InfoWorld has a great Interview with Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Technical Fellow, on Azure and Cloud Computing. I included my favorite quotes below: Intro: Mark Russinovich is a legendary figure in the computer industry. A former teenage hacker who went on to earn a PhD in computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon, Russinovich cofounded Winternals Software — …
Category: Technical Reference
Jun 02 2014
Active Directory 2012 DCPromo
Starting with Windows Server 2012, DCPromo is no longer used to promote a member server to be a Domain Controller. Since DCPromo no longer works (Microsoft calls this featured deprecated), there is a new GUI option and associated Powershell commandlets. There are major changes to the promotion process which integrate the process. This simplified process …
May 29 2014
PowerShell: Useful WMI Classes
Here are some WMI Classes I have found useful: Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_BIOS Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_NetworkAdapter Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product Enumerating Win32 WMI Classes: [array]$WMINames = Get-WmiObject -Query ‘Select * From Meta_Class WHERE __Class LIKE “win32%”‘ | Where-Object { $_.PSBase.Methods } | Select-Object Name, Methods $WMINames = $WMINames …
May 22 2014
Virtualization Updates to Active Directory 2012
As part of the many updates to Active Directory, one of the most interesting is virtualization safeguarding in Windows Server 2012. Active Directory Domain Controllers running Windows Server 2012 can now identify if they are virtualized and have been improperly restored or cloned (copied). Windows Server 2012 introduces a new feature called the VM Generation …
May 20 2014
Microsoft BlueHat Resources
Microsoft has their own internal employee security conference called “BlueHat“. Here are session links from the past few years:
May 15 2014
Group Policy Preferences Password Vulnerability Now Patched
Looks like Microsoft finally removed the ability to set admin account passwords through GPP due to the Group Policy Preferences password exposure vulnerability. More information on how Group Policy Preferences are attacked is in the post “Finding Passwords in SYSVOL & Exploiting Group Policy Preferences“. Because of the security concerns with storing passwords in Group …
May 15 2014
Active Directory Changes in Windows Server 2012
Active Directory, aka Directory Services, has been updated quite a bit in Windows Server 2012. Here are some of the major updates: Virtualization: Rapid deployment with cloning & safeguarding Dynamic Access Control DirectAccess Offline Domain Join Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) Active Directory Administrative Center Improvements PowerShell version 3 commandlets including Active Directory Replication …
May 08 2014
Active Directory FSMO Placement Guidance
FSMO Placement Guidance Summary: Make sure the PDC is highly available and connected. Place the PDC on your best hardware in a reliable hub site that contains replica domain controllers in the same Active Directory site and domain. Place the Forest FSMOs on the forest root PDC (schema master & domain naming master). Place the …
May 04 2014
Enabling and Managing the Active Directory Recycle Bin
So, you have upgraded all your DCs in the forest to Windows Server 2008 R2 and raised the domain and forest functional levels to Windows Server 2008 R2. Congratulations! Now what? Yes, you have to enable the AD Recycle Bin manually by running the following PowerShell commands: Import-Module ActiveDirectory Enable-ADOptionalFeature –Identity ‘CN=Recycle Bin Feature,CN=Optional Features,CN=Directory …
May 02 2014
Facebook increases privacy on all new posts by default
Looks like Facebook might be coming to its senses… http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/22/5739744/facebook-changes-default-privacy-of-posts-from-public-to-friends
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