Windows xp hardening standards

We have developed the following three levels of security settings:. We thoroughly tested this guidance for use in many customer scenarios.

The guidance is appropriate for any organization that wishes to help secure its Windows-based computers. We fully support our guides because of the extensive testing that we have conducted in our application compatibility laboratories on those guides. Visit the following Microsoft websites to download our guides:. If you experience issues or have comments after you implement the Microsoft Security Guides, you can provide feedback by sending an email message to secwish microsoft.

CIS has developed benchmarks to provide information that helps organizations make informed decisions about certain available security choices. CIS has provided three levels of security benchmarks:. If you experience issues or have comments after you implement the CIS benchmark settings, contact CIS by sending an email message to win2k-feedback cisecurity. Note CIS's guidance has changed since we originally published this article November 3, CIS's current guidance resembles the guidance that Microsoft provides.

For more information about the guidance that Microsoft provides, read the "Microsoft Corporation" section earlier in this article. NIST has created four levels of security guidance that are used by the United States Federal Agencies, private organizations, and public organizations:. NIST's current guidance resembles the guidance that Microsoft provides. DISA's current guidance is similar or identical to the guidance that Microsoft provides.

NSA has developed a single level of guidance that corresponds approximately with the High Security level that is produced by other organizations. To provide feedback on the Windows guides, send an email message to w2kguides nsa. Note NSA's guidance has changed since we originally published this article November 3, NSA's current guidance is similar or identical to the guidance that Microsoft provides. As mentioned earlier in this article, the high security levels that are described in some of these guides were designed to significantly restrict the functionality of a system.

Because of this restriction, you should thoroughly test a system before you deploy these recommendations. Note The security guidance that is provided for the SoHo, Legacy, or Enterprise levels has not been reported to severely affect system functionality. This Knowledge Base article is primarily focused on the guidance that is associated with the highest security level.

We strongly support industry efforts to provide security guidance for deployments in high security areas. We continue to work with security standards groups to develop useful hardening guidance that is fully tested. Security guidelines from third parties are always issued with strong warnings to fully test the guidelines in target high-security environments.

However, these warnings are not always heeded. Make sure that you thoroughly test all security configurations in your target environment. Security settings that differ from those that we recommend may invalidate the application-compatibility testing that is performed as part of the operating system testing process.

Additionally, we and third parties specifically discourage applying the draft guidance in a live production environment instead of in a test environment. The high levels of these security guides include several settings that you should carefully evaluate before you implement them.

Although these settings may provide additional security benefits, the settings may have an adverse effect on the usability of the system. Windows XP and later versions of Windows have significantly tightened permissions throughout the system. Therefore, extensive changes to default permissions should not be necessary. Additional discretionary access control list DACL changes may invalidate all or most of the application compatibility testing that is performed by Microsoft.

Frequently, changes such as these have not undergone the thorough testing that Microsoft has performed on other settings. Support cases and field experience have shown that DACL edits change the fundamental behavior of the operating system, frequently in unintended ways. These changes affect application compatibility and stability and reduce functionality, with regard to both performance and capability. Because of these changes, we do not recommend that you modify file system DACLs on files that are included with the operating system on production systems.

We recommend that you evaluate any additional ACL changes against a known threat to understand any potential advantages that the changes may lend to a specific configuration. For Windows , several minor changes are required. These changes are described in the Windows Security Hardening Guide. Extensive permission changes that are propagated throughout the registry and file system cannot be undone. New folders, such as user profile folders that were not present at the original installation of the operating system, may be affected.

A reduction of security that provides interactive users with read access to some or to all user profiles on the system. For me it also broke my finger print scanner. Only solution so far is to remove the update. Leos Marek posted an update 6 hours, 55 minutes ago. Mehdi commented on Perform Active Directory security assessment using PowerShell 10 hours, 34 minutes ago. Hi, i made some progress, the script can be used from Computer Client like Win10, and he dont need to import Active Directory modules, also dont need to enter config.

Brandon Lee wrote a new post, Redirect user profile folders documents, pictures, etc. For a long time, roaming profiles and folder redirection were the standard means under Windows for making user files available on different devices. Now that more and more users work on the road or at home rather than in the office, this technique is becoming increasingly obsolete. An alternative to such environments is to redirect profile folders to OneDrive.

Paolo Maffezzoli posted an update 19 hours, 44 minutes ago. Paolo Maffezzoli posted an update 19 hours, 45 minutes ago. Paolo Maffezzoli posted an update 19 hours, 46 minutes ago. Please ask IT administration questions in the forums. Any other messages are welcome. Receive news updates via email from this site.

Toggle navigation. Author Recent Posts. Kyle Beckman. Kyle Beckman works as a systems administrator in Atlanta, GA supporting Office in higher education. Latest posts by Kyle Beckman see all. Related Articles. Kees 5 years ago. Leave a reply Click here to cancel the reply Please enclose code in pre tags Your email address will not be published.

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Microsoft is once again dealing with a buggy Patch Tuesday update after Windows Server admins started complaining about domain controller DC boot loops, Hyper-V issues, and more.

With five months left until Internet Explorer 11 IE11 retires on June 15, for certain versions of Windows 10 , its time to configure and test Internet Explorer IE mode in Microsoft Edge to make sure your business and your users are ready.

For all profiles, the recommended state for this setting is Require NTLMv2 session security, Require bit encryption. For all profiles, the recommended state for this setting is any value that does not contain the term "admin".

For all profiles, the recommended state for this setting is any value that does not contain the term "guest". Interactive logon: Number of previous logons to cache in case domain controller is not available. Network access: Do not allow storage of credentials or. NET Passports for network authentication. For all profiles, the recommended state for this setting is Classic - local users authenticate as themselves. System objects: Strengthen default permissions of internal system objects e.

Symbolic Links. System cryptography: Force strong key protection for user keys stored on the computer. For all profiles, the recommended state for this setting is Highest protection, source routing is completely disabled. MSS: WarningLevel Percentage threshold for the security event log at which the system will generate a warning.