Threats and Countermeasures: Security Settings in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP

 

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About This Solution Accelerator

The Threats and Countermeasures ** Guide provides a reference to all security settings that provide countermeasures for specific threats against current versions of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. This guide is a companion to two other Microsoft publications: the Windows Server 2003 Security Guide and the Windows XP Security Guide.

The chapters of this guide are structured in a way that approximates how the major sections of settings are displayed in the user interface of the Group Policy Editor. Each chapter begins with a brief explanation of what is in the chapter, followed by a list of subsection headers, each of which corresponds to a setting or group of settings. (These settings are listed in the Microsoft Excel workbook that is available in the downloadable version of this guide.) Each subsection provides a brief explanation of what the countermeasure does, and includes the following information:

  • Vulnerability. Explains how an attacker might mount an attack if the setting is configured in a less secure manner.
  • Countermeasure. Explains how to implement the countermeasure.
  • Potential Impact. Explains the possible negative consequences of countermeasure implementation.

Included in the Download

The Threats and Countermeasures Guide includes the following components:

  • Threats and Countermeasures Guide.doc
  • Resource Workbook
  • Tools and Templates

In More Detail

The Threats and Countermeasures Guide includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Threats and Countermeasures Guide

This chapter provides a brief overview of the Threats and Countermeasures Guide and explains how the guide is structured.

Chapter 2: Domain Level Policies

This chapter discusses the domain-level account policies, including password policies, account lockout policies, and Kerberos protocol policies.

Chapter 3: Audit Policy

This chapter describes the different settings that apply to auditing and provides examples of audit events that are created by several common tasks.

Chapter 4: User Rights

This chapter details the user logon rights and privileges that are assigned by settings in User Rights Assignment section of the Group Policy Editor.

Chapter 5: Security Options

This chapter discusses numerous computer security settings, including those that relate to digital data signatures, Administrator and Guest account names, access to floppy disk and CD-ROM drives, driver installation behavior, and logon prompts.

Chapter 6: Event Log

This chapter discusses the Group Policy settings that can be used to define attributes that relate to the Application, Security, and System event logs.

Chapter 7: System Services

This chapter describes all of the system services that are included with Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

Chapter 8: Software Restriction Policies

This chapter provides a brief overview of the new software restriction policies feature in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Software restriction policies provide a policy-driven system that allows you to specify which programs are allowed to execute and which are not.

Chapter 9: Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Administrative Templates

This chapter discusses the Administrative Template sections of Group Policy that include registry–based settings that govern the behavior and appearance of computers in a network environment.

Chapter 10: Additional Registry Entries

This chapter provides information about additional registry entries for the baseline security template file that are not defined within the Administrative Template (.adm) file.

Chapter 11: Additional Countermeasures

This chapter describes how to implement certain additional countermeasures—for example, how to secure accounts.

Chapter 12: Conclusion

This chapter of the guide recaps the important points of the material in a brief overview of everything discussed in the previous chapters.

Related Resources

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Download this Solution Accelerator

Click here to get Threats and Countermeasures: Security Settings in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP from the Microsoft Download Center.