Category: Azure

Secure access for a connected world meet Microsoft Entra

What could the world achieve if we had trust in every digital experience and interaction?

This question has inspired us to think differently about identity and access, and today, we’re announcing our expanded vision for how we will help provide secure access for our connected world.

Microsoft Entra is our new product family that encompasses all of Microsoft’s identity and access capabilities. The Entra family includes Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), as well as two new product categories: Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) and decentralized identity. The products in the Entra family will help provide secure access to everything for everyone, by providing identity and access management, cloud infrastructure entitlement management, and identity verification.

The need for trust in a hyperconnected world 

Technology has transformed our lives in amazing ways. It’s reshaped how we interact with others, how we work, cultivate new skills, engage with brands, and take care of our health. It’s redefined how we do business by creating entirely new ways of serving existing needs while improving the experience, quality, speed, and cost management.

Behind the scenes of all this innovation, millions and millions of connections happen every second between people, machines, apps, and devices so that they can share and access data. These interactions create exciting opportunities for how we engage with technology and with each other—but they also create an ever-expanding attack surface with more and more vulnerabilities for people and data that need to be addressed.

It’s become increasingly important—and challenging—for organizations to address these risks as they advance their digital initiatives. They need to remove barriers to innovation, without the fear of being compromised. They need to instill trust, not only in their digital experiences and services, but in every digital interaction that powers them—every point of access between people, machines, microservices, and things.

Our expanded vision for identity and access

When the world was simpler, controlling digital access was relatively straightforward. It was just a matter of setting up the perimeter and letting only the right people in.

But that’s no longer sustainable. Organizations simply can’t put up gates around everything—their digital estates are growing, changing, and becoming boundaryless. It’s virtually impossible to anticipate and address the unlimited number of access scenarios that can occur across an organization and its supply chain, especially when it includes third-party systems, platforms, applications, and devices outside the organization’s control.

Identity is not just about directories, and access is not just about the network. Security challenges have become much broader, so we need broader solutions. We need to secure access for every customer, partner, and employee—and for every microservice, sensor, network, device, and database.

And doing this needs to be simple. Organizations don’t want to deal with incomplete and disjointed solutions that solve only one part of the problem, work in only a subset of environments, and require duct tape and bubble gum to work together. They need access decisions to be as granular as possible and to automatically adapt based on real-time assessment of risk. And they need this everywhere: on-premises, Azure AD, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, apps, websites, devices, and whatever comes next.

This is our expanded vision for identity and access, and we will deliver it with our new product family, Microsoft Entra.

Vasu Jakkal and Joy Chik sit together and discuss new Microsoft Entra product family.

Video description: Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Security, Compliance, Identity and Management, and Joy Chik, CVP of Identity, are unveiling Microsoft Entra, our new identity and access product family name, and are discussing the future of modern identity and access security.

Making the vision a reality: Identity as a trust fabric

To make this vision a reality, identity must evolve. Our interconnected world requires a flexible and agile model where people, organizations, apps, and even smart devices could confidently make real-time access decisions. We need to build upon and expand our capabilities to support all the scenarios that our customers are facing.

Moving forward, we’re expanding our identity and access solutions so that they can serve as a trust fabric for the entire digital ecosystem—now and long into the future.

Microsoft Entra will verify all types of identities and secure, manage, and govern their access to any resource. The new Microsoft Entra product family will:

  • Protect access to any app or resource for any user.
  • Secure and verify every identity across hybrid and multicloud environments.
  • Discover and govern permissions in multicloud environments.
  • Simplify the user experience with real-time intelligent access decisions.

This is an important step towards delivering a comprehensive set of products for identity and access needs, and we’ll continue to expand the Microsoft Entra product family.

“Identity is one of the cornerstones of our cybersecurity for the future.”

—Thomas Mueller-Lynch, Service Owner Lead for Digital Identity, Siemens

Microsoft Entra at a glance

Microsoft Azure AD, our hero identity and access management product, will be part of the Microsoft Entra family, and all its capabilities that our customers know and love, such as Conditional Access and passwordless authentication, remain unchanged. Azure AD External Identities continues to be our identity solution for customers and partners under the Microsoft Entra family.

Additionally, we are adding new solutions and announcing several product innovations as part of the Entra family.

Solutions under the Microsoft Entra product family including Microsoft Azure Active Directory, Permissions Management, and Verified ID.

Reduce access risk across clouds

The adoption of multicloud has led to a massive increase in identities, permissions, and resources across public cloud platforms. Most identities are over-provisioned, expanding organizations’ attack surface and increasing the risk of accidental or malicious permission misuse. Without visibility across cloud providers, or tools that provide a consistent experience, it’s become incredibly challenging for identity and security teams to manage permissions and enforce the principle of least privilege across their entire digital estate.

With the acquisition of CloudKnox Security last year, we are now the first major cloud provider to offer a CIEM solution: Microsoft Entra Permissions Management. It provides comprehensive visibility into permissions for all identities (both user and workload), actions, and resources across multicloud infrastructures. Permissions Management helps detect, right-size, and monitor unused and excessive permissions, and mitigates the risk of data breaches by enforcing the principle of least privilege in Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform. Microsoft Entra Permissions Management will be a standalone offering generally available worldwide this July 2022 and will be also integrated within the Microsoft Defender for Cloud dashboard, extending Defender for Cloud’s protection with CIEM.

Additionally, with the preview of workload identity management in Microsoft Entra, customers can assign and secure identities for any app or service hosted in Azure AD by extending the reach of access control and risk detection capabilities.

Enable secure digital interactions that respect privacy

At Microsoft, we deeply value, protect, and defend privacy, and nowhere is privacy more important than your personal identity. After several years of working alongside the decentralized identity community, we’re proud to announce a new product offering: Microsoft Entra Verified ID, based on decentralized identity standards. Verified ID implements the industry standards that make portable, self-owned identity possible. It represents our commitment to an open, trustworthy, interoperable, and standards-based decentralized identity future for individuals and organizations. Instead of granting broad consent to countless apps and services and spreading identity data across numerous providers, Verified ID allows individuals and organizations to decide what information they share, when they share it, with whom they share it, and—when necessary—take it back.

