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7 Best Firewall Solutions for Enterprises in 2023

BY AMINU ABDULLAHI MAY 26, 2023

Enterprise firewall software is an essential component of network security infrastructure for organizations. These firewalls are designed to provide high availability and scalability to meet the needs of large and complex networks because they can handle high traffic volumes and accommodate the growth of network infrastructure.

By exploring the following top firewall solutions, enterprises can make an informed decision to fortify their network defenses and safeguard critical assets from ever-evolving cyber threats.

Palo Alto Networks: Best all-in-one enterprise firewall solution (Read more)
Check Point Quantum: Best for connected devices (Read more)
Fortinet FortiGate: Best for flexibility and scalability (Read more)
Juniper Networks: Best for logging and reporting (Read more)
Cisco Secure Firewall: Best for centralized management (Read more)
Zscaler: Best for businesses with cloud network infrastructure (Read more)
pfSense: Best open source firewall (Read more)

Best firewall solutions for enterprises: Comparison chart

	Best for	DLP capability	URL filtering	Reporting	Integration with third party solution	DNS filtering	Starting price
Palo Alto Networks	Overall	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Available on request
Check Point Quantum	Connected devices	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Available on request
Fortinet FortiGate	Flexibility and scalability	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Available on request
Juniper Networks	Logging and reporting capability	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Available on request
Cisco Secure Firewall	Centralized management	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Available on request
Zscaler	Businesses with cloud network infrastructure	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	$72 per user per year
pfSense	Open source	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	$0.01 per hour

Jump to:

Palo Alto Networks

Best overall enterprise firewall

Palo Alto is a leading network security provider of advanced firewall solutions and a wide range of network security services.

The company offers various firewall solutions for various enterprise use cases, including cloud next generation firewalls, virtual machine series for public and private clouds, container series for Kubernetes and container engines like Docker, and its PA-series appliances designed for data centers, network edge, service providers, remote branches and retail locations, and harsh industrial sites.

These firewalls provide enhanced visibility, control, and threat prevention capabilities to protect networks from various cyber threats, including malware, viruses, intrusions, and advanced persistent threats (APTs).

Pricing

Palo Alto doesn’t advertise its product pricing on its website. Our research found that the Palo Alto PA-series price range from $2,900 to $200,000 (more or less). To get the actual rates for your enterprise, contact the company’s sales team for custom quotes.

Standout features

Advanced threat prevention.
Advanced URL filtering.
Domain name service (DNS) security.
Medical IoT security.
Enterprise data loss prevention (DLP).
Up to 245 million IPv4 OR IPv6 sessions.

Pros

Provides visibility across IoT and other connected devices.
Provides visibility across physical, virtualized, containerized and cloud environments.
Offers a variety of products for different business sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises.
Easy-to-navigate dashboard and management console.

Cons

Complex initial setup.
Some users reported that the Palo Alto license is pricey.

Check Point Quantum

Best for connected devices

Check Point is an Israeli multinational company that develops and sells software and hardware products related to network, endpoint, cloud, and data security.

Check Point Quantum is designed to protect against advanced cyber threats, targeting Gen V cyber attacks. This solution encompasses various components to safeguard networks, cloud environments, data centers, IoT devices, and remote users.

Check Point’s SandBlast technology employs advanced threat intelligence, sandboxing, and real-time threat emulation to detect and prevent sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats.

Pricing

Check Point does not publicly post pricing information on its website. Data from resellers shows that Check Point products can range from around $62 for a basic solution to over $50,000 for an enterprise-level solution. Contact the Check Point sales team for your actual quotes.

Standout features

URL filtering.
DLP.
Full active-active redundancy.
Zero-trust protection for IoT devices.
Check Point Quantum protects against GenV attacks.
Advanced threat protection.

Pros

24/7 customer service and support.
Easy to setup and use.
Management platform with automation features.
Sandblast protection for testing malware.

Cons

Users reported that the Check Point firewall is expensive.
Documentation can be improved.

Fortinet FortiGate

Best for flexibility and scalability

Fortinet offers various firewall products for different organization sizes, from home offices to large enterprises.

The FortiGate 7000 series (FG-7121F, FG-7081F, FG-7081F-2, FIM-7921F, FIM-7941F, and FPM-7620F) is an enterprise firewall product that provides high-performance network security. It is designed for organizations with high network traffic volumes and that have to manage large network infrastructures.

This firewall series is powered by a Security Processing Unit (SPU) of up to 520Gbps and also includes the latest NP7 (Network Processor 7) and CP9 (Content Processor 9).

Pricing

Fortinet’s FortiGate firewall tool pricing is available upon request. Pricing will depend on various factors, including the size of the network, the number of users, and the types of security features needed. Contact a Fortinet representative for pricing and product information.

Standout features

Protects IT, IIoT, and OT devices against vulnerability and device-based attack tactics.
FortiGate 7000F series provides NGFW, segmentation, secure SD-WAN, and mobile security for 4G, 5G, and IoT.
Offers various types of firewalls, including container firewalls, virtual firewalls and hardware firewall appliances.
Zero Touch Integration with Fortinet’s Security Fabric Single Pane of Glass Management.

Pros

Integrations with over 500 third-party services.
AI-powered capabilities.
Users reported that the tool is user-friendly.

Cons

Support can be improved.
Its reporting feature can be improved.

Juniper Networks

Best for logging and reporting capability

Juniper Networks’ firewall helps enterprises protect their network edge, data center, and cloud applications.

The company is also known for its Junos operating system (OS), a scalable network OS that powers Juniper Networks devices. Junos provides advanced routing, switching, and security capabilities and allows for seamless integration with third-party software and applications.

Juniper Networks vSRX virtual firewall provides enhanced security for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud environments, while its cSRX Container Firewall offers advanced security services to secure applications running in containers and microservices. The company’s SRX firewalls series is designed for various organization sizes, from small to large enterprises.

Pricing

Juniper Network pricing is available on request. However, they offer different license methods, including Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) and Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) options for public clouds. Contact the company’s sales team for custom quotes.

Standout features

Juniper Network has various types of firewalls, including container firewalls, virtual firewalls and hardware firewall appliances.
Public cloud workload protection, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Logging and reporting capability.
Supports VMware ESXi, NSX, and KVM (Centos, Ubuntu).

Pros

Advanced threat prevention capability.
Deployable on-premises and cloud environments.

Cons

Support can be improved.
Users report that some Juniper Networks firewall products are expensive.

Cisco Secure Firewall

Best for centralized management

Cisco Secure Firewall combines firewall capabilities with advanced security features to protect networks from various threats, including unauthorized access, malware, and data breaches.

Cisco Secure Firewall integrates with Cisco Talos, a threat intelligence research team. This collaboration enables the firewall to receive real-time threat intelligence updates, enhancing its ability to identify and block emerging threats.

Cisco Secure Firewall can be centrally managed through Cisco Firepower Management Center (FMC). This management console provides a unified interface for configuration, monitoring, and reporting, simplifying the administration of multiple firewalls across the network.

Pricing

Contact Cisco’s sales team for custom quotes.

Standout features

IPS to protect against known threats.
Web filtering.
Network segmentation.
Centralized management.

Pros

Provides comprehensive visibility and control.
Efficient support team.
Highly scalable tool.

Cons

Support can be improved.
Complex initial setup.

Zscaler

Best for businesses with cloud network infrastructure

The Zscaler firewall provides cloud-based security for web and non-web traffic for all users and devices. Zscaler inspects all user traffic, including SSL encrypted traffic, with elastically scaling services to handle high volumes of long-lived connections.

One of the key advantages of Zscaler’s cloud-based approach is that it eliminates the need for on-premises hardware or software installations. Instead, organizations can leverage Zscaler’s infrastructure and services by redirecting their internet traffic to the Zscaler cloud. This makes scaling and managing security easier across distributed networks and remote users.

Pricing

Zscaler doesn’t advertise its rates on its website. However, data from resellers shows that its pricing starts from about $72 per user per year. For your actual rate, contact the Zscaler sales team for quotes.

Standout features

Centralized policy management.
Fully-integrated security services.
Real-time granular control, logging, and visibility.
User-aware and app-aware threat protection.
Adaptive IPS security and control.
File transfer protocol (FTP) control and network address translation (NAT) support.

Pros

Easy to use and manage.
AI-powered cyberthreat and data protection services.
Always-on cloud intrusion prevention system (IPS).
AI-powered phishing and C2 detection.

Cons

Complex initial setup.
Documentation can be improved.

pfSense

Best open-source firewall

pfSense is an open-source firewall and routing platform based on FreeBSD, an open-source Unix-like OS. It is designed to provide advanced networking and security features for small and large networks.

pfSense can be deployed as a physical appliance or as a virtual machine. pfSense offers many capabilities, including firewalling, VPN connectivity, traffic shaping, load balancing, DNS and DHCP services, and more.

Pricing

For pfSense cloud:

pfSense on AWS: Pricing starts from $0.01 per hour to $0.40 per hour.
pfSense on Azure: Pricing starts from $0.08 per hour to $0.24 per hour.

For pfSense software:

pfSense CE: Open source version available to download for free.
pfSense+ Home or Lab: Available at no cost for evaluation purposes only.
pfSense+ W/TAC LITE: Currently available at no charge, but the vendor may increase the rate to $129 per year in the future.
pfSense+ W/TAC PRO: $399 per year.
pfSense+ W/TAC ENT: $799 per year.

pfSense offers three hardware appliances tailored to the needs of large enterprises.

Netgate 8200: Cost $1,395. It has 18.55 Gbps IPERF3 and 5.1 Gbps IMIX traffic speed.
Netgate 1537: Cost $2,199. It has 18.62 Gbps(10k ACLs) IPERF3 and 10.24 Gbps (10k ACLs) IMIX traffic speed.
Netgate 1541: Cost $2,899. It has 18.64 Gbps(10k ACLs) IPERF3 and 12.30 Gbps(10k ACLs) IMIX traffic speed.

Standout features

NAT mapping (inbound/outbound).
Captive portal guest network.
Stateful packet inspection (SPI).

Pros

Free open-source version.
Community support.
Anti-spoofing capability.

