I was doing some Antivirus stuff this afternoon now let me share with you how to test if your Antivirus program is working, e.g. alerts you in the event of a virus. Of course you can go to certain places on the internet where it won’t take long until you get a real virus, but [...]
Archive of posts tagged Security
How the Windows Defender Offline Beta Tool works
In addition to the Microsoft Security Essentials software and the Microsoft Safety Scanner Microsoft just recently released another FREE antimalware removal product called the Windows Defender Offline Beta. While Security Essentials and Safety Scanner run within Windows, the purpose of the Windows Defender Offline Tool is to run offline from bootable USB or CD/DVD media. [...]
Running an Application as Administrator or in Compatibility Mode
Today someone in a forum asked how to programmatically configure an application so that it runs in compatibility mode. Configuring this manually is easy, just open the file’s properties, select the Compatibility tab and apply the required settings. On Windows 7 this then looks as shown in the picture below. Now whatever we configure here, [...]
A Security Baseline Resource for Windows 7–Internet Explorer and Windows 7 Firewall
If you are looking for some ideas how to secure your Windows 7 clients, have a look at the USGCB (The United States Government Configuration Baseline). The USGCB has been developed by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The documentation looks impressive and even if you aren’t going [...]
Least Privilege Security for Windows 7, Vista and XP
Yesterday I received a pre-release copy of Russel Smith’s book called Least Privilege Security for Windows 7, Vista and XP. The book is entirely dedicated to the subject of running Least Privilege Security (or standard user accounts) on Windows operating systems in the enterprise. The book has 420 pages and covers the following topics: Chapter [...]
BookTip: Group Policy – Fundamentals, Security and the Managed Desktop
Today I’ve received a signed copy of Jeremy Moskowitz latest Book “Group Policy – Fundamentals, Security and the Managed Desktop”, so instead of using my laptop I guess I’ll be holding a real book in my hands this weekend. Jeremy also published 3 FREE chapters: Bonus Chapter 1 – Scripting Group Policy Operations with Windows [...]
Updated MS10-015 Security Update and Kernel Update Compatibility Assessment Tool
During the past weeks we have seen quite some messages about the MS10-015 security update which can cause bluescreens after being installed. According to a recent post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog there is a revised installation package for MS10-015 that prevents the update from installing if abnormal conditions exist such as an [...]
Changing Internet Explorer Security Settings on Windows Server 2008
While I was preparing my home lab for some Group Policy tests i wanted to perform I got an error when generating a report in the Group Policy Management Console which is running on a Windows Server 2008 with Internet Explorer 8. The error was: “An error occurred in the script in this page” A [...]
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer with support for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2
With the launch of Windows 7 Microsoft also released an updated version of the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer also known as MBSA. The version is 2.1.1 which is indicating that this is basically just a minor revision of the previous MBSA 2.1, and that is exactly what it is . MBSA 2.1.1 does not appear [...]
Office 2007 Trusted location configuration
When opening an Excel file that contains macros, Microsoft Excel 2007 shows a security warning as shown in the picture below and disables the macros. To continue using the Excel sheet and its macros, you must first enable then by clicking on the "Options…” button and selecting the “Enable this content” option. This is quite [...]