The potential scenarios for decentralized identity are endless. When we can verify the credentials of an organization in less than a second, we can conduct business-to-business and business-to-customer transactions with greater efficiency and confidence. Conducting background checks becomes faster and more reliable when individuals can digitally store and share their education and certification credentials. Managing our health becomes less stressful when both doctor and patient can verify each other’s identity and trust that their interactions are private and secure. Microsoft Entra Verified ID will be generally available in early August 2022.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fantastic to take a world-leading technology like Microsoft Entra and implement Verified ID for employees in our own office environment?’ We easily identified business opportunities where it would help us work more efficiently.”

—Chris Tate, Chief Executive Officer, Condatis

Automate critical Identity Governance scenarios

Next, let’s focus on Identity Governance for employees and partners. It’s an enormous challenge for IT and security teams to provision new users and guest accounts and manage their access rights manually. This can have a negative impact on both IT and individual productivity. New employees often experience a slow ramp-up to full effectiveness while they wait for the access required for their jobs. Similar delays in granting necessary access to guest users undermine a smoothly functioning supply chain. Then, without formal or automated processes for reprovisioning or deactivating people’s accounts, their access rights may remain in place when they change roles or exit the organization.

Identity Governance addresses this with identity lifecycle management, which simplifies the processes for onboarding and offboarding users. Lifecycle workflows automate assigning and managing access rights, and monitoring and tracking access, as user attributes change. Lifecycle workflows in Identity Governance will enter public preview this July 2022.

“We were so reactive for so long with old technology, it was a struggle. [With Azure AD Identity Governance] we’re finally able to be proactive, and we can field some of those complex requests from the business side of our organization.”

—Sally Harrison, Workplace Modernization Consultant, Mississippi Division of Medicaid

Create possibilities, not barriers

Microsoft Entra embodies our vision for what modern secure access should be. Identity should be an entryway into a world of new possibilities, not a blockade restricting access, creating friction, and holding back innovation. We want people to explore, to collaborate, to experiment—not because they are reckless, but because they are fearless.

Visit the Microsoft Entra website to learn more about how Azure AD, Microsoft Entra Permissions Management, and Microsoft Entra Verified ID deliver secure access for our connected world.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

Source :
https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/05/31/secure-access-for-a-connected-worldmeet-microsoft-entra/

Anatomy of a DDoS amplification attack

Amplification attacks are one of the most common distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack vectors. These attacks are typically categorized as flooding or volumetric attacks, where the attacker succeeds in generating more traffic than the target can process, resulting in exhausting its resources due to the amount of traffic it receives. 

In this blog, we start by surveying the anatomy and landscape of amplification attacks, while providing statistics from Azure on most common attack vectors, volumes, and distribution. We then describe some of the countermeasures taken in Azure to mitigate amplification attacks. 

DDoS amplification attacks, what are they? 

Reflection attacks involve three parties: an attacker, a reflector, and a target. The attacker spoofs the IP address of the target to send a request to a reflector (e.g., open server, middlebox) that responds to the target, a virtual machine (VM) in this case. For the attack to be amplified the response should be larger than the request, resulting in a reflected amplification attack. The attacker’s motivation is to create the largest reflection out of the smallest requests. Attackers achieve this goal by finding many reflectors and crafting the requests that result in the highest amplification. 

The diagram illustrates how the attacker pushes a reflection attack to a target virtual machine that is hosted in Azure.
Figure 1. Reflected amplification attack

The root cause for reflected amplification attacks is that an attacker can force reflectors to respond to targets by spoofing the source IP address. If spoofing was not possible, this attack vector would be mitigated. Lots of effort has thus been made on disabling IP source address spoofing, and many organizations prevent spoofing nowadays so that attackers cannot leverage their networks for amplification attacks. Unfortunately, a significant number of organizations still allow source spoofing. The Spoofer project shows that a third of the IPv4 autonomous systems allow or partially allow spoofing.  

UDP and TCP amplification attacks 

Most attackers utilize UDP to launch amplification attacks since reflection of traffic with spoofed IP source address is possible due to the lack of proper handshake.  

While UDP makes it easy to launch reflected amplification attacks, TCP has a 3-way handshake that complicates spoofing attacks. As a result, IP source address spoofing is restricted to the start of the handshake. Although the TCP handshake allows for reflection, it does not allow for easy amplification since TCP SYN+ACK response is not larger than TCP SYN. Moreover, since the TCP SYN+ACK response is sent to the target, the attacker never receives it and can’t learn critical information contained in the TCP SYN+ACK needed to complete the 3-way handshake successfully to continue making requests on behalf of the target. 

The diagram illustrates how an attacker conducts a reflection attack in TCP. The attacker sends through SYN, then the reflector reflects packets restransmitted through SYN + ACK combination, which then sends an out-of-state SYN + ACK attack to the target virtual device.
Figure 2. Reflection attack in TCP 

In recent years, however, reflection and amplification attacks based on TCP have started emerging.  

Independent research found newer TCP reflected amplification vectors that utilize middleboxes, such as nation-state censorship firewalls and other deep packet inspection devices, to launch volumetric floods. Middleboxes devices may be deployed in asymmetric routing environments, where they only see one side of the TCP connection (e.g., packets from clients to servers). To overcome this asymmetry, such middleboxes often implement non-compliant TCP stack. Attackers take advantage of this misbehavior – they do not need to complete the 3-way handshake. They can generate a sequence of requests that elicit amplified responses from middleboxes and can reach infinite amplification in some cases. The industry has started witnessing these kinds of attacks from censorship and enterprise middle boxes, such as firewalls and IDPS devices, and we expect to see this trend growing as attackers look for more ways to create havoc utilizing DDoS as a primary weapon.  

Carpet bombing is another example of a reflected amplification attack. It often utilizes UDP reflection, and in recent years TCP reflection as well. With carpet bombing, instead of focusing the attack on a single or few destinations, the attacker attacks many destinations within a specific subnet or classless inter-domain routing (CIDR) block (for example /22). This will make it more difficult to detect the attack and to mitigate it, since such attacks can fly below prevalent baseline-based detection mechanisms. 

This diagram shows how an attacker uses reflectors to send spoofed packets to many target devices within a specific subnet hosted in Azure.
Figure 3. Carpet bombing attack 

One example of TCP carpet bombing is TCP SYN+ACK reflection, where attacker sends spoofed SYN to a wide range of random or pre-selected reflectors. In this attack, amplification is a result of reflectors that retransmit the TCP SYN+ACK when they do not get a response. The amplification of the TCP SYN+ACK response itself may not be large, and it depends on the number of retransmissions sent by the reflector. In Figure 3, the reflected attack traffic towards each of the target virtual machines (VMs) may not be enough to bring them down, however, collectively, the traffic may well overwhelm the targets’ network. 

