MasterClass: Windows Security and Infrastructure Management with Windows Internals

This is a deep dive course on infrastructure services configuration, increasing their level of security and windows internals. It is a must go for enterprise administrators, security officers and architects. Delivered by one of the best people in the market in the security field – with practical knowledge from tons of successful projects, many years of real world experience, great teaching skills and no mercy for misconfigurations or insecure solutions.

The secure infrastructure configuration should be the most important line of defense in every organization. Unfortunately, people, the most valuable resource, are not always aware of the level of security in their companies, possible points of entry, how operating system are attacked, and how to protect an infrastructure from successful attacks which are sometimes caused by configuration mistakes. Understanding internal OS protection mechanisms and services/roles completely provides a huge impact on the whole infrastructure security level. Unfortunately, the problem is… rarely anyone has this impact!

Advanced access rights, password mechanisms, windows internals, PowerShell usage for security purposes, gaining unauthorized access, advanced DNS configuration and common configuration mistakes, Active Directory security, IIS Security, debugging, advanced monitoring and troubleshooting and much more!

Topics covered during this training will help you to walk in hackers’ shoes and evaluate your infrastructure from their point of view.

Lab exercises

This course is packed with unique labs exercises! All exercises are based on Windows Server 2016 and 2019, Windows 10 and Kali Linux. To get more practice we offer three extra weeks of labs online!After the training concludes, you may practice even more and repeat to consolidate newly gained skills and knowledge.

Audience:

This course is ideal for enterprise administrators, infrastructure architects, security professionals, systems engineers, network administrators, IT professionals, security consultants and other people responsible for implementing network and perimeter security.

Course content:

MODULE 1: WINDOWS INTERNALS & SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

  • Introduction to the Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 security concepts
  • Architecture overview and terms
  • Key System Components
  • Advanced Local Procedure Call
  • Information gathering techniques

MODULE 2: PROCESS AND THREAD MANAGEMENT

  • Process and thread internals
  • Protected processes
  • Process priority management
  • Examining Thread Activity
  • Process and thread monitoring and troubleshooting techniques (advanced usage of Process Explorer, Process Monitor, and other tools) 

MODULE 3: SYSTEM SECURITY MECHANISMS

  • Integrity Levels
  • Session Zero
  • Privileges, permissions and rights
  • Passwords security (techniques for getting and cracking Passwords
  • Registry Internals
  • Monitoring Registry Activity
  • Driver signing (Windows Driver Foundation)
  • User Account Control Virtualization
  • System Accounts and their functions
  • Boot configuration
  • Services architecture
  • Access tokens
  • Biometric framework for user authentication

MODULE 4: DEBUGGING & AUDITING

  • Available debuggers
  • Working with symbols
  • Windows Global Flags
  • Process debugging
  • Kernel-mode debugging
  • User-mode debugging
  • Setting up kernel debugging with a virtual machine as the target
  • Debugging the boot process
  • Crash dump analysis
  • Direct Kernel Object Manipulation
  • Finding hidden processes
  • Rootkit Detection

MODULE 5: MEMORY ANALYSIS

  • Memory acquisition techniques
  • Finding data and activities in memory
  • Step-by-step memory analysis techniques
  • Tools and techniques to perform memory forensic

MODULE 6: STORAGE MANAGEMENT

  • Securing and monitoring Files and Folders
  • Protecting Shared Files and Folders by Using Shadow Copies
  • Implementing Storage Spaces
  • Implementing iSCSI
  • Implementing FSRM, managing Quotas, File Screens, and Storage Reports
  • Implementing Classification and File Management Tasks, Dynamic Access Control
  • Configuring and troubleshooting Distributed File System 

MODULE 7: STARTUP AND SHUTDOWN

  • Boot Process overview
  • BIOS Boot Sector and Bootmgr vs. the UEFI Boot Process
  • Booting from iSCSI
  • Smss, Csrss, and Wininit
  • Last Known Good configuration
  • Safe Mode capabilities
  • Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)
  • Troubleshooting Boot and Startup Problems 

MODULE 8: INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY SOLUTIONS

  • Windows Server Core Improvements in Windows Server 2019
  • AppLocker implementation scenarios
  • Advanced BitLocker implementation techniques (provisioning, Standard User Rights and Network Unlock)
  • Advanced Security Configuration Wizard
  • IPSec
  • Advanced GPO Management
  • Practicing Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit
  • Tools 

MODULE 9: LAYERED NETWORK SERVICES

  • Network sniffing techniques
  • Fingerprinting techniques
  • Enumeration techniques
  • Networking Services Security (DNS, DHCP, SNMP, SMTP and other)
  • Direct Access
  • High Availability features: cluster improvements and SMB (Scale – Out File Server)
  • Network Load Balancing 

MODULE 10: MONITORING AND EVENT TRACING

  • Windows Diagnostic Infrastructure
  • Building auditing
  • Expression-based audit policies
  • Logging Activity for Accounts and processes
  • Auditing tools, techniques and improvements
  • Auditing removable storage devices

MODULE 11: POINTS OF ENTRY ANALYSIS

  • Offline access
  • Linux BackTrack /other tools vs. Windows Security
  • Unpatched Windows and assigned attacks
  • Domain Controller attacks
  • Man-in-the Middle attacks
  • Services security