If you were asked, “Is your environment secure?” you’d probably respond with something like “more or less.” After all, we IT professionals are pretty logical, and while we make a solid effort, there are areas of our network environments that are in less-than-desirable shape. You have a lot on your plate, and you just don’t…
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Managing Active Directory (AD) is not an easy task, but someone has to do it. If this “someone”, is you, then you should always keep in mind that human beings make mistakes and have bad habits, even if they are AD gurus. To minimize the risk of such bad habits from happening on your watch,…
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It seems that any tasks that are “tech-related” fall into the hands of IT. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. Managing groups in Active Directory is no different: It is something that IT takes care of — mostly because groups exist within a system (Active Directory) for which most users haven’t…
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When I was a kid, I remember playing in my room for hours on end, playing with new toy after new toy. Of course, being a kid, I never put anything away, so the number of toys just sitting around kept growing and growing. When my parents finally saw that my floor was riddled with…
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In today’s IT support model, the service desk/help desk often represents the focal point for all users to bring their needs and issues to IT. Need your password reset? Call the service desk. Need to be added to an AD group so you can get your job done? Call the service desk. Need your last…
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If you’re like most IT professionals, after a group is created, you never really give that group a second thought. Once you go to the Members tab, add a user or two, and press OK, you don’t look back. It makes sense — it’s just groups, right? I mean, who cares? Perhaps the better question…
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In previous articles, we’ve discussed the reasons why IT often doesn’t pay attention managing groups in Active Directory (AD), as well as how security threats can arise from not doing so. In this article, we are going to review the steps required to manage groups in AD effectively and efficiently. Before we start, let’s establish…
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In the article “Are Insider Threats IT’s Fault?,” I discussed how the lack of focus on permissions granted by groups in Active Directory (AD) could be a contributing factor to insider threats and pose a potential security risk. With over one-third of organizations reporting that they do not implement any kind of least-privilege model1, this…
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Asking this question might be considered edgy, so I’ll start by answering: No. Well, not exactly — not on purpose anyway. As an IT professional, you might ask yourself, “Seriously? Insider Threats are my fault?” I’m certainly not trying to alienate you. I’ve been in IT for over 20 years and know the hard work…
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If you were to ask what’s the most difficult part of managing Active Directory groups, we’d probably get a few different answers. Probably very few of you (if any at all) would focus on the actual creation and maintenance of the groups, while most (again, if not all) would focus on the issue of where…
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