UDP and TCP amplification attacks in Azure 

In Azure, we continuously work to mitigate inbound (from internet to Azure) and outbound (from Azure to internet) amplification attacks. In the last 12 months, we mitigated approximately 175,000 UDP reflected amplification attacks. We monitored more than 10 attack vectors, where the most common ones are NTP with 49,700 attacks, DNS with 42,600 attacks, SSDP with 27,100 attacks, and Memcached with 18,200 attacks. These protocols can demonstrate amplification factors of up to x4,670, x98, x76 and x9,000 respectively. 

This pie chart shows the volume of UDP- reflected amplification attacks observed in Azure from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022. The highest volume observed is 28% through NTP, while the least volume observed is 2% through Open VPN.
Figure 4. UDP reflected amplification attacks observed from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022

We measured the maximum attack throughput in packets per second for a single attack across all attack vectors. The highest throughput was a 58 million packets per second (pps) SSDP flood in August last year, in a short attack campaign that lasted 20 minutes on a single resource in Azure. 

This bar chart shows the packets per second flooding observed from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022 in Azure. The tallest bar represents the maximum observed throughput of 58 million packets per second SSDP flooding, while the shortest bar represents below 10M packets per second CharGEN flooding.
Figure 5. Maximum pps recorded for a single attack observed from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022 

TCP reflected amplification attacks are becoming more prevalent, with new attack vectors discovered. We encounter these attacks on Azure resources utilizing diverse types of reflectors and attack vectors. 

One such example is a TCP reflected amplification attack of TCP SYN+ACK on an Azure resource in Asia. Attack reached 30 million pps and lasted 15 minutes. Attack throughput was not high, however there were approximately 900 reflectors involved, each with retransmissions, resulting in a high pps rate that can bring down the host and other network infrastructure elements. 

This line chart shows the TCP SYN+ACK amplification attack volume on a single resource as seen on Azure. The line chart shows a spike reaching 30 million packets per second with a 15 minute duration. The 15-minute window illustrates the packets per second volume going down in the middle of the 15-minute window, and tapers off abruptly at the end of the 15-minute window.
Figure 6. TCP SYN+ACK amplification attack volume on an Azure resource in Asia

We see many TCP SYN+ACK retransmissions associated with the reflector that doesn’t get the ACK response from the spoofed source. Here is an example of such a retransmission: 

This screenshot shows a TCP SYN+ACK retransmission that doesn't get the ACK response. The screenshot highlights the information from source to destination and through which protocol it passes.

The retransmitted packet was sent 60 seconds after the first. 

Mitigating amplification attacks in Azure 

Reflected amplification attacks are here to stay and pose a serious challenge for the internet community. They continue to evolve and exploit new vulnerabilities in protocols and software implementations to bypass conventional countermeasures. Amplification attacks require collaboration across the industry to minimize their effect. It is not enough to mitigate such attacks at a certain location, with a pinpoint mitigation strategy. It requires intertwining of network and DDoS mitigation capabilities. 

Azure’s network is one of the largest on the globe. We combine multiple DDoS strategies across our network and DDoS mitigation pipeline to combat reflected amplification DDOS attacks.  

On the network side, we continuously optimize and implement various traffic monitoring, traffic engineering and quality of service (QoS) techniques to block reflected amplification attacks right at the routing infrastructure. We implement these mechanisms at the edge and core of our wide area networks (WAN) network, as well as within the data centers. For inbound traffic (from the Internet), it allows us to mitigate attacks right at the edge of our network. Similarly, outbound attacks (those that originate from within our network) will be blocked right at the data center, without exhausting our WAN and leaving our network. 

On top of that, our dedicated DDoS mitigation pipeline continuously evolves to offer advanced mitigation techniques against such attacks. This mitigation pipeline offers another layer of protection, on top of our DDoS networking strategies. Together, these two protection layers provide comprehensive coverage against the largest and most sophisticated reflected amplification attacks.  

Since reflected amplification attacks are typically volumetric, it is not only enough to implement advanced mitigation strategies, but also to maintain a highly scalable mitigation pipeline to be able to cope with the largest attacks. Our mitigation pipeline can mitigate more than 60Tbps globally, and we continue to evolve it by adding mitigation capacity across all network layers.  

Different attack vectors require different treatment 

UDP-based reflected amplification attacks are tracked, monitored, detected, and mitigated for all attack vectors. There are various mitigation techniques to combat these attacks, including anomaly detection across attacked IP addresses, L4 protocols, and tracking of spoofed source IPs. Since UDP reflected amplification attacks often create fragmented packets, we monitor IP fragments to mitigate them successfully.  

TCP-based reflected amplification attacks take advantage of poor TCP stack implementations, and large set of reflectors and targets, to launch such attacks. We adopt our mitigation strategies to be able to detect and block attacks from attackers and reflectors. We employ a set of mitigations to address TCP SYN, TCP SYN+ACK, TCP ACK, and other TCP-based attacks. Mitigation combines TCP authentication mechanisms that identify spoofed packets, as well as anomaly detection to block attack traffic when data is appended to TCP packets to trigger amplification with reflectors.  

The diagram shows how Azure uses mechanisms to stop amplification attacks as soon as a packet leaves a reflector or an attacker. Azure stops spoofed attacks in the following areas: 1. Attacks coming from an attacker-controlled reflector or direct from the attacker that is located outside Azure-protected space, with the attacks going to a target virtual machine or a reflector located inside a Azure; 2. Attacks coming from an attacker located within the Azure-protected space, and the attack is going to the reflector device outside of Azure, or an attack going through a reflector device to target another virtual machine.
Figure 7. Amplification attack detection 

Get started with Azure DDoS Protection to protect against amplification attacks 

Azure’s DDoS mitigation platform mitigated the largest ever DDoS attacks in history by employing a globally distributed DDoS protection platform that scales beyond 60Tbps. We ensure our platform and customers’ workloads are always protected against DDoS attacks. To enhance our DDoS posture, we continuously collaborate with other industry players to fight reflected amplification attacks. 

Azure customers are protected against Layer 3 and Layer 4 DDoS attacks as part of protecting our infrastructure and cloud platform. However, Azure DDoS Protection Standard provides comprehensive protection for customers by auto-tuning the detection policy to the specific traffic patterns of the protected application. This ensures that whenever there are changes in traffic patterns, such as in the case of flash crowd event, the DDoS policy is automatically updated to reflect those changes for optimal protection. When a reflected amplification attack is launched against a protected application, our detection pipeline detects it automatically based on the auto-tuned policy. The mitigation policy, that is automatically set for customers, without their need to manually configure or change it, includes the needed countermeasures to block reflected amplification attacks. 