Cons

Steep learning curve for administrators with limited experience.
GUI is old-fashioned and could be simplified.

Key features of enterprise firewall software

There’s a wide variety of capabilities that enterprise firewall software can provide, but some of the key features to look for include packet filtering, stateful inspection, application awareness, logging and reporting capabilities, and integration with your existing security ecosystem.

Packet filtering

Firewall software examines incoming and outgoing network packets based on predefined rules and policies. It filters packets based on criteria such as source/destination IP addresses, ports, protocols, and packet attributes. This feature enables the firewall to block or allow network traffic based on the configured rules.

Stateful inspection

Enterprise firewalls employ stateful inspection to monitor network connections’ state and analyze traffic flow context. By maintaining information about the state of each connection, the firewall can make more informed decisions about which packets to allow or block.

Application awareness

Modern firewall software often includes application awareness capabilities. It can identify specific applications or protocols within network traffic, allowing organizations to enforce granular policies based on the application or service used. This feature is handy for managing and securing web applications and controlling the use of specific services or applications.

Logging and reporting

Firewall software logs network events, including connection attempts, rule matches, and other security-related activities. Detailed logging enables organizations to analyze and investigate security incidents, track network usage, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Reporting capabilities help generate comprehensive reports for auditing, security analysis, and compliance purposes.

Integration with the security ecosystem

Firewall software is typically part of a broader security ecosystem within an organization. Integration with other security tools and technologies, such as antivirus software, threat intelligence platforms, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, and network access control (NAC) solutions, allows for a more comprehensive and coordinated approach to network security.

Benefits of working with enterprise firewalls

Key advantages of enterprise firewall solutions include enhanced network security, threat mitigation, and access control, as well as traffic analytics data.

Network security: Firewalls act as a protective barrier against external threats such as unauthorized access attempts, malware, and other malicious activity. Enforcing access control policies and modifying network traffic helps prevent unauthorized access and protect critical data.
Threat mitigation: By combining intrusion prevention techniques, deep packet monitoring, and threat intelligence, a firewall can detect and block suspicious traffic, reducing the risk there that the network will be corrupted and damaged so
Access control: Firewall software allows administrators to restrict or allow access to network resources, applications, and services based on specific user roles, departments, or needs. This ensures that only authorized people or systems can access the screen and its accessories.
Traffic data and analytics: In addition to protecting your network, firewalls can also provide granular information about traffic and activity passing through your network, as well as its overall performance.

How do I choose the best enterprise firewall solution for my business?

When choosing the best enterprise firewall software for your business, consider the following factors.

Security: Assess your organization’s specific security needs and requirements.
Features: Evaluate the features and capabilities of firewall solutions, such as packet filtering, application awareness, intrusion prevention, VPN support, centralized management, and scalability. Consider the vendor’s reputation, expertise, and support services.
Compatibility: Ensure compatibility with your existing network infrastructure and other security tools.
Hands-on tests: Conduct a thorough evaluation of different firewall solutions through demos, trials, or proofs of concept to assess their performance, ease of use, and effectiveness in meeting your organization’s security goals.
Total cost of ownership (TCO): Consider the cost, licensing models, and ongoing support and maintenance requirements.

By considering these factors, you can make an informed decision and select the best enterprise firewall software that aligns with your business needs and provides robust network security.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is an enterprise firewall different from a normal firewall?

Although they share many characteristics, an enterprise firewall is not the same as a consumer-grade firewall. Enterprise firewalls are designed to meet large organizations’ security needs and network infrastructure challenges. They are robust, scalable, and can handle high network traffic volumes and sophisticated threats, compared to generic firewalls for home or small office environments.

What is the strongest type of firewall?

A firewall’s strength depends on various factors, and no universally dependable firewall exists. A firewall’s effectiveness depends on its materials, configuration, and how well it fits into the organization’s security needs.

That said, next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) provide improved security capabilities and are often considered the ideal firewall solution in today’s enterprise. NGFWs combine traditional firewall features with additional functionality such as application awareness, intrusion prevention, deep packet monitoring, and user-based policies. They provide advanced protection against modern threats with greater visibility and control over network traffic.

How do you set up an enterprise firewall?

Setting up an enterprise firewall involves several steps:

Determine your network topology.
Define security policies.
Plan firewall placement.
Configure firewall rules.
Implement VPN and remote access.
Test and monitor firewall performance.
Perform regular updates and maintenance.

We recommend engaging network security experts or reviewing vendor documentation and support materials for specific guidance in installing and configuring your enterprise firewall.

Methodology

The firewall solutions mentioned in this guide were selected based on extensive research and industry analysis. Factors such as industry reputation, customer reviews, infrastructure, and customer support were considered.

We also assessed the features and capabilities of the firewall solutions, including packet filtering, application awareness, intrusion prevention, DLP, centralized management, scalability, and integration with other security tools.

Also see

If you’re not sure one of the firewalls included here is right for your business, we also determined the best firewalls for SMBs, as well as the best software-based firewalls.

And once your firewall is in place, don’t neglect its maintenance. Here are the best firewall audit tools to keep an eye on its performance.

Source :
https://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/security/enterprise-firewalls/

Group Policy Assignments Using Microsoft Teams PowerShell

May 30, 2023 Shan

Unmanaged devices, external file-sharing, and email integration impose a big question mark on the security posture of Microsoft Teams. In order to secure and manage Microsoft Teams, policies are used under various sections like messaging, meetings, calling, conferencing, and many more. Usually, these Teams policies for users, groups, and batches are managed in the Microsoft Teams admin center or using the Teams PowerShell Module (TPM). But now Microsoft extends the managing capability of additional Office 365 group policies using the Teams PowerShell Module as per MC557818.

According to this latest update, group policy assignments for Microsoft 365 groups, distribution lists, mail-enabled security groups, and security groups support additional policies in the Teams PowerShell Module. Apart from action control, policy assignments also set way for security controls like restricting anonymous access in meetings.

Let us see how to assign group policies using Microsoft Teams PowerShell Module and their functionalities under this blog.

What are Group Policy Assignments?

As the name suggests, assigning a policy to a particular group of users is known as a group policy assignment. The groups can be managed in Microsoft 365 admin center whereas group policies can be managed under the single roof of the Teams PowerShell Module.

Policy assignments are applied only to the direct members of a group and not to the nested group. That too, they are applied according to the precedence rules. And at the time of addition or deletion of users from a group, the policy assignments are updated which is also applicable when a policy is unassigned. Before jumping into group policy assignments, let us look through the precedence rules and ranking of policies.

What are Microsoft Teams Policy Precedence Rules?

Policy precedence determines the user’s effective policy when a user is assigned two or more of the same policy types. The precedence rules of policies are listed below for deeper insights into how an assigned policy will be deployed according to these rules.

If a user is directly assigned a policy, the same type of policy can’t be inherited from the group. Therefore, the directly assigned policy takes precedence over the same policy type defined by the group.
Also, if a user doesn’t contain a directly assigned policy, the user inherits the highest-ranking policy from the same type of policies applied by two or more groups.
Finally, if the user is not assigned a policy directly or by group, then the global (organization-wide) policy takes precedence.

The user policy is updated under the following circumstances.

Especially when a user is added or removed from the policy assigned group.
And when a group policy is unassigned.
At last, if a directly assigned policy is removed from a user.

What is Group Policy Assignment Rank in Teams?

As an admin, you are asked to define the rank of policy while assigning the policy. Primarily this ranking weighs the priority of the same type of policies assigned from two or more groups for a common user. Finally, the highest-ranking group policy is assigned as the effective policy to the end user after weighing the priority. Because a policy type can be assigned to a maximum number of 64 groups in Office 365.

NOTE: If the rank value is undefined, then the lowest ranking is given to the policy assignment.

How to Assign Policy to a Group in Teams Admin Center?

Follow the below steps to configure group policies in the Teams admin center where it majorly supports Teams calling policy, Teams call park policy, Teams policy, Teams live events policy, Teams meeting policy, and Teams messaging policy.

Navigate using the path below.

Microsoft Teams admin center 🡢 Messaging Policies (Select the desired policy type page) 🡢 Group policy assignment 🡢 Add group 🡢 Assign policy to group

Group Policy Assignments in the Teams admin center

2. Then, select a group to which you want to assign a policy.
3. Set the ranking value for the group policy assignment through the select rank option.
4. After that, select a policy from the available policy types in the drop-down list and click Apply.

Unfortunately, all policy types can’t be managed under the Microsoft Teams admin center since it supports only certain policy types. Without a second thought, PowerShell is the go-to solution! Yes, managing policies using PowerShell is easy and efficient as it is the primary automation tool that ensures the deployment of objects in multiple tenants. Also, it is a place where error handling and logging are more flexible compared to the native admin center. Thus, let us deeply look through the next section of the blog to manage group policy assignments using Microsoft Teams PowerShell.

Manage Group Policy Assignments Using Teams PowerShell Module

As per the new update, Teams PowerShell Module now helps to manage group policies of Microsoft 365 groups, mail-enabled security groups, distribution lists, and security groups including Teams-related policies. Thus, create & manage groups in Microsoft 365 admin center and manage their policies in Teams PowerShell. Before getting started with PowerShell cmdlets, make sure to connect to the Teams PowerShell Module.

Assign Policy to Group Using Teams PowerShell Module

By defining group policies, you can control user-specific actions like allowing them to schedule meetings, edit sent messages, etc. You can assign the available policies or create and assign custom policies depending on your requirements.
Execute the following cmdlet after replacing the unique group identifier, policy type, policy name, and expected rank to assign a new policy for a group.

New-CsGroupPolicyAssignment -GroupId d8ebfa45-0f28-4d2d-9bcc-b158a49e2d17 -PolicyType TeamsMeetingPolicy -PolicyName AllOn -Rank 1

This “New-CsGroupPolicyAssignment” cmdlet is basically used to create new policy assignments for security groups and distribution lists. In which the group ID, policy type, policy name, and rank must be mentioned as mandatory parameters. Here with the rank value as one, the ‘AllOn’ policy under TeamsMeetingPolicy type is created for the given group.

