Practical Connection- Windows Security

Practical Connection- Windows Security

This course was one of my most interesting and applicable courses in this session. Based on the skills gained, I can implement and maintain Windows security for an organization. This is because the course was instrumental in security implementation and administration. For example, security implementation starts with identifying possible risks and mitigating them with security measures such as policies, access controls, and configurations. This reflection illustrates how I would handle Windows security as a system administrator in an organization. In an office setup, Windows Operating systems would be used on PCs and servers. To protect them against cyberattacks, the hardware and software would require hardening (Zamora et al., 2019). This responsibility would be accorded to a system administrator within an organization. Therefore, as a system administrator in such an organization, I would focus on hardening PCs, servers, and office applications (Zamora et al., 2019).

The first step towards hardening the PCs would be to ensure that Windows 10 was installed on all PCs. This is because Windows 10 has better security policies compared to earlier versions of Windows operating systems (Zamora et al., 2019). The installation would be done through network installation, ensuring that the image and up-to-date security patches are installed. Meaning that the operating system should be licensed. Such an installation ensures that all PCs in the organization are managed through the Computer Management Framework. User policies would be configured appropriately (Zamora et al., 2019). For example, each PC user would be assigned local administrator rights as opposed to built-in local administrator group rights. This would allow PC users to have sufficient rights for their job functions. Assigning high privileges to local PC users would be a security risk, especially if hackers gained access to one local PC. It would also pose the risk of employee or user-driven security incidents (Baráth, 2017). More user group rights based on user job functions would be created and assigned accordingly. For example, technical IT staff and developers would be allowed more privileges compared to customer service and executive management staff. The same structure of user rights would be implemented on a Windows server (Baráth, 2017). For example, database administrators would be assigned more database rights than database support staff and other database users. This would ensure that users can only perform database operations based on their job descriptions. Allowing excessive rights to database users who are only supposed to read from a database might result in unintended data updates or deletion. Consequently, the data in the database would have integrity and availability issues.

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After hardening the operating systems on PCs and servers, the next security measure that I would implement would be to harden applications used on the operating systems (Zamora et al., 2019). Only genuine and licensed applications should be allowed to run on the operating system. The applications should also be configured to optimize security. Secure access control for Windows was part of the skills learned in the course. For example, group policies on Microsoft Word would be configured appropriately. This could include basic security configurations such as automatically opening Word documents in read-only mode (Zamora et al., 2019). The user could have received a Word document via email, and opening it in read-only mode would prevent malicious code from being executed. After checking the document and determining that it is safe, the user can allow document editing features. Another security measure on group policy would be blocking macros for spreadsheets. The user would allow macros when he can identify the sender of the spreadsheet and its use. Windows Defender settings should also be activated to ensure that the PCs running Windows 10 are continuously scanned for malware. The anti-virus software also alerts the user when a suspicious document or file is downloaded or about to be opened from the internet. To further protect PCs, employees whose job function includes receiving emails from unknown persons can be provided with a separate platform for the emails (Zamora et al., 2019). This would be a cloud platform of a virtual machine that is specifically hardened for external communication.

References

Baráth, J. (2017). OPTIMIZING WINDOWS 10 AND WINDOWS SERVER 2016 LOGGING TO DETECT NETWORK SECURITY THREATS. Science & Military, 2, 32-36. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332704386_OPTIMIZING_WINDOWS_10_AND_WINDOWS_SERVER_2016_LOGGING_TO_DETECT_NETWORK_SECURITY_THREATS

Zamora, P. M., Kwiatek, M., Bippus, V. N., & Elejalde, E. C. (2019). Increasing Windows security by hardening PC configurations. The European Physical Journal Conferences, 214(08019), 2-8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335865538_Increasing_Windows_security_by_hardening_PC_configurations

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Course Description
This course discusses methods to increase the security of application development and thwart attacker attempts to manipulate code. It also explores the software lifecycle and change control to reduce the probability of poorly written applications that allow an attacker to exploit coding errors. Database development models will be introduced focusing on choosing the best model to increase security.

Practical Connection- Windows Security

Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course:

Develop a security administration framework to ensure your organization meets its security policy goals.
Identify and implement the most effective security controls to make computers and networks as secure as possible.
Design techniques to protect given Windows application software from security vulnerabilities.
Include security concerns as early as possible in the software development process.
Implement secure access controls when setting up Microsoft Windows in a given organization.

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS

Provide a reflection of at least 500 words (or 2 pages double spaced) of how the knowledge, skills, or theories of this course have been applied or could be applied in a practical manner to your current work environment. If you are not currently working, share times when you have or could observe these theories and knowledge that could be applied to an employment opportunity in your field of study.
See the attachment for the assignment requirements.