Protection is simple to enable on any new or existing virtual network and does not require any application or resource changes. Our recently released Azure built-in policies allow for better management of network security compliance by providing great ease of onboarding across all your virtual network resources and configuration of logs. 

To strengthen the security posture of applications, Azure’s network security services can work in tandem to secure your workloads, where DDoS protection is one of the tools we provide. Organizations that pursue zero trust architecture can benefit from our services to achieve better protection. 

Learn more about Azure DDoS Protection Standard 

Amir Dahan and Syed Pasha
Azure Networking Team

Source :
https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/05/23/anatomy-of-ddos-amplification-attacks/

Best Active Directory Management Tools

IT teams rely on Active Directory (AD) to keep networks secure and maintain user accounts — but they often need to adhere to strict budget limitations when it comes to selecting software to help. That’s why we’ve put together this list of the top free Active Directory management tools.

Our picks focus on AD tools that will help you complete routine AD management tasks much faster so your team has time to focus on other priorities. We’ve grouped these free Active Directory tools into three categories:

Active Directory Reporting, Monitoring and Auditing Tools

Microsoft Active Directory Explorer

Microsoft Active Directory Explorer is an advanced administration tool that makes it easy to search for, view and edit extended information about AD objects. It is similar to AD Users and Computers but has at least one key additional benefit — it allows you to view object properties and attributes without opening additional dialog boxes.

AD Explorer also enables you to save snapshots of an AD database for offline viewing and database version comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can work with it as you would use a live database.

Other features include:

  • Defining favorite locations
  • Editing permissions
  • Viewing an object’s scheme
  • Executing sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute

Handpicked related content:

Netwrix Auditor for Active Directory

Netwrix Auditor for Active Directory (free community edition) gives you visibility into what’s happening inside domains while eliminating the time-consuming tasks of analyzing endless native logs. Netwrix Auditor tracks logons and all changes to Active Directory users, groups, organizational units and Group Policy. It generates a daily activity summary that details all changes and logon activity that occurred during the previous 24 hours, including the before and after values for each modification.

Netwrix Account Lockout Examiner

Netwrix Account Lockout Examiner is well known as one of the best Active Directory tools for quickly resolving one of the most pressing issues with AD: account lockouts. It enables you to identify the root cause of lockouts in a single keystroke, slashing troubleshooting time by up to 90 percent. This lightweight and intuitive tool empowers you to investigate issues like why the same account repeatedly locks out without having to slog through a mountain of cryptic event logs — just enter the username and click a button.

Netwrix Effective Permissions Reporting Tool

Netwrix Effective Permissions Reporting Tool simplifies auditing of access permissions in Active Directory. You can view a user’s account group membership, the permissions the account has to every AD object and how those permissions are granted. It also shows file and folder effective permissions, so you can determine who has access to your data and how their access was gained. You can export this information to an HTML file.

Netwrix Bulk Password Reset

Netwrix Bulk Password Reset enables you to reset local admin and user passwords across multiple workstations at once, remotely, without actually logging into them. This functionality enhances Windows Server security.

Netwrix Inactive User Tracker

Netwrix Inactive User Tracker provides insight into stale Active Directory user accounts so you can disable or delete unneeded accounts before malicious actors can exploit them to gain access to resources and services on your network.

Netwrix Password Expiration Notifier

Netwrix Password Expiration Notifier automatically sends notifications about upcoming AD password expiration to users and their managers. This proactive approach enables you to remain in compliance with password security best practices without sacrificing user productivity or increasing helpdesk workload.

Cjwdev Active Directory Info

Cjwdev Active Directory Info is a free Active Directory reporting and analysis tool that enables you to review the configuration settings of AD objects. You can quickly generate CSV, HTML or TXT reports to gain insight into things like:

  • Locked accounts
  • Users who have never logged on
  • Users with the “password never expires” flag
  • Enabled and disabled users
  • Deleted groups
  • Computers deleted in the last 30 days
  • Group Policy objects modified in the last 30 days

Cjwdev Active Directory Permissions Reporter

Cjwdev Active Directory Permissions Reporter extracts all permissions for every object in your domain. Note that the free edition of Cjwdev AD Permissions Reporter does not support the command line and you cannot filter or export results.

ENow Compass

ENow Compass provides real-time network monitoring to help you identify issues that could evolve into bigger problems. ENow Compass is a powerful toolset, but the company does not offer a free version. Users can start with a 14-day free trial with registration.

MaxPowerSoft Active Directory Reports Lite

MaxPowerSoft Active Directory Reports Lite allows you to load up to 200 objects from Active Directory and generate auditing reports on users, groups, organizational units, computers and GPOs. The paid version of grants access to more reports and many more features.

Active Directory FastReporter

Active Directory FastReporter generates a variety of predefined reports on your AD infrastructure. The free version doesn’t allow you to create custom reports, export reports or use automation features.

LDAPSoft Active Directory Browser

LDAPSoft Active Directory Browser simplifies SSL communication and streamlines the process of browsing your AD hierarchy. You can search for entries, view all available attributes and run SQL-LDAP statements.

Softerra Browser for LDAP

Softerra Browser for LDAP is a lightweight tool that allows you to view, browse, search and export information from LDAP. It is free to use for 30 days — you’ll need to register a paid account to use it past this point.

WiseSoft Password Control

WiseSoft Password Control can reset user passwords in bulk, which saves time and effort when managing service account passwords. It also includes the ability to make other bulk changes, such as enabling and disabling user accounts, group membership functions, descriptions and departments.Handpicked related content:

Active Directory Management Tools

Albus Bit Active Directory Administrator

Albus Bit Active Directory Administrator enables you to manage user and computer accounts across your Active Directory domain from a single interface. You can use the  built-in search templates or create your own, and use the results to disable inactive accounts, move accounts to different organizational units or remove users from groups.

CjWdev Active Directory Tidy

CjWdev Active Directory Tidy allows you to easily manage your AD accounts in bulk. For example, you can add multiple accounts to a specific security group, or set random passwords or a particular expiry date for a set of accounts.

The tool’s filtering functionality makes it easy to clean up your AD. For example, you can filter by last login date to find all inactive user and computer accounts to determine whether you should remove them from your domain. The paid version of this tool also enables you to export AD settings to XML.