The rank of the policy must be defined to determine the precedence. The recommended group membership size is 50,000 users per group while assigning a group policy. Also, it takes 24 hours or more to propagate the policy to all members of the larger groups.

Get Group Policy Assignments Using MS Teams PowerShell

Knowing all the available policy assignments allows you to understand the working conditions and their precedence levels better. Using this you can remove unnecessary policies, alter the desired ranking for policies and efficiently manage teams & groups around your Office environment.

The “Get-CsGroupPolicyAssignment” cmdlet primarily returns all the group policy assignments with some optional parameters to filter the results.

Primarily, list all the policy-assigned groups by running the following command.

Get-CsGroupPolicyAssignment

Group Policy Assignments Using Microsoft Teams PowerShell

2. However, you can also retrieve all the policies assigned to a particular group using the below cmdlet.

Get-CsGroupPolicyAssignment -GroupId e050ce51-54bc-45b7-b3e6-c00343d31274

Here the cmdlet is mentioned with group ID so that retrieving only the policy assignments of that particular group.

3.Also, you can list the groups based on their policy type by executing the below command.

Get-CsGroupPolicyAssignment -PolicyType TeamsMeetingPolicy

In this case, the policy type is mentioned as TeamsMeetingPolicy. Hence this cmdlet returns only the groups assigned with this policy.

Get Group Policy Assignments Using Microsoft Teams PowerShell Module

Remove Policy Assignment from a Group Using TPM

Remove the unnecessary policies found in your organization that are interrupting the ranking and slowing down the work progress. Most importantly, the removal of policies will update the ranking value of the same type policies where the policies in the list will be ranked consecutively after the removal.

Run the following cmdlet to remove a specific group policy assignment in Microsoft 365 environment.

Remove-CsGroupPolicyAssignment -PolicyType TeamsMeetingPolicy -GroupId f985e013-0826-40bb-8c94-e5f367076044

The” Remove-CsGroupPolicyAssignment” cmdlet removes the given policy type in mentioned group ID.

Remove Group Policy Assignment Using Teams PowerShell Module

Modify Group Policy Assignment Using Teams PowerShell Module

Directly altering the policy assignment ranking value is not possible in the Teams admin center. The policy assignments should be removed and newly assigned again with a new rank value to change the ranking. To take away this hassle, PowerShell lends you a hand with a simple and reusable cmdlet which is described below.

Set-CsGroupPolicyAssignment -GroupId 566b8d39-5c5c-4aaa-bc07-4f36278a1b38 -PolicyType TeamsMeetingPolicy -PolicyName SupportCallPark -Rank 3

The “Set-CsGroupPolicyAssignment” cmdlet can be used to make the following alterations in group policy assignments based on the given attributes.

Change policy assignment ranking.
Change the policy under the existing policy type.
Change policy assignment ranking value and policy of a given policy type.

In this example, the policy is changed to ‘SupportCallPark’ policy, and the rank value is assigned to 3.

NOTE: The “Set-CsGroupPolicyAssignment” cmdlet is currently not released for use. So, for now, you need to remove policies and add new policies to change the policy or ranking. But you can easily alter the policy settings once after the availability of this cmdlet.

New Group Policy Assignment Support in Teams PowerShell Module

Microsoft rolls out group policy assignment support for additional policies in Teams PowerShell Module as a new update. So that admins can manage their groups in the M365 admin center and group policies in Teams PowerShell with a breeze. This feature will allow you to configure custom policies to groups for all Microsoft commercial licenses. With this update, dependency on global or direct policy assignments through manual methods is eliminated. In addition to the core policies such as meeting policies, calling policies, and messaging policies, the following policies are now expected to be available in Teams PowerShell by late May 2023.

Application Access Policy
Call Hold Policy
Carrier Emergency Call Routing Policy
Cortana Policy
Dial Out Policy
Education Assignments App Policy
Emergency Calling Policy
Enhanced Encryption Policy
Events Policy
External Access Policy
Feedback Policy
Files Policy
IPPhone Policy
Media Logging Policy
Meeting Branding Policy
Meeting Template Permission Policy
Mobility Policy
Notification And Feeds Policy
Room Video Tele Conferencing Policy
Synthetic Automated Call Policy
Teams Branch Survivability Policy
Template Permission Policy
VDI Policy
Video Interop Service Policy
Voice Routing Policy
Voicemail Policy

In conclusion, ultimately manage all group policies including Teams using PowerShell cmdlets. Take charge of the user-specific actions and security controls through this group policy assignment. Not only policies, you can also manage your Teams using PowerShell for effective administration. Rather than performing numerous repetitive tasks in the Teams admin center, automate them with just a few cmdlets in PowerShell.

I hope that this blog provides you with deeper insights into group policy assignments using Teams PowerShell. For any clarifications feel free to reach us through comments.

Source :
https://m365scripts.com/microsoft365/group-policy-assignments-using-microsoft-teams-powershell/

8 Best Network Scanning Tools & Software for 2023

BY KIHARA KIMACHIA
MAY 30, 2023

Network scanning tools are a critical investment for businesses in this era of increasing cyber threats. These tools perform an active examination of networks to identify potential security risks and help IT administrators maintain the health and security of their networks.

As businesses become more digital and interconnected, the demand for such tools has significantly increased. To help businesses sort through the plethora of these solutions available on the market, we’ve narrowed down the list to eight top products and their ideal use cases.

Here are our picks for the top network scanning software:

Burp Suite: Best for comprehensive web vulnerability scanning (Read more)
Detectify: Best for ease of use and automation (Read more)
Intruder: Best for cloud-based network security (Read more)
ManageEngine OpManager: Best for real-time network monitoring (Read more)
Tenable Nessus: Best for vulnerability analysis (Read more)
Pentest Tools: Best for penetration testing (Read more)
Qualys VMDR: Best for cloud security compliance (Read more)
SolarWinds ipMonitor: Best for large-scale enterprise networks (Read more)

Top network scanning tools and software comparison

	Vulnerability Scanning	Real-time Network Monitoring	Penetration Testing	Compliance Assurance	Integration with Other Tools	Ease of Use	Range of Vulnerabilities Detected	Scalability	Pricing (Starting)
Burp Suite	✔	✘	✔	✔	✔	Moderate	High	High	$1,999/yr
Detectify	✔	✔	✘	✔	✔	High	Moderate	High	$89/mo.
Intruder	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	High	High	High	$160/mo.
Manage Engine OpManager	✔	✔	✘	✔	✔	Moderate	Moderate	High	$245
Tenable Nessus	✔	✘	✔	✔	✔	High	High	High	$4,990/yr
Pentest Tools	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	Moderate	High	Moderate	$72/mo.
Qualys VMDR	✔	✔	✘	✔	✔	Moderate	High	High	$6,368/yr
SolarWinds ipMonitor	✔	✔	✘	✔	✔	High	Moderate	High	$1,570/yr

Jump to:

Burp Suite

Best for comprehensive web vulnerability scanning

Burp Suite is a trusted tool among IT professionals for its robust web vulnerability scanning capabilities. It identifies security holes in web applications and is particularly well-suited for testing complex applications.

Pricing

The vendor has three enterprise pricing options as follows:

Pay as you scan: This tier starts at $1,999 per year plus $9 per hour scanned. It includes unlimited applications and users.
Classic: This tier is priced at $17,380 per year and includes 20 concurrent scans, unlimited applications and unlimited users.
Unlimited: This is the superior plan and is priced at $49,999 per year. It includes unlimited concurrent scans, applications, and users.

Features

Out-of-band Application Security Testing (OAST) added to dynamic scans for accurate identification of vulnerabilities.
Easy setup with point-and-click scanning or trigger via CI/CD.
Recurring scanning options for daily, weekly, or monthly scans.
Out-of-the-box configurations for fast crawl or critical vulnerability audits.
API security testing for increased coverage of microservices.
JavaScript scanning to uncover more attack surfaces in Single Page Applications (SPAs).
Scalable scanning with the ability to adjust the number of concurrent scans.
Custom configurations available, including crawl maximum link depth and reported vulnerabilities.
Burp Scanner, a trusted dynamic web vulnerability scanner used by over 16,000 organizations.
Integration with major CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins and TeamCity.
API-driven workflow for initiating scans and obtaining results via the REST API.
Integration with vulnerability management platforms for seamless scanning and security reporting.
Burp extensions allow customization of Burp Scanner to meet specific requirements.
Multiple deployment options including interactive installer and Kubernetes deployment.
Integration with bug tracking systems like Jira with auto ticket generation and severity triggers.
GraphQL API for initiating, scheduling, canceling, and updating scans.
Role-based access control for multi-user functionality and control.
Compatible configurations from Burp Suite Pro can be manually integrated into the Enterprise environment.
Reporting features include graphical dashboards, customizable HTML reports, scan history metrics, intuitive UI, rich email reporting, security posture graphing, aggregated issue reporting, and compliance reporting for PCI DSS and OWASP Top 10.

Pros

Extensive vulnerability detection.
Can handle complex web applications.
Integration with popular CI/CD tools.

Cons

Steep learning curve for beginners.
Relatively higher pricing.

Detectify

Best for ease of use and automation

Detectify is a fully automated External Attack Surface Management (EASM) solution powered by a world-leading ethical hacker community. It can help map out a company’s security landscape and find vulnerabilities that other scanners may miss.

Pricing

The vendor has several pricing options as follows:

The full EASM package comes with a 2-week free trial. Pricing is custom and based on the number of domains, sub-domains, and web applications of the attack surface.
For organizations with a small attack surface, the vendor offers two pricing tiers that also come with a free 2-week trial:
- Surface Monitoring: Pricing starts from $289 per month (billed annually). This package includes up to 25 subdomains.
- Application Scanning: Pricing starts from $89 per month per scan profile (billed annually).

Features

The features of the full EASM solution are:

Continuous 24/7 coverage for discovering and monitoring your modern tech stack.
Crawling and fuzzing engine that surpasses traditional DAST scanners.
Ability to monitor large enterprise products and protect sensitive organizational data.
Accurate results with 99.7% accuracy in vulnerability assessments through payload-based testing.
SSO, API access, automatic domain verification, custom modules, and attack surface custom policies.
Identify risks before they are exploited by enriching assets with critical information like open ports, DNS record types, and technologies.
Integrates with popular tools such as Slack, Jira, and Splunk, and comes with an API that allows users to export results in the manner that best suits their workflows.

