Category Archives: Group Policy

Posted in Application Control, Desktop Lockdown, Group Policy, Least Privilege | Comments Off

Desktop Misadventures

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Russell Smith

Bradley Manning – the Private who’s accused of downloading 110,000 U.S. State Department cables to his PC, copying them to a removable drive and then passing the information to Wikileaks – has been in the news again this week as … Continue reading →

Posted in Active Directory, Group Policy, Least Privilege, Privilege Guard | Comments Off

Assigning admin privileges on Domain Controllers

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Russell Smith

Active Directory (AD) is the core of a Windows Server network and consists of a database that stores usernames and passwords, plus several technologies that work together to provide security and management services to clients and servers. Domain controllers (DCs) … Continue reading →

Posted in Active Directory, Group Policy | Comments Off

What is the Right Amount of GPOs?

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Jeremy Moskowitz

This is a question I get all the time, so I thought I’d take a moment and share some thoughts on this question. Before we get to “What is the right amount of GPOs”, let’s start off with “Can I … Continue reading →

Posted in Active Directory, Group Policy, Privilege Guard | Comments Off

Deploying Privilege Guard with NetIQ GPA

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Mark Austin

Avecto Privilege Guard is implemented as a Group Policy Extension, which allows it to integrate seamlessly with solutions that enable advanced management of Group Policy. This includes Microsoft’s Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM), which is part of the Microsoft Desktop … Continue reading →

Posted in Group Policy, WMI | Comments Off

Active Directory Group Policy and WMI Filters

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Mark Austin

The scope of a Group Policy Object (GPO) can be controlled with WMI filters, based on criteria such as operating system version or hardware specifications. A WMI filter consists of one or more queries, and if all queries evaluate to … Continue reading →

Posted in Application Control, AppLocker, Desktop Lockdown, Group Policy, Windows 7 | Comments Off

The Pros and Cons of Windows 7 Application Control with AppLocker

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Mark Austin

Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise editions ship with AppLocker, which is a Group Policy based application control solution. AppLocker is a big improvement over Software Restriction Policies, as it provides a more flexible and intuitive solution to its predecessor. AppLocker … Continue reading →

Posted in Application Control, Desktop Lockdown, Group Policy, Least Privilege, Windows 7 | Comments Off

5 Tips for Flexible Desktop Lockdown

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Mark Austin

Desktop lockdown shouldn’t hinder a user from performing their day to day role, so here are 5 tips to achieve flexible desktop lockdown. 1. Implement Least Privilege If you are serious about desktop lockdown then you really need to adopt … Continue reading →

Posted in Active Directory, Group Policy | Comments Off

Embrace Group Policy, It Makes Sense…

Posted on February 28, 2010 by Mark Austin

It surprises me how few vendors use Active Directory Group Policy as a mechanism to centrally manage and deploy policy settings for their Windows based products, and instead build their own backend infrastructure for this purpose. I could rattle off … Continue reading →