Spiceworks People View

Spiceworks People View allows you to view and update AD user account properties, such as email, phone number, title and department. You can also add devices to user profiles to monitor installed software programs and update it when needed. You can also reset passwords and enable or disable user accounts. The tool also offers self-administered password and user profile management on a self-service web portal, and real-time status monitoring of all your devices.

Spiceworks offers other useful tools. For example, Network Monitor performs real-time status monitoring of all your devices.

Microsoft AdRestore

Microsoft AdRestore is a single-task tool that enumerates all tombstoned objects in your AD domain and enables you to restore them individually as needed.

Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell is undoubtedly the most powerful Active Directory tool. However, it can be challenging to use because it lacks a graphical interface. To accomplish your tasks, you’ll need to use cmdlets and scripts like the following:

  • Disable a user account: Disable-ADAccount username
  • Enable a user account: Enable-ADAccount username
  • Unlock a user account: Unlock-ADAccount username
  • Delete a user account: Remove-ADUser username
  • Find all empty groups: Get-adgroup -filter * | where {-Not ($_ | get-adgroupmember)} | Select Name
  • Add a member to a group: Add-adgroupmember “groupname” –username
  • Enumerate the members of a group: Get-ADGroupMember “groupname”
  • See what groups a user account is a member of: Get-aduser username -property Memberof | Select -ExpandProperty memberOf
  • Disable a computer account: Disable-ADAccount -Identity “computername”
  • Find computers by type: Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties OperatingSystem | Select OperatingSystem -unique | Sort OperatingSystem
  • Create an organizational unit: New-ADOrganizationalUnit -Name OUname -Path “dc=domainname,dc=com”
  • Create a computer account: New-ADComputer -Name username -Path “ou=OUname,dc=DCname,dc=com”
  • Create a user account: New-ADUser -Name username -Path “ou=OUname,dc=DCname,dc=com”

Adaxes

Adaxes streamlines routine management functions in Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft 365 environments. You can use it to delegate privileges, control authorizations and stay in compliance with data mandates. Softerra offers a 30-day free trial.

CENTREL Solutions XIA Automation

CENTREL Solutions XIA Automation helps you automate IT management tasks, such as account provisioning, user management and password changes. It includes time-saving features like bulk provisioning of accounts from CSV to AD, Exchange, Google or Office 365.

Dameware Remote Everywhere

Dameware Remote Everywhere is a pricey commercial-grade tool at $540 (and up), but it is notable for its powerful functionality — especially for enterprise-level network needs.

“Remote Everywhere” refers to the tool’s cloud-based solutions. Users enjoy safe, remote support with advanced encryption and multifactor authentication, essential endpoint support for any computer or device, and a reporting engine that can handle virtually any reporting task. New users can get a fully functional version of Dameware Remote Everywhere for 14 days.

Active Directory Utility Tools

Microsoft Active Directory Replication Status (ADREPLSTATUS) Tool

Microsoft ADREPLSTATUS Tool is a single-purpose tool that helps you analyze the replication of domain controllers in your network.

Cjwdev Group Manager

Cjwdev Group Manager allows the manager of a group to manage roles and settings for the group, including adding and removing other users and exporting group members to a CSV file. The free edition enables you to manage only a single group, and you cannot or add new members from other domains.

Cjwdev Active Directory Photo Edit

Cjwdev Active Directory Photo Edit enables you to import and upload images to an AD attribute that can be displayed in Outlook 2010, Lync and SharePoint. The free edition can’t process pictures for users and contacts in bulk, but the paid version offers this feature.

Cjwdev Managed Service Accounts GUI

Cjwdev Managed Service Accounts GUI helps you configure managed service accounts using an intuitive GUI that eliminates the need for PowerShell commands.

Specops Password Auditor

Specops Password Auditor scans your Active Directory and identifies password-related vulnerabilities so you can reduce your attack surface and maintain compliance.

Specops Software Gpupdate

Specops Software Gpupdate enables remote administration of computers and organizational units. For example, you can refresh Group Policy or wake up, shut down or restart a PC remotely.

Specops Command

Specops Command is a PowerShell and VBScript interface that helps you automate many Active Directory administrative tasks.

Zohno Z-Hire and Z-Term

Zohno Z-Hire and Z-Term are single-task tools. Z-Hire speeds the user account creation process for new hires, while Z-Term helps with account removal when an employee leaves the organization.

SysOpsTools Active Directory Query

SysOpsTools Active Directory Query is a free executable tool — no installation required — that can be used to quickly search AD for information about a specific user or computer, including schema attributes that are normally not readable.

RIA-Media SysAdmin and SysAdmin Anywhere 

RIA-Media SysAdmin and RIA-Media SysAdmin Anywhere are helpful for facilitating a long list of activities:

  • Resetting user passwords
  • Adding, editing and deleting AD objects
  • Adding photos
  • Shutting down and restarting computers remotely
  • Checking for updates
  • Monitoring hardware and computers

SysAdmin and SysAdmin Anywhere both offer a free trial.

Codeplex ADModify.NET

Codeplex ADModify.NET is a single-use tool that allows you to modify multiple user attributes at once.

WiseSoft Bulk Password Control

WiseSoft Bulk Password Control enables you to change passwords on multiple accounts at the same time using the tool’s password generator feature. You can also enable, disable and unlock AD accounts in bulk.

Conclusion

With so many options to choose from, it can be challenging to find the right mix of AD management tools for your needs. The most effective way to make that choice is to install different tools and try them out in your AD environment. This will give you insight into how well they will work for your specific needs and preferences.

Source :
https://blog.netwrix.com/2021/03/10/active-directory-tools/

Get the most out of Windows Server with these 5 best practices

We’ve invested in Windows Server for nearly 30 years, and we continue to find new ways to empower businesses who trust Windows Server as the operating system for their workloads. Over this time, we understand that business requirements have become more complex and demanding. Thus, we are energized when we hear how customers continue to trust Windows Server to navigate these ever-evolving requirements and run business and mission-critical workloads.

We want to continue to invest in your organizations’ success and enable you to get the most out of Windows Server by keeping you informed of the latest product announcements, news, and overall best practices. Here are the top five to-do’s for you to make the most out of Windows Server:

1. Patch and install security updates without rebooting with Hotpatch

Hotpatch is now generally available. As part of Azure Automanage for Windows Server, this capability allows you to keep your Windows Server virtual machines on Azure up-to-date without rebooting, enabling higher availability with faster and more secure delivery of updates. Other capabilities that are part of Azure Automanage for Windows Server include SMB over QUIC, as well as extended network for Azure, which lets you keep your on-premises IP addresses when you migrate to Azure. Learn more about why Azure is the best destination for Windows Server.

