We will harden the system to eliminate lots of attack surface and impede attackers. Vulnerable services and unnecessary networking protocols will be disabled. Layers of security will be added to protect our system, private documents, browsers and other applications. Firewall rules, ACLs and Software Restriction Policy are some of the settings we will set up. Then, continuing the security process, we will set up patch monitoring to notify us of insecure applications which require patching. Then we will set up event monitoring to monitor admin account uses and all unusual events.

And we will setup baselines so that we can regularly compare against the current running system to ensure it has not been modified. And finally we want to monitor the current threat landscape and be able to react to emerging security threats in time. Good security consists of deter, deny, delay and detection.

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Hardening covers the first 3. We will cover all 4 in this guide. So any PC is game. PC only requires a few minutes. There is an optional Configuration Pack which automates some of the configuration steps. ACLs to partition away hacker friendly admin command line tools.

Some settings. can only be reached with the Configuration Pack. Performing all the steps manually takes 3- 4 hours and. Configuration Pack saves time by letting you import certain configs. The ideal candidate of this. PCs in the LAN. That is because the more network ports you open, the less secure you become. Testing was done on Windows 1.

Pro 6. 4 bit and Windows 1. After hardening, all control panel items are tested working, with the following exceptions: If your system has already been compromised, the best course of action is to re- install Windows. Because there is no telling what backdoors and botnets clients have been installed on your system. You cannot fight back at someone who already has administrator control of your system. You can implement something and they will just disable it. You best chance of survival is to re- install Windows and then hardening it to prevent further attacks from happening. For details of the Automated Configuration files, see the Automated Configuration section near the bottom of this document.

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They will also be mentioned  as when applicable in each section though out the document. Or that you may be compromised when you go online to fetch updates. There is a free tool called WSUS Offline Update, which can download updates for all Windows platforms and create a ISO image file. Just burn this image file to DVD and slip it into your PC and it will commence installing the updates.

Note that it will only download KB's that are in MS Security Bulletins, which are all the critical and important. Windows Update afterwards to fetch the ordinary non- critical updates. This tool eliminates a critical gap in Windows installation. That is when you only have services packs installed but are missing all post service pack updates. An attacker can attack you while you are updating online and vulnerable. The tool is available from here: http: //www. The site is in German and English.

Note that this is a DVD image file. You need to right click on it and select 'Burn disc image'. Or you can use the free Img. Burn utility if you are not on Win 7 or Win 8. As per normal, to securely install an OS, one should install it disconnected from the network. If you are using an ethernet cable,  disconnect the cable. If you are on Wi.

Fi, Right click on Start button > go to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center >  Change Adapter Settings and right click disable the Wi. Fi. interface. To perform an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, boot that version of Windows and run 'setup' from. DVD drive/USB memory stick.

Do not boot with the ISO and do a clean install, as you won't be able to Activate your Windows 1. After you have done 1 upgrade and activated that, then you can  boot the DVD created with MS Media Creation Tool, and perform a 'clean install'. MS will remember your PC from your last activation.

Use the updates disc create by WSUS Offline Update and install the patches. Before we go on to hardening, it would be wise to create a drive image using Macrium at this point to capture a clean virgin Windows install. That way, if you want to undo all the hardening in one swoop, you can reimage the machine using this image file. One of the main concepts underlying hardening is least privilege. It means to configure your system so that it is only capable of doing things you normally do, and nothing else. So, that means that if a feature in Windows is not used, it is to be turned off, or disabled. The reason behind it, is that the more features you enable, the larger your attack surface is.

It means you have more to defend. The more features you have, the more potential bugs ( some security related ) you have. Now attackers know a lot about the security bugs in the system . If you go live on the internet with all features turned on, the attacker would have a lot of choices.

If you disable unused features, then he. Only login to the administrative account to install programs, configure networking. Because when you are working in a Standard account, any malware or hacker that makes it onto your system will inherit your privilege and not have admin privileges to make system wide modifications.

So if you have important data stored in that account's Document folder, they will have the same access. From a different perspective, a Standard account is a barrier to other accounts, and is also a container for attacks. If you have your services set up correctly and don't allow the command Run. As, ( it is the Seondary Logon service ), then automated attacks and hackers cannot gain access to your other accounts. Control Panel, select 'View by: Small Icons'.

This shows all the configurations choices available. When MS released Vista, there were some complaints about UAC asking for confirmation to do this, that and the other. So MS made a compromise in Windows 7 and allow customers to choose what level of prompting they want. Know that. turning completely off UAC also means turning off Protected Mode in Internet Explorer, and not too many people realize that a major piece of protection is now turned off. UAC pops up mostly during the setup phase, once you have finished setting up your computer, you will rarely encounter it.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts\Change User Account Control Settings. Windows network has 3 network types, domain, private and public.

Work and home are similar and are labeled as 'private' under it's firewall tool. The private setting is set to allow 'network discovery', so that Windows is. PCs. The public setting is the most secure and is meant to be used at cafe hotspots, airports etc. If your network contains insecure PCs, then you should set the network profile to public. The domain setting cannot be chosen by the user, and is used after the PC has joined a domain.

Since we are hardening the PC, we want the most secure setting, and only allow Windows to talk when it is called for. So for those that intend to join a domain, choose the private profile; and if not, choose the public profile. Some networking components implement protocols. Networking protocols are grammar rules for bits and bytes to. PCs. And each has weaknesses. So unless your environment requires that a protocol must be used, we will want to disable all except the bare essentials. More protocols mean a larger attack surface.

The only protocol you really need is IPv. And most networking equipment requires IPv. IPv. 6 will be increasingly necessary as we have run out of IPv. IPv. 6 is still not very popular. If you have a IPv. Some routers do not understand IPv.

ISPs don't support it either. So MS made several tunnel components that tunnels IPv. IPv. 4 to the outside. This in effect. bypasses the security offered by your NAT- router and hardware firewall. Tunnelled traffic can't be seen by IPv. Net. BIOS over TCP/IP is not required because Net.

BIOS is already active without this option.