Pros

Simple and clean interface, easy to use.
Continuous automatic updates and scans.
Customizable reports and notifications.

Cons

Limited manual testing capabilities.
May generate false positives.

Intruder

Best for cloud-based network security

Intruder is a powerful cloud-based network security tool that helps businesses prevent security breaches by automating routine security checks. Each threat found is classified according to severity and a remediation plan proposed.

Pricing

Pricing is based on the number of applications and infrastructure targets with three pricing tiers: Essential, Pro and Premium. The Pro plan comes with a 14-day free trial.
Example pricing for 1 application and 1 infrastructure target is as follows:
- Essential: $160 per month, billed annually.
- Pro: $227 per month, billed annually.
- Premium: From $3,737 per year.

Features

Easy-to-use yet powerful online vulnerability tool.
Comprehensive risk monitoring across your stack, including publicly and privately accessible servers, cloud systems, websites, and endpoint devices.
Detection of vulnerabilities such as misconfigurations, missing patches, encryption weaknesses, and application bugs, including SQL injection, Cross-Site Scripting, and OWASP Top 10.
Ongoing attack surface monitoring with automatic scanning for new threats and alerts for changes in exposed ports and services.
Intelligent results that prioritize actionable findings based on context, allowing you to focus on critical issues like exposed databases.
Compliance and reporting with high-quality reports to facilitate customer security questionnaires and compliance audits such as SOC2, ISO27001, and Cyber Essentials.
Continuous penetration testing by security professionals to enhance coverage, reduce the time from vulnerability discovery to remediation, and benefit from vulnerability triage by certified penetration testers.
Seamless integration with your technical environment, with no lengthy installations or complex configurations required.

Pros

Cloud-based, eliminating the need for on-site servers.
Comprehensive vulnerability coverage.
Automated, regular security checks.

Cons

Dependency on automated scanning engines may result in occasional false positives or false negatives.

ManageEngine OpManager

Best for real-time network monitoring

ManageEngine OpManager is a comprehensive network monitoring application, capable of providing intricate insights into the functionality of various devices such as routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, wireless LAN controllers, servers, virtual machines, printers, and storage systems. This software facilitates in-depth problem analysis to identify and address the core source of network-related issues.

Pricing

The vendor offers three editions with starting prices as follows:

Standard: $245 for up to 10 devices.
Professional: $345 for up to 10 devices.
Enterprise: $11,545 for 250 up to 250 devices.

Features

Capable of monitoring networks using over 2,000 performance metrics, equipped with user-friendly dashboards, immediate alert systems, and intelligent reporting features.
Provides crucial router performance data including error and discard rates, voltage, temperature, and buffer statistics.
Enables port-specific traffic control and switch port mapping for device identification.
Continuous monitoring of WAN link performance, latency, and availability, leveraging Cisco IP SLA technology.
Active monitoring of VoIP call quality across WAN infrastructure, facilitating the troubleshooting of subpar VoIP performance.
Automatic generation of L1/L2 network mapping, aiding in the visualization and identification of network outages and performance issues.
Provides monitoring for both physical and virtual servers across various operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Solaris, Unix, and VMware.
Detailed, agentless monitoring of VMware-virtualized servers with over 70 VMware performance monitors.
Utilizes WMI credentials to monitor Microsoft Hyper-V hosts and guest performance with over 40 in-depth metrics.
Enables monitoring and management of Host, VMs, and Storage Repositories of Citrix Hypervisor, providing the necessary visibility into their performance.
Allows for monitoring and management of processes running on discovered devices through SNMP/WMI/CLI.
Uses protocols like SNMP, WMI, or CLI for monitoring system resources and gathering performance data.
Provides immediate notifications on network issues via email and SMS alerts.
Facilitates the orchestration and automation of initial network fault troubleshooting steps and maintenance tasks.
Provides a centralized platform for identifying network faults, allowing for visualization, analysis, and correlation of multiple monitor performances at any instant.
Enables network availability, usage trend, and performance analysis with over 100 ready-made and customizable reports.
Employs a rule-based approach for syslog monitoring to read incoming syslogs and assign alerts.
Includes a suite of OpManager’s network monitoring tools to assist in first and second-level troubleshooting tasks.

Pros

In-depth network monitoring.
Easy-to-understand performance dashboards.
Supports both physical and virtual servers.

Cons

May be complex for beginners.
Cost can quickly escalate based on number of devices.

Tenable Nessus

Best for vulnerability analysis

Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment tool that enables organizations to actively detect and rectify vulnerabilities throughout their ever-evolving attack surface. It is formulated to evaluate contemporary attack surfaces, expanding beyond conventional IT assets to ensure the security of cloud infrastructure and provide insights into internet-connected attack surfaces.

Pricing

Nessus offers a free 7-day trial. Customers can scan up to 32 IPs per scanner during the trial period.
After the trial, the product is available at a starting fee of $4,990 per year for an unlimited number of IPs per scanner.
Nessus Enterprise pricing is dependent on business requirements.

Features

Evaluates contemporary attack surfaces, extends beyond conventional IT assets, and provides insights into internet-connected environments.
Built with an understanding of security practitioners’ work, aiming to make vulnerability assessment simple, intuitive, and efficient.
Provides a reporting feature that prioritizes the top ten significant issues.
Nessus is deployable on a range of platforms, including Raspberry Pi, emphasizing portability and adaptability.
Ensures precise and efficient vulnerability assessment.
Offers visibility into your internet-connected attack environments.
Ensures the security of cloud infrastructure before deployment.
Focuses on the most significant threats to enhance security efficiency.
Provides ready-to-use policies and templates to streamline vulnerability assessment.
Allows for customization of reports and troubleshooting procedures.
Provides real-time results for immediate response and rectification.
Designed for straightforward and user-friendly operation.
Provides an organized view of vulnerability assessment findings for easy interpretation and analysis.

Pros

Broad vulnerability coverage.
Easy integration with existing security systems.
User-friendly interface.

Cons

Relatively higher pricing.

Pentest Tools

Best for penetration testing

Pentest Tools is a suite of software designed to assist with penetration testing. Pentest Tools provides the necessary capabilities to effectively carry out penetration tests, offering insights into potential weak points that may be exploited by malicious actors.

Pricing

The vendor offers four pricing plans as follows:

Basic: $72 per month, billed annually, for up to 5 assets and up to 2 parallel scans.
Advanced: $162 per month, billed annually, for up to 50 assets and up to 5 parallel scans.
Teams: $336 per month, billed annually, for up to 500 assets and up to 10 parallel scans.
Enterprise: For more than 500 assets and more than 10 parallel scans, plan pricing varies.

Features

Initially built on OpenVAS, now includes proprietary technology to assess network perimeter and evaluate a company’s external security posture.
Uses proprietary modules, like Sniper: Auto Exploiter, for a comprehensive security scan.
Provides a simplified and intuitive interface for immediate scanning.
Conducts in-depth network vulnerability scans using over 57,000 OpenVAS plugins and custom modules for critical CVEs.
Includes a summarized report of vulnerabilities found, their risk rating, and CVSS score.
Each report offers recommendations for mitigating detected security flaws.
Prioritizes vulnerabilities based on risk rating to optimize manual work and time.
Generates customizable reports with ready-to-use or custom templates.
Provides a complete view of “low hanging fruit” vulnerabilities, enabling focus on more advanced tests.
Allows testing of internal networks through a ready-to-use VPN, eliminating the need for time-consuming scripts and configurations.
Identifies high-risk vulnerabilities such as Log4Shell, ProxyShell, ProxyLogon, and others.
Assists in running vulnerability assessments necessary to comply with various standards like PCI DSS, SOC II, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO, the NIS Directive, and others.
Facilitates thorough infrastructure tests, detecting vulnerabilities ranging from weak passwords to missing security patches and misconfigured web servers.
Third-party infrastructure audit that’s useful for IT services or IT security companies, providing reports for client assurance on implemented security measures.

Pros

Broad coverage of penetration testing scenarios.
Easy to use, with detailed reports.
Regular updates and enhancements.

Cons

Proprietary technology can also limit interoperability with other tools or platforms.
New users may experience a steep learning curve.

Qualys VMDR

Best for cloud security compliance

Qualys VMDR is a top choice for businesses looking for cloud-based network security software. It provides automated cloud security and compliance solutions, allowing businesses to identify and fix vulnerabilities.

Pricing

Prospective customers can try out the tool for free for 30 days.
Pricing starts at $199 per asset with a minimum quantity of 32 (i.e., $6,368 total starting cost).
Flexible pricing for larger packages based on business needs.

Features

Qualys is a strong solution for businesses seeking cloud-based network security software, providing automated cloud security and compliance solutions.
Utilizes TruRisk™ to quantify risk across vulnerabilities, assets, and asset groups, enabling proactive mitigation and risk reduction tracking.
Automates operational tasks for vulnerability management and patching with Qualys Flow, saving valuable time.
Leverages insights from over 180,000 vulnerabilities and 25+ threat sources to provide preemptive alerts on potential attacks with the Qualys Threat DB.
Detects all IT, OT, and IoT assets for a comprehensive, categorized inventory with detailed information such as vendor lifecycle.
Automatically identifies vulnerabilities and critical misconfigurations per Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks, by asset.
Integrates with ITSM tools like ServiceNow and Jira to automatically assign tickets and enable orchestration of remediation, reducing Mean Time To Resolution (MTTR).

Pros

Cloud-based, reducing on-premise hardware needs.
Comprehensive vulnerability and compliance coverage.
Powerful data analytics capabilities.

Cons

Can be complex for small businesses.
Pricing is high and can be prohibitive for smaller organizations.

SolarWinds ipMonitor

Best for large-scale enterprise networks

SolarWinds ipMonitor is an established network monitoring solution ideal for monitoring servers, VMware hosts, and applications on large-scale enterprise networks. It offers deep performance insights and customizable reports.