2. Take the recently available Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Certification

Invest in your career and skills with this brand-new Windows Server certification. With this certification, you can keep the Windows Server knowledge you have built your career on and learn how to apply it in the current state of hybrid cloud computing. Earn this certification for managing, monitoring, and securing applications on-premises, in Azure, and at the edge. Learn more about Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate certification today.

3. Upgrade to Windows Server 2022

With Windows Server 2022, get the latest innovation for you to continue running your workloads securely, enable new hybrid cloud scenarios, and modernize applications to meet your ever-evolving business requirements. Learn more about investing in your success with Windows Server.

4. Protect your workloads by taking advantage of free extended security updates (ESUs) in Azure

While many customers have adopted Windows Server 2022, we also understand that some need more time to modernize as support for older versions of Windows Server will eventually end.

  • For Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 customers, the end of support date is October 10, 2023. 
  • For Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 customers, the third year of extended security updates are coming to an end on January 10, 2023. Customers can get an additional fourth year of free extended security updates (ESUs-only) on Azure (including Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, and other Azure products). With this, customers will have until January 9, 2024 for Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 to upgrade to a supported release.

We are committed to supporting you as you start planning for end of support if you are running workloads on older versions of Windows Server. Learn more about end of support deadlines for Windows Server 2008/R2 and 2012/R2 and your options.

5. Combine extended security updates with Azure Hybrid Benefit to save even more

In addition to all the innovative Windows Server capabilities available only on Azure, it also has offers for you to start migrating your workloads with Azure Hybrid Benefit. It is a licensing benefit that allows you to save even more by using existing Windows Server licenses on Azure. Learn more about how much you can save with Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Ask questions and engage in our community

Get started implementing these Windows Server best practices today! Join the conversation by sharing stories or questions you have here:  

System Center 2022 is now generally available

Datacenters are a core part of any IT infrastructure for businesses that run mission-critical workloads. However, with components across compute, networking, and storage, as well as the advancement in cloud technologies, the management of your datacenter environment can quickly become complex. Ever since its release in 2008, Microsoft System Center has been the solution that simplifies datacenter management across your IT environments.

Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of System Center 2022, which includes System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), System Center Orchestrator (SCORCH), Service Manager (SM), and Data Protection Manager (DPM). With this release, we are continuing to bring new capabilities for best-in-class datacenter management across diverse IT environments that could be comprised of Windows Server, Azure Stack HCI, or VMWare deployments. We have been energized to hear of organizations such as Olympia, Schaeffler, and Entain who have validated the capabilities of System Center 2022 during the preview. Now, let us dive into what is new with System Center 2022.

Why upgrade to System Center 2022

Best-in-class datacenter management

Your IT environments are ever-evolving to have applications running on a diverse set of hardware. Your workforce is spread across multiple locations and remote management is the new normal. System Center 2022 focuses on simplifying collaboration and providing consistent control for all your environments.

Enhanced access control capabilities in SCOM facilitate simpler management of permissions on the monitoring data and alert actions. A critical piece toward adoption of DevOps practices, empowering the users with the right level of control. The integration with Microsoft Teams and management of alert closures reduce the circle time between the application owners and the SCOM administrator. The developers can get notified about alerts for their applications on the Teams channels.

Additionally, to meet the needs of growing environments, you can now assign both IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses to the software-defined networking (SDN) deployments with VMM. Performance and technology optimizations to the data protection manager mean you get more control and speed on the backups and restores.

Overall, this release gives you more control in managing the environment and working with the DevOps teams.

Flexible infrastructure platform

Datacenters are becoming more heterogeneous, with multiple host platforms and hypervisors, Windows/Linux, VMware, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI). System Center 2022 enables the unification of management practices for the datacenter, irrespective of the platform in use.

System Center 2022 is the best toolset to manage your Windows Server 2022 and SQL Server infrastructure. This includes using Windows Server 2022 for the management infrastructure and managing the Windows Server 2022 based environment. In addition to a comprehensive management experience for Windows Server 2022 workloads, this release of System Center adds support for managing Azure Stack HCI 21H2, VMware 7.0 hosts, and the latest Linux distros. You can create, configure, and register HCI 21H2 clusters, control virtual machines on the HCI clusters, set up SDN controllers, and manage storage pools from VMM. There are new management packs in SCOM for monitoring the Azure Stack HCI clusters. To protect the virtual machines on Stack HCI clusters, Microsoft Azure Backup Server can now be used.

Hybrid management with Azure

Efficiently managing IT resources that are sprawled across various locations without slowing down developer innovation is a key challenge that IT leaders face today. Azure Arc enables you to seamlessly govern, manage, and secure Windows and Linux servers, Kubernetes clusters, and applications across on-premises, multiple clouds, and the edge from a single control plane.

We will be bringing hybrid capabilities with System Center 2022 to standardize management and governance across on-premises and cloud environments while reusing your existing investments in System Center.

Stay tuned for more on these exciting capabilities!

Get started with System Center 2022

Europe Agrees to Adopt New NIS2 Directive Aimed at Hardening Cybersecurity

The European Parliament announced a “provisional agreement” aimed at improving cybersecurity and resilience of both public and private sector entities in the European Union.

The revised directive, called “NIS2” (short for network and information systems), is expected to replace the existing legislation on cybersecurity that was established in July 2016.

The revamp sets ground rules, requiring companies in energy, transport, financial markets, health, and digital infrastructure sectors to adhere to risk management measures and reporting obligations.

Among the provisions in the new legislation are flagging cybersecurity incidents to authorities within 24 hours, patching software vulnerabilities, and readying risk management measures to secure networks, failing which can incur monetary penalties.

“The directive will formally establish the European Cyber Crises Liaison Organization Network, EU-CyCLONe, which will support the coordinated management of large-scale cybersecurity incidents,” the Council of the European Union said in a statement last week.

The development closely follows the European Commission’s plans to “detect, report, block, and remove” child sexual abuse images and videos from online service providers, including messaging apps, prompting concerns that it may undermine end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protections.

The draft version of NIS2 explicitly spells out that the use of E2EE “should be reconciled with the Member States’ powers to ensure the protection of their essential security interests and public security, and to permit the investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offenses in compliance with Union law.”

