Thursday, February 03, 2005 8:34 AM
DSSInternet
Microsoft Security Guidance Center
Some of you may have already come across the Microsoft Security Guidance Center, this post is for those who haven’t.
Follow this link to get to the Guidance Center http://www.microsoft.com/security/guidance/default.mspx
If you choose the “TechNet Security Center” link for IT Professionals, you will be forwarded to the TechNet Security homepage http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/default.mspx. The home page is full of links to headline news and downloads. Towards the bottom of the page you will also find links to where you can sign up for the free security newsletters. The TechNet security home page is directed towards to the IT Pro, so for those of you with bookmarks to http://www.microsoft.com/security you may wish to consider an update.
You may also want to look out for the Microsoft Security Guidance Center published articles. There is a link to the most recently published.
Microsoft Security Guidance Center: Recently Published http://www.microsoft.com/security/guidance/recent/default.mspx
Here are the published articles for January 2005 – lots of XP SP2 related articles this month.
Here’s the intro to the article “How To: Configure Windows XP SP2 Network Protection Technologies in an Active Directory Environment.”
Introduction
Group Policy settings are applied based on your organizations implementation of Microsoft Active Directory, and they help protect your computer environment with standard configuration settings across categories of users and computers. New Group Policy network protection settings for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) include:
| • | Windows Firewall. Configure these policy settings to turn the firewall on or off, manage program and port exceptions, and define exceptions for specific scenarios such as to allow remote administration on target computers. |
| • | Internet Explorer. With these new policy settings, you can configure Microsoft Internet Explorer security settings. Furthermore, with policy settings, you can enable or disable Internet Explorer security features for various processes. |
| • | Internet Communication Management. You can configure these settings to control how various components in Windows XP SP2 communicate over the Internet for tasks that involve exchange of information between computers in an organization and the Internet. |
| • | DCOM Security. You configure these settings to control security settings for Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). The DCOM infrastructure includes new access control restrictions to help minimize the security risks posed by network attacks. |
| • | SecurityCenter. You configure these settings to centrally administer Windows Security Center. Security Center is a new feature in Windows XP SP2 that allows you to monitor computers in your organization to ensure that they comply with the latest security updates and to provide user alerts if a computer poses a security risk. |
| • | Remote Procedure Call(RPC). You can configure the RPC policy settings to block remote anonymous access to RPC interfaces on the system, and to prevent anonymous access to the RPC Endpoint Mapper interface. |
