From the Microsoft Tip of the Day Blog: Generation 2 VMs replace a large number of emulated devices with resource efficient synthetic devices. Here is a list of Generation 1 devices that you will not find in a new Generation 2 VM. BIOS COM Ports DMA Controller Floppy Controller i8042 Keyboard Controller IDE Controller …
Category: Technical Reference
Oct 10 2014
PowerShell and Ambiguous Name Resolution (ANR) Search in Active Directory
I was recently asked how to find a user when you have data that may be the SamAccountName or in another attribute. My first thought was leveraging Ambiguous Name Resolution (ANR) Search in Active Directory. ANR enables you to find a user when you have some information about a user, but don’t know exactly to …
Oct 02 2014
Using PowerShell to Perform a Reverse DNS Lookup in Active Directory
Typically, one would use ping -a to get the hostname for a specific IP address which performs a DNS reverse lookup. Querying AD for a computer with an IP works great for computers joined to the Active Directory domain since most computers in AD have the IP Address configured on the computer account. When the …
Oct 01 2014
Black Hat USA 2014 Presentation: Investigating PowerShell Attacks
Black Hat USA 2014 Presentation: Investigating PowerShell Attacks This is an excellent presentation and I highly recommend anyone who is an admin or who is responsible for AD security. Investigating PowerShell Attacks Ryan Kazanciyan Technical Director, Mandiant Matt Hastings Consultant, Mandiant Over the past two years, we’ve seen targeted attackers increasingly utilize PowerShell to conduct …
Sep 30 2014
Azure & Active Directory
Azure is big. It’s really big. Seriously, it’s hard to comprehend just how big it really is. (Apologies to Douglas Adams.) In July of last year, then-CEO Steve Ballmer stated that Azure data centers held “comfortably over a million physical servers.” Last year, Azure server purchases accounted for 17% of all server purchases worldwide. …
Sep 28 2014
PowerShell: ADSI and Case Sensitivity
In developing a custom PowerShell script which leveraged ADSI, I noticed that the script wasn’t working properly. Here’s a sample block of the script which uses ADSI to get changes made to ExtensionAttribute11 as part of an Active Directory Convergence test script: 1 2 3 4 $ADSITarget = [ADSI]”LDAP://$DC” $Searcher = New-Object DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher($ADSITarget,”(sAMAccountName=$ConvergenceObject)”) $ConvergenceObjectData = …
Sep 24 2014
Azure Active Directory Stats
Over 2.9 Million Organizations are using Azure Active Directory More than 10 Billion Authentications per week Azure Active Directory is spread out across 14 data centers Contains more than 240 million user accounts Organizations using Azure Active Directory across 127 countries Supports over 1400 integrated third-party apps Azure AD Statistics
Sep 24 2014
LOL! Lingering Object Liquidator for Active Directory
Microsoft released the LOL GUI tool for removing Active Directory lingering objects. Historically, removing lingering objects from AD had been a painful process. Note that LOL is not a straightforward download. Follow the following steps to download: Log on to the Microsoft Connect site (using the Sign in) link with a Microsoft account:: http://connect.microsoft.com Note: …
Sep 23 2014
PowerShell Code: Active Directory Domain Controller Discovery
There are several different ways to find AD Domain Controllers (DCs). Here are a few: AD PowerShell Module: Discover the closest Domain Controller running the AD web services (support PowerShell AD cmdlets): import-module activedirectory Get-ADDomainController -discover -forcediscover -nextclosestsite -service ADWS discover – find a DC forcediscover – re-discover a DC and not use a cached …
Sep 19 2014
Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) Information
The RODC is one of the most interesting new features of Windows Server 2008. RODCs provide the following: Read-only Active Directory Database – Read-only copy of Active Directory provides a more secure option for distant locations such as a branch office. Changes attempted against the RODC are referred to the next upstream DC. Read-only DNS Server …
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