It also stressed that “Solutions for lawful access to information in end-to-end encrypted communications should maintain the effectiveness of encryption in protecting privacy and security of communications, while providing an effective response to crime.”

That said, the directive will not apply to organizations in verticals such as defense, national security, public security, law enforcement, judiciary, parliaments, and central banks.

As part of the proposed agreement, the European Union member states are mandated to incorporate the provisions into their national law within a period of 21 months from when the directive goes into force.

“The number, magnitude, sophistication, frequency and impact of cybersecurity incidents are increasing, and present a major threat to the functioning of network and information systems,” the Council noted in the draft.

“Cybersecurity preparedness and effectiveness are therefore now more essential than ever to the proper functioning of the internal market.”

Source :
https://thehackernews.com/2022/05/europe-agrees-to-adopt-new-nis2.html

This World Password Day consider ditching passwords altogether

Did you know that May 5, 2022, is World Password Day?1 Created by cybersecurity professionals in 2013 and designated as the first Thursday every May, World Password Day is meant to foster good password habits that help keep our online lives secure. It might seem strange to have a day set aside to honor something almost no one wants to deal with—like having a holiday for filing your income taxes (actually, that might be a good idea). But in today’s world of online work, school, shopping, healthcare, and almost everything else, keeping our accounts secure is more important than ever. Passwords are not only hard to remember and keep track of, but they’re also one of the most common entry points for attackers. In fact, there are 921 password attacks every second—nearly doubling in frequency over the past 12 months.2

But what if you didn’t have to deal with passwords at all? Last fall, we announced that anyone can completely remove the password from their Microsoft account. If you’re like me and happy to ditch passwords completely, read on to learn how Microsoft is making it possible to start enjoying a passwordless life today. Still, we know not everyone is ready to say goodbye to passwords, and it’s not possible for all your online accounts. We’ll also go over some easy ways to improve your password hygiene, as well as share some exciting news from our collaboration with the FIDO Alliance about a new way to sign in without a password.  

Free yourself with passwordless sign-in

Yes, you can now enjoy secure access to your Microsoft account without a password. By using the Microsoft Authenticator app, Windows Hello, a security key, or a verification code sent to your phone or email, you can go passwordless with any of your Microsoft apps and services. Just follow these five steps:

  1. Download and install Microsoft Authenticator (linked to your personal Microsoft account).
  2. Sign in to your Microsoft account.
  3. Choose Security. Under Advanced security options, you’ll see Passwordless account in the section titled Additional security.
  4. Select Turn on.
  5. Approve the notification from Authenticator.
User interface of Microsoft Authenticator app providing instructions on how to turn on passwordless account option.
Notification from Microsoft Authenticator app confirming user's password has been removed.

Once you approve the notification, you’ll no longer need a password to access your Microsoft accounts. If you decide you prefer using a password, you can always go back and turn off the passwordless feature. Here at Microsoft, nearly 100 percent of our employees use passwordless options to log into their corporate accounts.

Strengthen security with multifactor authentication

One simple step we can all take to protect our accounts today is adding multifactor authentication, which blocks 99.9 percent of account compromise attacks. The Microsoft Authenticator app is free and provides multiple options for authentication, including time-based one-time passcodes (TOTP), push notifications, and passwordless sign-in—all of which work for any site that supports multifactor authentication. Authenticator is available for Android and iOS and gives you the option to turn two-step verification on or off. For your Microsoft Account, multifactor authentication is usually only needed the first time you sign in or after changing your password. Once your device is recognized, you’ll just need your primary sign-in.

Microsoft Authenticator screen showing different accounts, including: Microsoft, Contoso Corporation, and Facebook.

Make sure your password isn’t the weak link

Rather than keeping attackers out, weak passwords often provide a way in. Using and reusing simple passwords across different accounts might make our online life easier, but it also leaves the door open. Attackers regularly scroll social media accounts looking for birthdates, vacation spots, pet names and other personal information they know people use to create easy-to-remember passwords. A recent study found that 68 percent of people use the same password for different accounts.3 For example, once a password and email combination has been compromised, it’s often sold on the dark web for use in additional attacks. As my friend Bret Arsenault, our Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) here at Microsoft, likes to say, “Hackers don’t break in, they log in.”

Some basics to remember—make sure your password is:

  • At least 12 characters long.
  • A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.
  • Not a word that can be found in a dictionary, or the name of a person, product, or organization.
  • Completely different from your previous passwords.
  • Changed immediately if you suspect it may have been compromised.

Tip: Consider using a password manager. Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Authenticator can create (and remember) strong passwords using Password Generator, and then automatically fill them in when accessing your accounts. Also, keep these other tips in mind:

  • Only share personal information in real-time—in person or by phone. (Be careful on social media.)
  • Be skeptical of messages with links, especially those asking for personal information.
  • Be on guard against messages with attached files, even from people or organizations you trust.
  • Enable the lock feature on all your mobile devices (fingerprint, PIN, or facial recognition).
  • Ensure all the apps on your device are legitimate (only from your device’s official app store).
  • Keep your browser updated, browse in incognito mode, and enable Pop-Up Blocker.
  • Use Windows 11 and turn on Tamper Protection to protect your security settings.

Tip: When answering security questions, provide an unrelated answer. For example, Q: “Where were you born?” A: “Green.” This helps throw off attackers who might use information skimmed from your social media accounts to hack your passwords. (Just be sure the unrelated answers are something you’ll remember.)

Passwordless authentication is becoming commonplace

As part of a historic collaboration, the FIDO Alliance, Microsoft, Apple, and Google have announced plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard. Commonly referred to as passkeys, these multi-device FIDO credentials offer users a platform-native way to safely and quickly sign in to any of their devices without a password. Virtually unable to be phished and available across all your devices, a passkey lets you sign in simply by authenticating with your face, fingerprint, or device PIN.

In addition to a consistent user experience and enhanced security, these new credentials offer two other compelling benefits:

  1. Users can automatically access their passkeys on many of their devices without having to re-enroll for each account. Simply authenticate with your platform on your new device and your passkeys will be there ready to use—protecting you against device loss and simplifying device upgrade scenarios.
  2. With passkeys on your mobile device, you’re able to sign in to an app or service on nearly any device, regardless of the platform or browser the device is running. For example, users can sign in on a Google Chrome browser that’s running on Microsoft Windows, using a passkey on an Apple device.

