Year: 2015

Here is a second in a series of articles on using PowerShell I would suggest for the beginner use PowerShell ISE this will help you with the commands. We cover IP configuration in this article.

Some Commands that you can use in PowerShell are;

Get-NetAdapter

Restart-NetAdapter

Get-NetIPInterface

Get-NetIPAddress

Get-NetRoute

Get-NetConnectionProfile

Get-DNSClientCache

Get-DNSClientServerAddress

Register-DnsClient

Set-DnsClient

Set-DnsClientGlobalSetting

Set-DnsClientServerAddress

Set‑NetIPAddress

Set‑NetIPv4Protocol

Set‑NetIPInterface

Test-Connection

Test-NetConnection

Resolve-Dnsname

By knowing this we can use this to do IPv4 Troubleshooting Process, we could use the old command line tools, but with PowerShell we can save results and pipe some commands. For example;

Step	Windows PowerShell	Command-line tool
Verify the network configuration is correct	Get-NetIPAddress	ipconfig
Identify the network path between hosts	Test-NetConnection -TraceRoute	tracert
See if the remote host responds	Test-NetConnection	ping
Test the service on a remote host	Test-NetConnection -Port	Telnet
See if the default gateway responds	Test-NetConnection	ping

 

Here is a start of a series of articles on using PowerShell I would suggest for the beginner use PowerShell ISE this will help you with the commands.

Here are some cmdlets that Manage User Accounts

Cmdlet	Description
New-ADUser	Creates user accounts
Set-ADUser	Modifies properties of user accounts
Remove-ADUser	Deletes user accounts
Set-ADAccountPassword	Resets the password of a user account
Set-ADAccountExpiration	Modifies the expiration date of a user account
Unlock-ADAccount	Unlocks a user account after it has become locked after too many incorrect login attempts
Enable-ADAccount	Enables a user account
Disable-ADAccount	Disables a user account

Here are some cmdlets that Manage Groups

Cmdlet	Description
New-ADGroup	Creates new groups
Set-ADGroup	Modifies properties of groups
Get-ADGroup	Displays properties of groups
Remove-ADGroup	Deletes groups
Add-ADGroupMember	Adds members to groups
Get-ADGroupMember	Displays membership of groups
Remove-ADGroupMember	Removes members from groups
Add-ADPrincipalGroupMembership	Adds group membership to objects
Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership	Displays group membership of objects
Remove-ADPrincipalGroupMembership	Removes group membership from an object

Here are some cmdlets that Manage Computer Accounts

Cmdlet	Description
New-ADComputer	Creates new computer accounts
Set-ADComputer	Modifies properties of computer accounts
Get-ADComputer	Displays properties of computer accounts
Remove-ADComputer	Deletes computer accounts
Test-ComputerSecureChannel	Verifies or repairs the trust relationship between a computer and the domain
Reset -ComputerMachinePassword	Resets the password for a computer account

Here are some cmdlets that Manage OUs

Cmdlet	Description
New-ADOrganizationalUnit	Creates OUs
Set-ADOrganizationalUnit	Modifies properties of OUs
Get-ADOrganizationalUnit	Views properties of OUs
Remove-ADOrganizationalUnit	Deletes OUs

 

So now that we have basic commands look what we can do just using the Get-ADuser PowerShell command.

Show all the properties for a user account:

Get-ADUser –Name “Administrator” -Properties

Show all the user accounts in the Sales OU and all its sub containers in the foo.com domain

Get-ADUser –Filter * -SearchBase “ou=Sales,dc=foo, dc=com” -SearchScope subtree

Show all of the user accounts with a last logon date older than a specific date:

Get-ADUser -Filter {lastlogondate -lt “January 1, 2015”}

Show all of the user accounts in the Sales department that have a last logon date older than a specific date:

Get-ADUser -Filter {(lastlogondate -lt “January 1, 2015”) -and (department -eq “Sales”)}

Now let’s get Wild…… Let show how to make this really easy to use by the use of Pipes.

