows family. In the newest iteration of Windows, there are default account lockout policies that exist to mitigate RDP and other brute force password vectors. Brute... Read More
Technical
PowerShell Scripts to Force Password Change for All Users After a Security Incident
After a confirmed or even suspected security breach it may be advised to have all users change their passwords. In this post we’ll review how to confirm if users have changed their passwords and how to force users to complete... Read More
How to delegate password reset permissions in Active Directory
Least privilege access is a crucial part of security that protects against overprovisioning user permissions. Even with IT technicians, and junior administrators, this needs to be considered when configuring permissions in the environment. A case in point is helpdesk... Read More
TCP port 21 FTP vulnerabilities
Since the birth of the Internet, one of the exciting capabilities it has enabled is the ability to transfer data from one place to another over long distances. One of the first protocols designed for transferring files from one... Read More
Open ports and their vulnerabilities
One of the age-old tenets of good network security is only open network ports that are necessary and make sure you have protection around any port open to the outside world. Open ports provide attackers with an opportunity to compromise... Read More
“User must change password at next logon” feature in Active Directory
The User must change password at next logon setting can be flagged in a couple of different scenarios in Active Directory, including when a user account password has expired, or when an administrator manually sets the flag on an account. Below is an... Read More
How to unlock active directory account lockouts
There is no question that one of the most common tasks that helpdesk and IT admins carry out on a daily basis is user account management. Specifically, triaging user account issues in an Active Directory domain environment takes a... Read More
Using Group Policy to configure BitLocker
How to use Group Policy to configure BitLocker. This is useful for organizations with a compliance mandate to enable encryption for all endpoint devices. Read More
Setting up BitLocker for Windows 10
BitLocker allows Windows users to encrypt hard drives to keep data secure. Here's how to enable BitLocker encryption on a Windows 10 computer. Read More
Finding users who have not changed their password recently
One of the primary challenges with implementing a new password policy in Active Directory is ensuring users have changed their passwords to be compliant with that new policy. As we cannot view users’ current passwords in plain text to... Read More