Pricing

SolarWinds ipMonitor has three pricing editions, each with a 14-day free trial:

500 monitors for $1,570
1000 monitors for $2,620
2500 monitors for $5,770

Features

The monitoring tool provides over a dozen notification types including alerts via email, text message, or directly to Windows Event Log files.
Facilitates the monitoring of common ports with key protocols.
Ensures IT environment functionality by continuously monitoring database availability.
Enhances end user network experience monitoring capabilities.
Offers monitoring of network equipment health in tandem with network infrastructure.
Confirms the ability of a web server to accept incoming sessions.
Provides critical insights into the overall IT environment.
Offers an affordable tool for network monitoring.
Utilizes VM ESXi host monitors to track the health and performance of your virtual environment.
Enables monitoring of Windows services and applications..

Pros

Extensive scalability for large networks.
Deep insights and comprehensive reporting.
Wide range of integrated applications.

Cons

Can be overly complex for smaller networks.
The pricing model may not suit smaller businesses.

Key features of network scanning tools and software

Vulnerability scanning is central to all network scanning tools, but other features, such as real-time monitoring, penetration testing, and integrability, should not be overlooked.

Vulnerability scanning

This is the most critical feature buyers typically look for in network scanning tools. Vulnerability scanning helps identify potential security threats and weak spots within the network.

The tools do this by scanning the network’s devices, servers, and systems for known vulnerabilities such as outdated software, open ports, or incorrect configurations.

This feature matters because it provides an overview of the network’s security posture, enabling users to take corrective measures promptly.

Real-time network monitoring

Real-time network monitoring allows for continuous observation of the network’s performance, detecting any issues or anomalies as they occur.

This feature is vital because it can significantly reduce downtime and address performance issues before they impact business operations.

Penetration testing

Penetration testing (or pentesting) simulates cyberattacks on your network to test the effectiveness of your security measures and identify potential vulnerabilities that may not be detectable through standard vulnerability scanning.

Penetration testing is essential for businesses as it offers a more proactive approach to cybersecurity than standard vulnerability scans.

Compliance assurance

Compliance assurance ensures that the organization’s network aligns with various regulatory standards, such as HIPAA for healthcare or PCI DSS for businesses that handle credit card information.

Compliance assurance is critical because non-compliance can result in hefty fines and damage to the company’s reputation.

Integration with other tools

Integration capabilities are an often overlooked but essential feature of network scanning tools. The ability to integrate with other IT management and security tools allows for a more streamlined and efficient workflow.

For example, integrating a network scanning tool with a ticketing system could automatically create a ticket when a vulnerability is detected.

This feature is vital as it enables businesses to enhance their overall IT infrastructure management and improve response times to potential threats.

How to choose the best network scanning software for your business

Selecting the best network scanning tool for your business involves several key considerations:

Identify your needs: The first step is to understand what you need from a network scanning tool. Do you require real-time network monitoring, pentesting, compliance assurance, or more? The type of network you’re operating and the size of your business can heavily influence your needs.
Consider the ease of use: The usability of the software is an important factor depending on the size and expertise of your IT team. If it’s too complex, it may be challenging for your team to use effectively. Look for software that has a user-friendly interface and offers good customer support.
Examine the features: Look for software that offers the features that match your specific requirements. If you’re unsure what features you might need, consulting with an IT professional can be beneficial.
Evaluate scalability: Your business is likely to grow, and so will your network. The network scanning tool you choose should be able to scale along with your business without losing efficiency.
Check for regular support and updates: Good network scanning software should provide reliable support and regular updates to address emerging security threats. Check whether the software is frequently updated and if technical support is readily available.
Review pricing: Lastly, consider the pricing and your budget. Keep in mind that while some software might be more expensive, it could offer more features or better support, leading to better value for your business in the long run.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the benefits of network scanning tools?

Network scanning tools offer a multitude of benefits, including:

Security enhancement: Network scanning tools identify vulnerabilities and security risks within a network, allowing businesses to address these issues proactively and bolster their security posture.
Compliance assurance: Many of these tools help ensure that your network aligns with various regulatory and industry standards, reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties.
Real-time monitoring: By providing real-time network monitoring, these tools allow for immediate detection and mitigation of issues, thereby reducing network downtime and improving performance.
Resource optimization: Network scanning can identify underutilized resources, aiding in more efficient resource allocation and cost savings.
Improved network management: With a thorough understanding of the network infrastructure, administrators can make more informed decisions regarding network planning and expansion.

Who should use network scanning software?

Network scanning software is beneficial for a variety of roles and industries, including:

Network administrators: These professionals can use network scanning tools to monitor and manage the health of the network, consistently optimizing its performance.
IT security professionals: These tools are crucial for IT security staff in identifying potential vulnerabilities and mitigating security risks.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs): MSPs can utilize network scanning tools to manage and monitor their clients’ networks, ensuring they are secure and comply with relevant regulations.
Regulated industries: Businesses within industries that must adhere to strict data security standards, such as healthcare, finance, and e-commerce, can benefit significantly from these tools to ensure compliance and protect sensitive data.

What are the types of network scanning?

Network scanning can be categorized into several types based on their function:

Port scanning: This type identifies open ports and services available on a network host. It can help detect potential security vulnerabilities.
Vulnerability scanning: This process involves identifying known vulnerabilities in the network, such as outdated software or misconfigurations, that could be exploited.
Network mapping: This type of scanning identifies the various devices on a network, their interconnections, and topology.
Performance scanning: This form of scanning monitors network performance, identifying potential issues that could affect the speed or reliability of the network.
Compliance scanning: This type checks the network’s compliance with certain regulatory or industry standards, helping avoid potential legal issues.

Methodology

The selection, review, and ranking of the network scanning tools in this list was carried out through a comprehensive and structured methodology, which involved several key steps: namely, requirement identification, market research, feature evaluation, user reviews and feedback, ease of use, pricing, and scalability.

By combining these steps, we have aimed to provide a balanced and comprehensive overview of the top network scanning tools of 2023, thereby enabling potential buyers to make an informed decision that best suits their specific needs and circumstances.

Bottom line: Managing vulnerabilities with network scanning tools

Network scanning tools are essential for any organization striving to maintain a secure and efficient IT environment. From identifying vulnerabilities to ensuring compliance and enhancing overall network performance, these tools play a pivotal role in successful network management.

The eight tools discussed in this article offer a variety of features and capabilities, catering to different needs and business sizes. However, choosing the right tool should be guided by an organization’s unique requirements, budget, and the tool’s ability to scale alongside the growth of the business.

By doing so, businesses can foster a more secure, compliant, and reliable IT network, boosting operational efficiency and business resilience.

Knowing your network’s vulnerabilities is just the beginning. Here are the best vulnerability management tools to keep your data locked up safe.

Source :
https://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/security/network-scanning-tools/

Top 20 Open Source Cyber Security Monitoring Tools in 2023

As cyber threats continue to evolve, security professionals require reliable tools to defend against security vulnerabilities, protect sensitive data, and maintain network security. Open source cyber security tools provide a cost-effective solution for individuals and organizations to combat these threats on-premises and with cloud security and mobile devices. Let’s consider the top 25 open-source cyber security monitoring tools in 2023 that help ensure continuous network and system performance monitoring.

What are the Top Cybersecurity Threats Today?

As cyber threats continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, organizations must stay informed and prepared to defend against a wide range of security risks.

Here are the top cybersecurity threats that businesses and individuals should be aware of today:

1. Phishing Attacks: Phishing attacks are a prevalent form of social engineering where cybercriminals use deceptive emails or websites to trick users into revealing sensitive information or installing malware. These attacks often target login credentials, financial information, and other personal data.

2. Ransomware: Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts a victim’s files or locks their systems, demanding a ransom payment to restore access. Ransomware attacks can cause significant financial losses and operational disruptions for organizations.

3. Insider Threats: Insider threats refer to security risks posed by employees, contractors, or other individuals with authorized access to an organization’s systems and data. These threats can result from malicious intent or negligence, leading to data breaches or system compromises.

4. Supply Chain Attacks: Also known as third-party attacks or vendor risk, supply chain attacks target an organization’s suppliers, vendors, or partners to gain access to their systems and data. These attacks often exploit security vulnerabilities in the supply chain to compromise multiple organizations.

5. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: DDoS attacks involve overwhelming a target’s network or system with a flood of traffic, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate users. DDoS attacks can cause severe downtime and service disruptions.

6. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): APTs are sophisticated, coordinated cyberattacks by well-funded threat actors or nation-state groups that target specific organizations for espionage, data theft, or sabotage. APTs often use advanced techniques and tactics to evade detection and maintain a long-term presence within a target’s network.

7. Zero-Day Exploits: Zero-day exploits are attacks that take advantage of previously unknown security vulnerabilities in software or systems. These vulnerabilities, also known as zero-day flaws, have no existing patches or fixes, making them particularly dangerous and challenging to defend against.

8. Internet of Things (IoT) Security: The increasing adoption of IoT devices and connected technologies has expanded the attack surface for cybercriminals. IoT devices are often vulnerable to cyber threats due to weak security measures, creating new risks for organizations and consumers.

9. Data Breaches: Data breaches occur when unauthorized individuals gain access to an organization’s sensitive data, such as customer information, financial records, or intellectual property. Data breaches can result in significant financial and reputational damage for organizations.

10. Cloud Security Threats: As more organizations migrate to cloud-based services, cloud security has become a critical concern. Threats in the cloud can arise from misconfigurations, weak authentication mechanisms, and vulnerabilities in cloud applications or infrastructure.

Benefits of Open-Source CyberSecurity tools

Open source cyber security monitoring tools offer numerous advantages over proprietary solutions, making them an attractive option for businesses, organizations, and individuals looking to enhance their security posture and perform effective security testing.

Here are some key benefits of using open-source tools for cyber security monitoring for monitoring services that pose security threats, even if you have another network monitoring system. Proper cybersecurity monitoring and access management are key to maintaining a secure environment.

Cost-Effectiveness

One of the most significant benefits of open-source cyber security tools is their cost-effectiveness. With no licensing fees or subscription costs, these free tools enable security teams to access powerful network monitoring solutions without breaking the bank.