These new capabilities are expected to become available across Microsoft, Apple, and Google platforms starting in the next year. This type of Web Authentication (WebAuthn) credential represents a new era of authentication, and we’re thrilled to join the FIDO Alliance and others in the industry in supporting a common standard for a safe, consistent authentication experience. Learn more about this open-standards collaboration and exciting passwordless capabilities coming for Microsoft Azure Active Directory in a blog post from Alex Simons, Vice President, Identity Program Management.

Helping you stay secure year-round

Read more about Microsoft’s journey to provide passwordless authentication in a blog post by Joy Chik, Corporate Vice President of Identity. You can also read the complete guide to setting up your passwordless account with Microsoft, including FAQs and download links. And be sure to visit Security Insider for interviews with cybersecurity thought leaders, news on the latest cyberthreats, and lots more.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

Source :
https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/05/05/this-world-password-day-consider-ditching-passwords-altogether/

Cloudflare Thwarts Record DDoS Attack Peaking at 15 Million Requests Per Second

Cloudflare on Wednesday disclosed that it acted to mitigate a 15.3 million request-per-second (RPS) distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The web infrastructure and website security company called it one of the “largest HTTPS DDoS attacks on record.”

“HTTPS DDoS attacks are more expensive in terms of required computational resources because of the higher cost of establishing a secure TLS encrypted connection,” Cloudflare’s Omer Yoachimik and Julien Desgats said. “Therefore it costs the attacker more to launch the attack, and for the victim to mitigate it.”

The volumetric DDoS attack is said to have lasted less than 15 seconds and targeted an unnamed Cloudflare customer operating a crypto launchpad.

Volumetric DDoS attacks are designed to overwhelm a target network/service with significantly high volumes of malicious traffic, which typically originate from a botnet under a threat actor’s control.

distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack

Cloudflare said the latest attack was launched from a botnet consisting of roughly 6,000 unique compromised devices, with 15% of the attack traffic emanating from Indonesia, followed by Russia, Brazil, India, Colombia, and the U.S.

“What’s interesting is that the attack mostly came from data centers,” Yoachimik and Desgats noted. “We’re seeing a big move from residential network Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to cloud compute ISPs.”

Record-setting DDoS attacks have become increasingly common in recent months. In August 2021, Cloudflare disclosed what it characterized as the largest application-layer attack ever seen, and, earlier this year, Microsoft revealed that it had prevented multiple DDoS attacks that crossed 2.4 terabits per second (Tbps).

In addition, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky revealed this week that the number of DDoS attacks hit an all-time high in the first quarter of 2022, jumping 4.5 times year-over-year, largely driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The DDoS attack landscape in Q1 was strongly influenced by the geopolitical situation: since the end of February, we have seen a surge in hacktivist activity and the emergence of a large number of spontaneous botnets that users connected to voluntarily,” the Russian company said.

Source :
https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/cloudflare-thwarts-record-ddos-attack.html

Microsoft Azure Vulnerability Exposes PostgreSQL Databases to Other Customers

Microsoft on Thursday disclosed that it addressed a pair of issues with the Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server that could result in unauthorized cross-account database access in a region.

“By exploiting an elevated permissions bug in the Flexible Server authentication process for a replication user, a malicious user could leverage an improperly anchored regular expression to bypass authentication to gain access to other customers’ databases,” Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) said.

New York City-based cloud security company Wiz, which uncovered the flaws, dubbed the exploit chain “ExtraReplica.” Microsoft said it mitigated the bug within 48 hours of disclosure on January 13, 2022.

Specifically, it relates to a case of privilege escalation in the Azure PostgreSQL engine to gain code execution and a cross-account authentication bypass by means of a forged certificate, allowing an attacker to create a database in the target’s Azure region and exfiltrate sensitive information.

In other words, successful exploitation of the critical flaws could have enabled an adversary to gain unauthorized read access to other customers’ PostgreSQL databases, effectively circumventing tenant isolation.

Wiz traced the privilege escalation to a bug stemming as a result of modifications introduced in the PostgreSQL engine to harden its privilege model and add new features. The name ExtraReplica comes from the fact that the exploit leverages a PostgreSQL feature that permits copying database data from one server to another, i.e., “replicating” the database.

The Windows maker described the security vulnerability as affecting PostgreSQL Flexible Server instances deployed using the public access networking option, but stressed that it did not find evidence of the flaw being actively exploited and that no customer data was accessed.

“No action is required by customers,” MSRC said. “In order to further minimize exposure, we recommend that customers enable private network access when setting up their Flexible Server instances.”

Source :
https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/microsoft-azure-vulnerability-exposes.html

Connect Windows Admin Center to Azure

In this post we will be going through connecting Windows Admin Center to Azure to allow management of Azure VM’s. To install WAC see previous post.

The Azure integration allows the management of Azure and on-prem servers from a single console.

First step is to register WAC with Azure, Open the WAC admin console and go to settings tab. AZ1

Go to the Azure in the  gateway settingsAZ2Copy the code and click on the enter code hyperlink and enter the codeAZ3AZ4

Sign-in using an admin account on the Azure tenant. AZ5AZ6

Now go back to WAC and click connect to finish the registration AZ7

Once WAC is registered it require admin application permission to be granted to the application registration in Azure AZ8

Now that the registration is completed we can now add Azure VM’s to WAC go to add and select Azure VMAZ9

Select the subscription (if there are multiple subscription in your tenant),  resource group  and VM that will be added. AZ10

Once the Azure VM is added, to allow management there will need to be management ports opened to allow a connection between WAC and the Azure VM. If you are using a site to site VPN you can just allow the ports over the VPN connection.

I have a public IP associated with my VM and I will be modifying my network security group to allow the ports from my public IP.

I wont be going through configuring an NSG as this was covered in a previous post. AZ15

On the VM itself you need to enable winrm and allow port 5985 through the windows firewall if enabled. This can be done by running the two command below from an admin PowerShell session.

winrm quickconfig
Set-NetFirewallRule -Name WINRM-HTTP-In-TCP-PUBLIC -RemoteAddress Any

Once the NSG is configured we should then be able to connect to the VM. AZ12

Below shows the overview of the VMAZ14We can also now connect to the VM using integrated RDP console in WACAZ13

WAC also allows us to manage services, scheduled tasks, backups, check event logs and other admin task, along with connecting using remote PowerShell directly from WAC.AZ16

Source :
https://thesleepyadmins.com/2020/05/23/connect-windows-admin-center-to-azure/