Brien Posey

Authentication

Deployment

Password Management

Brien Posey is a freelance author and speaker, and 15-time Microsoft MVP with 20+ years of IT experience.

Articles written by Brien Posey

Jan

02

Microsoft adds phishing protection to Windows 11

With the recent release of Windows 11 version 22H2, Microsoft has introduced some new capabilities that are designed to protect users against phishing attacks. These phishing protection features are designed to prevent users from making some of the mistakes that…
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Nov

08

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 Advanced…
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Nov

04

How to audit password changes in AD

Windows Server provides native tools for changing user passwords and auditing password changes in AD. However, they are somewhat lacking. Third-party tools such as Specops uReset can make the process easier and more secure. ADUC There are two main ways…
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Oct

05

How to bulk modify Active Directory user attributes

Active Directory attributes often contain a wealth of information about users, including their phone numbers, department, location, and much more. Even so, this information is only valid if it is kept up-to-date. Sometimes this means updating an individual attribute, such…
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Sep

10

Active Directory weak password checker

One of the most important things that system administrators can do to keep their network resources secure is to require users to use strong passwords. After all, long and complex passwords are far less prone to being breached than simpler…
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Sep

04

Password policy enforcement

One of the most critical things that organizations must do in order to ensure the security of their user accounts is to establish a strong password policy, and then ensure that the policy is being enforced. The Windows operating system…
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Aug

04

Security at the Helpdesk

IT departments have always invested heavily in making sure that their systems are able to positively confirm user identities prior to granting users access to sensitive resources. Not surprisingly, there are any number of mechanisms available for authenticating users. Some…
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Apr

07

Evaluating Windows password recovery tools for employee self-service

Nearly every organization, large or small has to deal with the problem of employees occasionally forgetting their passwords. Historically, a forgotten password has meant placing a phone call to the helpdesk. However, this tends to be a very poor use…
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Jan

08

Using Group Policy to configure BitLocker

Although Windows makes it possible to manually enable BitLocker encryption for a storage device, BitLocker can also be enabled and configured through the use of group policy settings. This is particularly useful for organizations who have a compliance mandate to…
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Dec

13

Setting up BitLocker for Windows 10

What is Bitlocker? BitLocker Drive Encryption, which is commonly referred to simply as BitLocker, allows Windows users to encrypt hard drives in an effort to keep data secure. BitLocker has been a part of the Windows operating system for many…
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