This particularly benefits small businesses and startups with limited budgets, allowing them to allocate resources to other critical areas.

Customizability and Flexibility

Open-source network monitoring tools offer high customizability and flexibility, allowing security professionals to tailor the tools to their specific needs. This adaptability enables organizations to address unique security threats and vulnerabilities, ensuring a more robust security posture.

Additionally, the ability to integrate these tools with existing security infrastructure adds an extra layer of protection to network security.

Rapid Development and Updates

The open-source community is known for its rapid development and frequent updates. As new security threats and vulnerabilities emerge, open-source cyber security tools are often among the first to receive patches and updates.

This continuous monitoring and proactive response help organizations stay ahead of potential security risks and maintain a strong security posture.

Extensive Support and Collaboration

Open-source cyber security tools benefit from an extensive support network, comprising developers, users, and experts from around the world.

This collaborative environment fosters knowledge sharing, allowing security professionals to learn from one another and develop more effective security strategies.

Additionally, the availability of comprehensive documentation and online forums makes it easier for users to troubleshoot issues and enhance their understanding of network monitoring and security.

Improved Security and Transparency

With their source code openly available for inspection, open-source cyber security tools offer greater transparency than proprietary alternatives. This transparency allows security professionals and researchers to scrutinize the code for potential security vulnerabilities and ensure its integrity.

Moreover, the collaborative nature of the open-source community means that any identified issues are addressed quickly, further enhancing the overall security of these tools.

Platform Independence and Interoperability

Open-source network monitoring software often supports a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, allowing organizations to deploy these tools across diverse environments.

This platform independence and interoperability help organizations ensure comprehensive network monitoring, regardless of the underlying infrastructure.

Top 25 Open Source Cyber Security Monitoring Tools in 2023

Note the following free cyber security monitoring tools in 2023 and the open-source list of solutions you can take advantage of and no free trial needed.

1. Wireshark: Network Protocol Analyzer

Wireshark is a widely-used network protocol analyzer that enables security teams to troubleshoot, analyze, and monitor network traffic in real-time to detect security issues. It is a defacto standard network monitoring tool.

command line interface data packets open source platform data breaches packet capture web apps network packets computer security experts solarwinds security event manager security scanning

By dissecting network protocols, Wireshark provides valuable insights into potential security risks and network vulnerabilities, allowing professionals to identify and resolve issues efficiently with the Wireshark network monitoring solution.

You can monitor a wide range of protocols, including TCP/IP, simple network management protocol, FTP, and many others. If you are looking for a network monitor this is it.

2. Snort: Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention System

Snort is a powerful open-source intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) that monitors network traffic and detects potential security threats.

It provides real-time traffic analysis, packet logging, and alerting capabilities, making it an essential tool for security auditing and network monitoring.

3. OSSEC: Host-Based Intrusion Detection System

OSSEC is a comprehensive host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) that offers log analysis, file integrity checking, rootkit detection, and more.

It supports various operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS, and helps security professionals monitor and analyze network protocols for potential security vulnerabilities.

4. Security Onion: Intrusion Detection and Network Security Monitoring Distribution

Security Onion is a Linux distribution specifically designed for intrusion detection, network security monitoring, and log management.

With a suite of powerful open-source tools, including Snort, Suricata, and Zeek, Security Onion provides a robust solution for security teams to monitor networks and detect security breaches.

5. Nmap: Network Scanning and Discovery Tool

Nmap is a versatile network scanning and discovery tool that helps security professionals identify network devices, open ports, and running services.

It is an essential network monitoring software for vulnerability management, penetration testing, and network inventory management.

6. Kismet: Wireless Network Detector, Sniffer, and Intrusion Detection System

Kismet is a wi fi security tool that detects, sniffs, and analyzes wireless networks. By monitoring wireless network traffic, Kismet identifies potential security risks, network vulnerabilities, and unauthorized users, making it an invaluable tool for wireless network security.

7. Suricata: High-Performance Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention Engine

Suricata is an open-source, high-performance network intrusion detection and prevention engine that provides real-time network traffic analysis, threat detection, and alerting.

Suricata enables security professionals to maintain network integrity and security by employing advanced threat defense and anomaly detection techniques.

8. Zeek (formerly Bro): Network Analysis Framework for Security Monitoring

Zeek, previously known as Bro, is a powerful network analysis framework that offers real-time insight into network traffic.

With its flexible scripting language and extensible plugin architecture, Zeek provides comprehensive visibility into network activity, enabling security teams to detect and prevent security threats.

9. OpenVAS: Vulnerability Scanning and Management Solution

OpenVAS is a comprehensive vulnerability scanning and management solution that helps security professionals identify, assess, and remediate security vulnerabilities.

With its extensive plugin library, OpenVAS ensures continuous monitoring and up-to-date vulnerability information, making it a critical tool for vulnerability management.

10. ClamAV: Open-Source Antivirus Engine

ClamAV is an open-source antivirus engine that detects trojans, viruses, and other malicious software.

It offers a command-line scanner, a graphical user interface (GUI) for Windows operating system, and integration with mail servers, ensuring that your systems are protected from security threats.

11. Fail2Ban: Log-Parsing Application to Protect Against Brute-Force Attacks

Fail2Ban is a log-parsing application that monitors log files for malicious activity, such as repeated failed login attempts. Fail2Ban bans the offending IP address when a potential attack is detected, effectively protecting your network from brute-force attacks and unauthorized access.

12. AlienVault OSSIM: Open-Source Security Information and Event Management Platform

AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source security information and event management (SIEM) platform that provides real-time event correlation, log analysis, and threat intelligence.

By integrating multiple security tools, OSSIM helps security teams maintain a unified user interface and enhance their overall security posture.

13. Cuckoo Sandbox: Automated Malware Analysis System

Cuckoo Sandbox is an open-source automated malware analysis system that enables security professionals to analyze suspicious files and URLs in a safe, isolated environment.

It provides detailed reports on malware behavior, including network traffic analysis, file system changes, and API traces, helping security teams identify and mitigate security risks.

14. Logstash: Log Processing and Management Tool

Logstash is part of the Elastic Stack (ELK Stack) and offers log processing and management capabilities.

It collects, parses, and stores log data from various sources, making it an essential tool for security professionals to monitor and analyze network activity, detect security breaches, and maintain system performance.

15. pfSense: Open-Source Firewall and Router Distribution

pfSense is an open-source firewall and router distribution based on FreeBSD. It offers a powerful and flexible network security, traffic shaping, and VPN connectivity solution.

With its extensive features and customization options, pfSense is ideal for securing web servers and internal networks.

16. ModSecurity: Open-Source Web Application Firewall

ModSecurity is an open-source web application firewall (WAF) providing real-time security monitoring and access control. It detects and prevents web attacks, protects sensitive data, and helps security professionals maintain compliance with industry standards and regulations.

17. AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment): File and Directory Integrity Checker

AIDE is a file and directory integrity checker that monitors system files for unauthorized changes. It detects modifications, deletions, and additions, allowing security teams to maintain system integrity and prevent security breaches.

18. Graylog: Open-Source Log Management Platform

Graylog is an open-source log management platform that centralizes and analyzes log data from various sources.

Graylog helps security professionals detect security threats, identify network vulnerabilities, and maintain network security by providing comprehensive visibility into network activity.

19. Wazuh: Security Monitoring and Compliance Solution

Wazuh is a free, open-source security monitoring and compliance solution that integrates host-based and network-based intrusion detection systems, file integrity monitoring and security policy enforcement.

Wazuh’s centralized management and powerful analytics capabilities make it an essential tool for security teams to detect and respond to security threats.

20. T-Pot: Honeypot Platform

T-Pot is a platform combining multiple honeypots into a single, easy-to-deploy solution for cyber security monitoring. By simulating vulnerable systems and services, T-Pot attracts attackers and collects threat data, providing valuable insights into current attack trends and techniques.

Honorable mentions

Samhain: Host-Based Intrusion Detection System

Samhain is a host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS) that provides file integrity checking and log file monitoring. It detects unauthorized modifications, deletions, and additions, helping security professionals maintain system integrity and prevent security breaches.

SELKS: Network Security Management ISO with Suricata

SELKS is a live and installable network security management ISO based on Debian, focusing on a complete and ready-to-use Suricata IDS/IPS ecosystem. It offers a user-friendly interface and powerful analytics tools, making it an ideal choice for security teams to monitor networks and detect potential security threats.

Squid: Open-Source Web Proxy Cache and Forward Proxy

Squid is an open-source web proxy cache and forward proxy that improves web performance and security. By caching frequently-requested web content and filtering web traffic, Squid helps reduce bandwidth usage, enhance user privacy, and protect against web-based security threats.

YARA: Pattern-Matching Tool for Malware Researchers

YARA is a pattern-matching tool designed for malware researchers to identify and classify malware samples. By creating custom rules and signatures, YARA enables security professionals to detect and analyze malicious software, enhancing their understanding of current malware trends and techniques.

Arkime (formerly Moloch): Large-Scale, Open-Source, Indexed Packet Capture and Search System

Arkime is a large-scale, open-source, indexed packet capture and search system that provides comprehensive visibility into network traffic. It enables security professionals to analyze network protocols, detect security vulnerabilities, and identify potential security threats, making it an essential tool for network monitoring and security auditing.