Use the pipe character ( | ) to pass a list of objects to a cmdlet for further processing (think about the results of 1 cmdlet being used by the next.

So this script will look for users who have not login since January 1, 2015 and the use that to then disable those accounts….

Get‑ADUser ‑Filter {lastlogondate ‑lt “January 1, 2012”} | Disable‑ADAccount

I could have saved the first part of the command to a text file called users.txt and then ran

Get-Content C:users.txt | Disable-ADAccount

 

Here are some resources for you to get up to speed.. July 29 is the day .

These are Video from the Ignite conference ..

•	Overview of Windows 10 for Enterprises – Jim Alkove
•	Secure Authentication with Windows Hello – Nelly Porter
•	A New Era of Threat Resistance for the Windows 10 Platform – Chris Hallum
•	The New User Experience with Windows 10 – Chaitanya Sareen
•	What’s New in Windows 10 Management and the Windows Store – Michael Niehaus
•	Windows 10 Mobile Device Management (MDM) in Depth – Janani Vasudevan
•	Top Features of Windows 10 – Simon May
•	Provisioning Windows 10 Devices with New Tools – Vladimir Holostov
•	Windows as a Service: What Does It Mean for Your Business? – Michael Beck
•	Windows 10: Ask the Experts – Mark Minasi & Experts

 

Advances in scripting security and protection in Windows 10 and PowerShell V5.

Learn how the Windows PowerShell team has significantly advanced security focused logging and detection in Windows 10 and PowerShell v5.

Lear more Here

 

The latest volume of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report is now available. This volume of the report focuses on the threat landscape in the second half of 2014 when there were some dramatic changes.

The vulnerability disclosure data published in the report suggests that there was a 56.3% increase in vulnerability disclosures between the third and fourth quarters of 2014. After many periods of relatively small changes in disclosure totals, the 4,512 vulnerabilities disclosed during the second half of 2014 is the largest number of vulnerabilities disclosed in any half-year period since the CVE system was launched in 1999. Disclosures of vulnerabilities in applications other than web browsers and operating system applications increased 98.3% in the second half of 2014 and accounted for 76.5% of total disclosures for the period.

Figure 1. Industry wide vulnerability disclosures between the first half of 2012 (1H12) and the second half of 2014 (2H14)

Figure 2. Industry wide operating system, browser, and application vulnerabilities between the first half of 2012 (1H12) and the second half of 2014 (2H14)
Overall, encounters with Java exploits continued to decrease significantly in the second half of 2014, while Flash Player exploit attempts increased.

Figure 3. Trends for the top Java exploits detected and blocked by Microsoft real-time antimalware products in 2014

Figure 4. Adobe Flash Player exploits detected and blocked by Microsoft real-time antimalware products in 2014
Regional threat assessments are available for over 100 countries as well as an online tool that enables you to quickly compare two locations.

Figure 5. Infection and Encounter Rate Trends tool available at www.microsoft.com/security/sir/threat

 

This post is a copy of the Microsoft June 2015’s Security Newsletter and is copied here to share info with you….

This Document is a must read for Any Security or IT professional

 

 

With Windows 10 being released on July 29, 2015 I have agreed to do some end user talks on what new with Windows 10

I will be covering;

• Upgrade paths
• New Interfaces
• New browser Edge
• New way to logion (Microsoft Hello)
• Changes to security
• Different Versions of Windows
• Universal Apps
• And other topics

The dates for the first few talk and locations are

Aug. 4,  DACS – Danbury Area Computer Society   7pm at

Danbury Hospital Creasy Auditorium, Danbury, CT  Website 

Aug 6  WPCUG – Westchester PC User Group  7pm at

120 Bloomingdale Rd 1^st floor,  White Plains NY 10605  Website

Aug 27  TPCUG PC Users Group of Connecticut  7pm at

Trumbull Public Library on Quality Street in Trumbull, CT  Website

 

