Microsoft Free Security Tools

[ronjor]

Tim Rains - Microsoft
1 Oct 2012 7:00 AM

This article in our series focused on Microsoft’s free security tools is on a tool called Portqry. This tool is a TCP/IP connectivity test tool, port scanner, and local port monitor. Portqry is useful for troubleshooting networking issues as well as verifying network security related configurations. Because of this broad functionality, I have heard some Information Technology (IT) Professionals refer to this tool as a “Swiss army knife” of tools.

I developed Portqry many years ago and released two versions. I originally developed this tool to help IT Professionals troubleshoot TCP/IP networking issues. The port scanning functionality helps determine if a remote port is listening, not listening, or being filtered/blocked. In 2001 when I released Portqry version 1 there were other network port scanners for Windows available, but most of them were only capable of scanning TCP ports. I didn’t find TCP port scanners very useful because you could use the Telnet.exe utility built into Windows to determine if a TCP port was listening, without downloading and installing a third party tool. I really wanted to build a tool that also scanned UDP ports as this made it much more useful. Portqry version 1 supported port scanning for four UDP protocols that were central to troubleshooting Active Directory issues and related name resolution issues: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Remote Procedure Calls (RPC), Domain Name System (DNS), and NetBIOS Name Service. For many IT Professionals who were tasked with deploying and managing the relatively new Microsoft Active Directory (at that time), Portqry 1.0 was very helpful.

https://blogs.technet.com/b/security...edirected=true

[PJC]

Thanks!

[xxJackxx]

An interesting read. As he stated in the article netstat -ano will work fine on the newer OSes and is built in. For someone looking for a graphical tool Sysinternals TCPView is a nice tool for free.

[ronjor]

Microsoft Free Security Tools – Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer

Tim Rains - Microsoft

This article in our series on Microsoft’s free security tools is focused on a tool called the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA). Many years ago before Windows Update was available, servicing software was much more painful than it is today. Microsoft released security updates weekly, and there were few deployment technologies available to help determine which systems needed which updates. I wrote an article on this topic if you are interested in a walk down memory lane. For those IT administrators that lived through those days, the MBSA was a godsend. Today, 10 years later, the MBSA is still a free security tool that many, many IT Professionals use to help manage the security of their environments.

https://blogs.technet.com/b/security...edirected=true

[ronjor]

Microsoft’s Free Security Tools – Microsoft Safety Scanner

Tim Rains - Microsoft

This article in our series focused on Microsoft’s free security tools is on a tool called the Microsoft Safety Scanner. The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free stand-alone virus scanner that is used to remove malware or potentially unwanted software from a system. The tool is easy to use and packaged with the latest signatures, updated multiple times daily. The application is not designed to replace your existing antimalware software, but rather act as an on demand virus removal tool in situations where you suspect your real time antimalware software might not be working correctly. If the antimalware program you are running regularly becomes disabled without your knowledge you may have malware or rogue security software on your system. Running the Microsoft Safety Scanner can help detect and remove malware or potentially unwanted software that may be disabling your real time antimalware software.

https://blogs.technet.com/b/security...edirected=true

[ronjor]

Microsoft’s Free Security Tools – A Deeper Look at XSS Attacks and Microsoft’s free Anti-Cross-Site Scripting Library

This article in our free security tools series focuses on the benefits of the Microsoft Anti-Cross-site Scripting Library (Anti-XSS). Cross-site scripting (XSS) is an attack technique in which an attacker inserts malicious HTML and JavaScript into a vulnerable webpage, often in an effort to distribute malware or to steal sensitive information from the website or its visitors.

[hogndog]

Great find!

Thanks Ron..
Hogndog

[ronjor]

Happy computing hogndog.

[ronjor]

New Guidance to Mitigate Determined Adversaries’ Favorite Attack: Pass-the-Hash

Author: Matt Thomlinson, General Manager, Trustworthy Computing

Targeted attacks by determined adversaries (also known as Advanced Persistent Threats or APTs) have been a hot topic recently. Although targeted attacks continue to make up a small fraction of the attacks we see today, reports of attacks targeting organizations and governments have attracted a lot of attention. We know that one of the first things determined adversaries do if they are able to successfully compromise their target organization’s network is to try to compromise the organization’s directory services. The reason is clear: a directory service contains the credentials that users, administrators and systems use to authenticate to the network and get access to the organization’s resources. If attackers are able to obtain administrative access to Active Directory, the organization becomes completely compromised.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/...-the-hash.aspx

[ronjor]

Microsoft’s Free Security Tools – Microsoft Security Compliance Manager Tool (SCM)

Tim Rains - Microsoft

This article in our free security tools series focuses on the benefits of the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager tool (SCM). One of the most important tools for managing and securing Windows environments is Group Policy. Group Policy is often used in enterprise environments to help control what users can and cannot do on a computer system. IT Professionals typically leverage Group Policy for a number of reasons but one of its primary benefits is to help manage security for groups of systems and reduce support costs. While the value of Group Policy is clear, maximizing its potential can sometimes be a daunting task. To help ease the management process for Group Policy, Microsoft released a free tool called the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager (SCM).

https://blogs.technet.com/b/security...edirected=true

[ronjor]

Microsoft’s Free Security Tools – URLScan Security Tool

Tim Rains - Microsoft

This article in our free security tools series focuses on the benefits of the URLScan Security Tool. Attackers often use websites to conduct phishing attacks or distribute malware. According to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 13, there were 4.4 phishing sites per 1,000 Internet hosts worldwide in the second quarter of 2012 (2Q12) alone. Malicious websites typically appear to be completely legitimate and often provide no outward indicators of their malicious nature, even to experienced computer users. In many cases, these sites are legitimate websites that have been compromised by malware, SQL injection, or other techniques in an effort by attackers to take advantage of the trust users have in them.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/...rity-tool.aspx

[adrenaline7]

these are great thanks!

[ronjor]

Microsoft's Free Security Tools - Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit

Tim Rains - Microsoft

This article in our free security tools series focuses on the benefits of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit. If you are an IT Professional then you know platform migrations can be a daunting task. Depending on your organization’s size, complexity and maturity, simply understanding your organization’s IT state and migration potential can take hours, days and sometimes even months. To help ease the migration process, Microsoft has created the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit. The MAP Toolkit is a powerful inventory, assessment and reporting tool that can securely assess IT environments for various platform migrations. The toolkit is designed to run in any organization regardless of size and is effective at helping to accelerate PC, server, database and cloud migration planning across heterogeneous environments. It also provides tailored assessment proposals and recommendations, and helps gain efficiencies through multiple technology migration assessments with a single tool.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/...p-toolkit.aspx