Tips to Improve Your Cybersecurity Posture

Improving your cybersecurity posture is essential for safeguarding your organization from various cyber threats. Here are some practical tips to help enhance your cybersecurity defenses:

Implement Regular Security Audits: Conducting routine security audits can help identify potential weaknesses in your organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure.
This includes checking for outdated software, misconfigured settings, and other vulnerabilities that may expose your systems to attacks.
Keep Software and Systems Updated: Regularly update your software, operating systems, and firmware to protect against known vulnerabilities and exploits.
This includes applying security patches and updates as soon as they become available.
Use Strong Authentication Mechanisms: Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all critical systems and applications.
MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide additional verification, such as a one-time code or biometric authentication, in addition to their password.
Encrypt Sensitive Data: Encrypt sensitive data both in transit and at rest to prevent unauthorized access. This includes using secure communication protocols, such as HTTPS and TLS, and implementing encryption solutions for data storage.
Establish a Strong Password Policy: Enforce a robust password policy that requires users to create complex, unique passwords and update them regularly. Additionally, consider using a password manager to help users manage and store their passwords securely.
Educate Employees on Cybersecurity Best Practices: Provide ongoing security awareness training to educate employees about common cyber threats, safe online practices, and how to recognize and report potential security incidents.
Implement Network Segmentation: Divide your network into smaller segments, isolating critical systems and data from less secure areas. This can help prevent the spread of malware and limit the damage in case of a security breach.
Regularly Backup Important Data: Regularly back up essential data and store copies offsite or in the cloud. This ensures that you can quickly recover from data loss or ransomware attacks.
Utilize Endpoint Security Solutions: Deploy comprehensive endpoint security solutions to protect devices connected to your network.
This includes antivirus software, firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and device management tools.
Monitor and Analyze Network Traffic: Use network monitoring tools to analyze network traffic, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats. Regular monitoring can help detect and respond to security incidents more effectively.
Develop a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan: Create a detailed incident response plan outlining the steps to take in a security breach. Regularly review and update the plan, and ensure that all employees are familiar with the procedures.
Collaborate with Security Professionals: Engage with cybersecurity experts or managed service providers to help develop and maintain a strong security posture.
This can provide access to specialized knowledge and resources to stay up-to-date with the latest threats and best practices.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What are the best open-source cyber security monitoring tools available in 2023?

This blog post covers the top 25 open-source cyber security monitoring tools in 2023, including Wireshark, Snort, OSSEC, Security Onion, Nmap, Kismet, Suricata, Zeek, OpenVAS, ClamAV, and more.

These tools provide comprehensive network monitoring, threat detection, and vulnerability management capabilities to help organizations maintain a robust security posture.

2. Why choose open-source cyber security monitoring tools over proprietary alternatives?

Open-source cyber security monitoring tools offer several advantages: cost-effectiveness, customizability, rapid development and updates, extensive support, improved security, and platform independence.

These benefits make open-source tools attractive for organizations looking to enhance their network security and protect sensitive data.

3. How can I improve my organization’s cybersecurity hygiene?

In addition to utilizing open-source cyber security monitoring tools, organizations can improve their cybersecurity hygiene by implementing security awareness training, regularly updating software and systems, employing strong password policies, using multi-factor authentication, monitoring network traffic, and conducting regular security audits and penetration testing.

4. What is the importance of continuous monitoring in cybersecurity?

Continuous monitoring plays a crucial role in identifying and addressing security threats and vulnerabilities in real-time.

By regularly analyzing network traffic, security professionals can detect potential issues, respond to incidents promptly, and ensure the safety and integrity of their digital assets.

5. How can I protect my web applications from security threats?

Web application security can be improved by using tools such as ModSecurity, an open-source web application firewall (WAF) that provides real-time application security monitoring and access control.

Regularly updating web applications, conducting vulnerability assessments, and implementing secure coding practices can also help mitigate security risks.

6. What role do threat intelligence and threat data play in cybersecurity?

Threat intelligence and threat data help security professionals understand the latest trends, tactics, and techniques cybercriminals use.

Organizations can proactively address potential issues and maintain a strong security posture by staying informed about emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

7. Are open-source cyber security monitoring tools suitable for small businesses and startups?

Yes, open-source cyber security monitoring tools are ideal for small businesses and startups, as they offer cost-effective and powerful network monitoring solutions.

These tools enable organizations with limited budgets to access advanced security features without incurring high licensing fees or subscription costs.

Wrapping up

The ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats demands reliable and effective tools for security professionals to protect networks, systems, and sensitive data.

These Top 20 open-source cyber security monitoring tools in 2023 provide a comprehensive network monitoring, threat detection, and vulnerability management solution.

By incorporating these tools into your security strategy, you can enhance your overall security posture and ensure the safety and integrity of your digital assets.

Huge List Of PowerShell Commands for Active Directory, Office 365 and more

This is the ultimate collection of PowerShell commands for Active Directory, Office 365, Windows Server and more.

These commands will help with numerous tasks and make your life easier.

Table of Contents:

Active Directory PowerShell Commands

This section contains general commands for getting domain details.

View all Active Directory commands

get-command -Module ActiveDirectory

Display Basic Domain Information

Get-ADDomain

Get all Domain Controllers by Hostname and Operating

Get-ADDomainController -filter * | select hostname, operatingsystem

Get all Fine Grained Password Policies

Get-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy -filter *

Get Domain Default Password Policy

Gets the password policy from the logged in domain

Get-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy

Backup Active Directory System State Remotely

This will back up the domain controllers system state data. Change DC-Name to your server name and change the Backup-Path. The backup path can be a local disk or a UNC path

invoke-command -ComputerName DC-Name -scriptblock {wbadmin start systemstateback up -backupTarget:"Backup-Path" -quiet}

Related: Windows CMD Commands

Active Directory User PowerShell Commands

This section is all Active Directory user commands.

Get User and List All Properties (attributes)

Change username to the samAccountName of the account

Get-ADUser username -Properties *

Get User and List Specific Properties

Just add whatever you want to display after select

Get-ADUser username -Properties * | Select name, department, title

Get All Active Directory Users in Domain

Get-ADUser -Filter *

Get All Users From a Specific OU

OU = the distinguished path of the OU

Get-ADUser -SearchBase “OU=ADPRO Users,dc=ad,dc=activedirectorypro.com” -Filter *

Get AD Users by Name

This command will find all users that have the word robert in the name. Just change robert to the word you want to search for.

get-Aduser -Filter {name -like "*robert*"}

Get All Disable User Accounts

Search-ADAccount -AccountDisabled | select name

Disable User Account

Disable-ADAccount -Identity rallen

Enable User Account

Enable-ADAccount -Identity rallen

Get All Accounts with Password Set to Never Expire

get-aduser -filter * -properties Name, PasswordNeverExpires | where {$_.passwordNeverExpires -eq "true" } | Select-Object DistinguishedName,Name,Enabled

Find All Locked User Accounts

Search-ADAccount -LockedOut

Unlock User Account

Unlock-ADAccount –Identity john.smith

List all Disabled User Accounts

Search-ADAccount -AccountDisabled

Force Password Change at Next Login

Set-ADUser -Identity username -ChangePasswordAtLogon $true

Move a Single User to a New OU

You will need the distinguishedName of the user and the target OU

Move-ADObject -Identity "CN=Test User (0001),OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com" -TargetPath "OU=HR,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com"

Move Users to an OU from a CSV

Setup a csv with a name field and a list of the users sAmAccountNames. Then just change the target OU path.

# Specify target OU. $TargetOU = "OU=HR,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com" # Read user sAMAccountNames from csv file (field labeled "Name"). Import-Csv -Path Users.csv | ForEach-Object { # Retrieve DN of User. $UserDN = (Get-ADUser -Identity $_.Name).distinguishedName # Move user to target OU. Move-ADObject -Identity $UserDN -TargetPath $TargetOU }

Active Directory Group Commands

This section list commands used for getting Active Directory group information.

Get All members Of A Security Group

Get-ADGroupMember -identity “HR Full”

Get All Security Groups

This will list all security groups in a domain

Get-ADGroup -filter *

Add User to Group

Change group-name to the AD group you want to add users to

Add-ADGroupMember -Identity group-name -Members Sser1, user2

Export Users From a Group

This will export group members to a CSV, change group-name to the group you want to export.

Get-ADGroupMember -identity “Group-name” | select name | Export-csv -path C:\OutputGroupmembers.csv -NoTypeInformation

Get Group by keyword

Find a group by keyword. Helpful if you are not sure of the name, change group-name.

get-adgroup -filter * | Where-Object {$_.name -like "*group-name*"}

Import a List of Users to a Group

$members = Import-CSV c:itadd-to-group.csv | Select-Object -ExpandProperty samaccountname Add-ADGroupMember -Identity hr-n-drive-rw -Members $members

Active Directory Computer Commands

List of commands for getting Active Directory computers.

Get All Computers

This will list all computers in the domain

Get-AdComputer -filter *

Get All Computers by Name

This will list all the computers in the domain and only display the hostname

Get-ADComputer -filter * | select name

Get All Computers from an OU

Get-ADComputer -SearchBase "OU=DN" -Filter *

Get a Count of All Computers in Domain

Get-ADComputer -filter * | measure

Get all Windows 10 Computers

Change Windows 10 to any OS you want to search for

Get-ADComputer -filter {OperatingSystem -Like '*Windows 10*'} -property * | select name, operatingsystem

Get a Count of All computers by Operating System

This will provide a count of all computers and group them by the operating system. A great command to give you a quick inventory of computers in AD.

Get-ADComputer -Filter "name -like '*'" -Properties operatingSystem | group -Property operatingSystem | Select Name,Count

Delete a single Computer

Remove-ADComputer -Identity "USER04-SRV4"

Delete a List of Computer Accounts

Add the hostnames to a text file and run the command below.

Get-Content -Path C:ComputerList.txt | Remove-ADComputer

Delete Computers From an OU

Get-ADComputer -SearchBase "OU=DN" -Filter * | Remote-ADComputer

Group Policy Commands

List of commands for getting group policy details.

Get all GPO related commands

get-command -Module grouppolicy

Get all GPOs by status

get-GPO -all | select DisplayName, gpostatus

Backup all GPOs in the Domain

Backup-Gpo -All -Path E:GPObackup

Office 365 PowerShell Commands

Commands for Office 365.

Connect To Exchange Online

This will pop up and ask for credentials

$UserCredential = Get-Credential $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection Import-PSSession $Session

Force Azure Sync

This is for the azure ad sync client.

Force delta sync (only sync changes

Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta Force a full sync Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Initial

Get A List of All Office 365 Users

Get-MsolUser | Select DisplayName, City, Department, ObjectID

Get Full mailbox details

Get-Mailbox email-address | fl

Get Calendar Permissions

Get-MailboxFolderPermission username:calendar

Enable Remote Mailbox (Hybrid Environment)

Use this command if you have an existing on-premise user that needs an office 365 mailbox. There are other ways to do this but this creates all the attributes in the AD account.