I have been volunteering in Haiti with NetHope working on helping the IT community by doing some training. The people who I work with are very happy when people care and I challenge you to get involved. I taught 2 classes on on Security + and one on ethical hacking. here are some pictures of the class

 

I challenge to you get involved and help volunteer either locally or international…

to learn more about  NetHope Academy Program – in Haiti go Here

Introduction
Azure Web Apps is a fully managed platform that you can use to build mission-critical web applications that are highly available, secure, and scalable to global proportions. Combined with first-class tooling from Visual Studio and the Microsoft Azure Tools, the Azure Web Apps service is the fastest way to get your web application to production. Azure Web Apps is part of the Azure App Service that is designed to empower developers to build web and mobile applications for any device.

. The topics explored in this book include the following:

• Chapter 1, “Microsoft Azure Web Apps”: This chapter starts with an introduction to Azure Resource Groups and App Service Plans and progresses into essential tasks such as creating and configuring a web app. Learn best practices for storing and retrieving app settings and connection strings. Configure deployment slots and set up continuous deployment using Visual Studio Online. Wrap up with a discussion about Role Based Access Control (RBAC) and how you can use it to manage access to your Azure resources.
• Chapter 2, “Azure WebJobs”: Learn everything you need to know to build and deploy background processing tasks using Azure WebJobs. You will learn the basics of the WebJobs feature and proceed into a deeper discussion on how to use the WebJobs SDK. You will learn about the Azure WebJobs Dashboard and how the WebJobs SDK enhances the dashboard experience.
• Chapter 3, “Scaling Azure Web Apps”: Learn how to scale up and scale out your Azure web app and web jobs. You will learn how to configure Autoscale to scale your web app dynamically based on performance metrics and schedules. See how you can use Azure Traffic Manager to achieve global scale for your web apps.
• Chapter 4, “Monitoring and diagnostics”: Learn about the many logging features built into the Azure Web Apps platform and how to configure logging to get the diagnostics data you need to troubleshoot issues. You will learn how to configure storage locations and retention policies for logs, how to view logs in real time using the log streaming service, and even how to debug your web app remotely while it is running in Azure. You will get an introduction to some powerful site extensions you can use to view logs and perform analysis directly from your browser. Finally, you will learn how you can monitor your resource group down to individual resources and how you can use Application Insights to deliver a complete 360-degree view into your application code for monitoring and diagnostic purposes.

Download the PDF (4.89 MB)

 

Introduction

If you are responsible for architecting and designing the backup strategy for your organization, especially if you’re looking for ways to incorporate cloud backup into your business continuity scenarios, this book is for you. With the increasing trends in virtualization as well as the move to the pubic cloud, IT organizations are headed toward a world where data and applications run in on-premises private clouds as well as in the public cloud. This has key implications for data protection strategy, and it is important to choose the solution that provides the same level of data protection you have afforded so far while allowing you to harness the power of the public cloud.

Download at  Microsoft Virtual Academy.

Register for this event in the time zone that suits you best:
June 2-3, 9am–1pm PDT (The Americas)
June 3-4, 9am–1pm CEST (Europe)
Do IT security concerns keep you up at night? You’re not alone! Many IT Pros want to extend their organization’s infrastructure but need reassurance about security. Whether you are researching a hybrid or a public cloud model with Microsoft Azure, the question remains the same: Does the solution meet your own personal and your organization’s bar for security, including industry standards, attestations, and ISO certifications?

In this two-part, demo-filled course, explore these and other hot topics, as a team of security experts and Azure engineers takes you beyond the basic certifications and explores what’s possible inside Azure. See how to design and use various technologies to ensure that you have the security and architecture you need to successfully launch your projects in the cloud. Dive into datacenter operations, virtual machine (VM) configuration, network architecture, and storage infrastructure. Get the information and the confidence you need, from the pros who know, as they demystify security in the cloud.

Post from Microsoft I thought would be of interest to you all

Register Here