Replace the username and the tenant fields

Enable-RemoteMailbox username -RemoteRoutingAddress "username@tenant.mail.onmicrosoft.com"

Windows Server & Client Commands

Get all Services

get-service

Get all Processes

get-process

Display Network Adapters

Gets detailed about the network adapter installed such as name, status, speed and mac address.

get-netadapater

Restart Remote Computers

Restart-Computer -ComputerName "Server01", "Server02", "localhost"

Get Last Boot Time

This takes a few lines

$os = Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem $uptime = (Get-Date) - $os.ConvertToDateTime($os.LastBootUpTime) Write-Output ("Last boot: " + $os.ConvertToDateTime($os.LastBootUpTime))

You can also run this single line to get last boot time

systeminfo | more

Start a Remote Session

Use this to start an interactive session with a remote computer

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName

Read the Content of a File (Open a file)

This example shows how to read the content of the windows firewall log file

Get-Content -Path "c:windowssystem32logfilesfirewallpfirewall.log"

Copy Files & Folders

Use this command to copy an entire folder to another folder. This will copy the folder and all the sub folder/files. The -verbose command will display the results to the console.

copy-item E:\WindowsImageBackup\exchange -destination \\server1\Backups\Exchange -recurse -verbose

Basic PowerShell Commands

Get Execution Policy

get-executionpolicy

Set Execution Policy to Unrestricted

set-executionpolicy unrestricted

Show PowerShell Version

$PSVersionTable

Get help for a command

Use this to get the help information for a command

get-help command-name

Search Get Help

Use this to search the help files. This is useful if you don’t know the command or want to see if one exists.

get-help *keyword*

Get Installed Modules

Use this command to display all the installed modules on a computer

get-installedmodule

List All Available Modules

This will list all available modules on the computer.

Get-Module -ListAvailable

Exporting results to CSV

Add export-csv to the end of commands

Get-ADUser username -Properties * | Select name, department, title | export-csv c:\user.csv

Display available commands

This will display all commands that are available based on the modules that are loaded.

get-command

Find New Modules

Replace *ntfs* with the keyword you want to search for. This searches modules at https://www.powershellgallery.com/

Find-Module *ntfs*

Install a New Module

Installs modules from https://www.powershellgallery.com/

I found a module called NTFSSecurity, to install it I run this command

install-module NTFSSecurity

Recommended Tool: SolarWinds Hybrid Systems Monitor

Monitor your physical and virtual servers with ease and troubleshoot more easily when downtime or other application performance issues occur.

What I like best about this tool is it’s easy-to-use dashboard and built-in alerting. See key metrics to help identify issues before users complain.

Monitor Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and other critical IT systems, both locally and cloud hosted. Get automated email alerts and know which applications are having issues in your environment.

Source :
https://activedirectorypro.com/powershell-commands/

Why High Tech Companies Struggle with SaaS Security

It’s easy to think high-tech companies have a security advantage over other older, more mature industries. Most are unburdened by 40 years of legacy systems and software. They draw some of the world’s youngest, brightest digital natives to their ranks, all of whom consider cybersecurity issues their entire lives.

Perhaps it is due to their familiarity with technology that causes them to overlook SaaS security configurations. During the last Christmas holiday season, Slack had some private code stolen from its GitHub repository. According to Slack, the stolen code didn’t impact production, and no customer data was taken.

Still, the breach should serve as a warning sign to other tech companies. Stolen tokens allowed threat actors to access the GitHub instance and download the code. If this type of attack can happen to Slack on GitHub, it can happen to any high-tech company. Tech companies must take SaaS security seriously to prevent resources from leaking or being stolen.

App Breaches: A Recurring Story#

Slack’s misfortune with GitHub wasn’t the first time a GitHub breach occurred. Back in April, a stolen OAuth token from Heroku and Travis CI-maintained OAuth applications were stolen, leading to an attacker downloading data from dozens of private code repositories.

MailChimp, a SaaS app used to manage email campaigns, experienced three breaches over 12 months spanning 2022-23. Customer data was stolen by threat actors, who used that data in attacks against cryptocurrency companies.

SevenRooms had over 400 GB of sensitive data stolen from its CRM platform, PayPal notified customers in January that unauthorized parties accessed accounts using stolen login credentials, and Atlassian saw employee data and corporate data exposed in a February breach.

Clearly, tech companies aren’t immune to data breaches. Protecting their proprietary code, customer data, and employee records that are stored within SaaS applications should be a top priority.

Reliance on SaaS Applications#

A strong SaaS posture is important for any company, but it is particularly important for organizations that store their proprietary code in SaaS applications. This code is especially tempting to threat actors, who would like nothing more than to monetize their efforts and ransom the code back to its creators.

Tech companies also tend to rely on a large number and mix of SaaS applications, from collaboration platforms to sales and marketing tools, legal and finance, data warehouses, cybersecurity solutions, and many more – making it even more challenging to secure the entire stack.

Tech employees heavily depend on SaaS apps to do their day-to-day work; this requires security teams to strictly govern identities and their access. Moreover, these users tend to log into their SaaS apps through different devices to maintain efficiency, which may pose a risk to the organization based on the device’s level of hygiene. On top of this, tech employees tend to connect third-party applications to the core stack without thinking twice, granting these apps high risk scopes.

Learn how Adaptive Shield can help you secure your entire SaaS stack.

Controlling SaaS Access After Layoffs#

The high-tech industry is known for periods of hyper-growth, followed by downsizing. Over the past few months, we’ve seen Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Shopify and others announce layoffs.

Deprovisioning employees from SaaS applications is a critical element in data security. While much of the offboarding of employees is automated, SaaS applications that are not connected to the company directory don’t automatically revoke access. Even those applications that are connected may have admin accounts that are outside the company’s SSO. While the primary SSO account may be disconnected, the user’s admin access through the app’s login screen is often accessible.

Organic Hyper Growth and M&As#

At the same time, the industry is ripe with mergers and acquisition announcements. As a result of M&As, the acquiring company needs to create a baseline for SaaS security and monitor all SaaS stacks of merged or acquired companies, while enabling business continuity. Whether the hyper growth is organic or through an M&A, organizations need to be able to ensure access is right-sized for their users, at scale and rapidly.

Identity Threat Detection & Response#

The majority of data breaches impacting tech companies stem from stolen credentials and tokens. The threat actor enters the system through the front door, using valid credentials of the user.

Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) picks up suspicious events that would otherwise go unnoticed. An SSPM (SaaS Security Posture Management) solution with threat detection engines in place will alert when there is an Indicator of Compromise (IOC). These IOCs are based on cross-referencing of activities such as user geolocation, time, frequency, recurring attempts to login, excessive activities and more.

Securing High Tech’s SaaS#

Maintaining a high SaaS security posture is challenging for high tech companies, who may mistakenly believe they are equipped and well trained to prevent SaaS attacks. SaaS Security Posture Management is essential to preventing SaaS breaches, while an SSPM with ITDR capabilities will go a long way toward ensuring that your SaaS data is secure.

Learn how Adaptive Shield can help you secure your entire SaaS stack.

Source :
https://thehackernews.com/2023/05/why-high-tech-companies-struggle-with.html

Tip – How to Disable Cloud-Based Clipboard (WIN+V) History in Windows 10

This tutorial will help you in disabling cloud-based clipboard (WIN+V) history feature in Windows 10. Once you follow the steps given in this guide, you’ll be able to prevent or restrict Windows 10 as well as other users from enabling cloud-clipboard feature from Settings and accessing your copied data from cloud-clipboard fly-out.

Newer versions of Windows 10 come with new cloud-based Clipboard feature which allows users to copy and paste multiple items from the clipboard. Users can copy multiple items to the new clipboard and then they can select and paste desired copied items from cloud-clipboard to anywhere they want such as Notepad, MS Word, etc.

The new cloud-based clipboard can be used by pressing WIN+V keys together. To copy items you need to use the good old Ctrl+C hotkey but to paste the copied text from new cloud-based clipboard, you need to use the new WIN+V keyboard shortcut.

When you press WIN+V keys together to access cloud-clipboard, Windows 10 launches the new cloud-based clipboard fly-out as shown in following screenshot:

To paste an item, you need to click on the item and it’ll be immediately pasted at current cursor position in your program window.

Users can enable/disable cloud-clipboard using Windows 10 Settings app. Open Settings app (WIN+I) and go to System -> Clipboard section. Now you can turn on/off Clipboard History option to allow/disallow Windows 10 from copying items to new cloud-clipboard as shown in following screenshot:

Customize_Cloud_Based_Clipboard_Settings_Windows_10.png

We posted a detailed tutorial reviewing cloud-based clipboard feature at following link:

[Tip] How to Configure and Use Cloud-Based Clipboard (WIN+V) Feature in Windows 10

Although it’s a good feature but many Windows 10 users may not like the new cloud-clipboard feature and they may want to disable or deactivate it due to privacy and security reasons.

In this tutorial, we’ll tell you how to permanently disable cloud-clipboard feature in Windows 10 so that no one can access your copied data by pressing WIN+V hotkey.

Once deactivated or disabled, when anyone will try to open Settings -> System -> Clipboard page in your Windows 10 device, he’ll notice that Clipboard History option is grayed out i.e. disabled and he can’t change it. So users will be unable to activate or enable cloud-clipboard feature without your permission. Also a message “Some of these settings are hidden or managed by your organization” will be displayed at the top of the page as shown in following screenshot:

Cloud_Clipboard_History_Disabled_Grayed_Out_Windows_10_Settings.png

If anyone will try to press WIN+V hotkey in Notepad or any other program to access cloud-clipboard feature, the new clipboard fly-out will open blank or empty. Windows 10 will no longer store your copied items to cloud-clipboard.

Following methods will help you in disabling cloud-clipboard feature in Windows 10 operating system:

METHOD 1: Using Group Policy Editor

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type gpedit.msc and press Enter. It’ll open Group Policy Editor.

2. Now go to:

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> OS Policies

3. In right-side pane, look for following options:

Allow Clipboard History

Allow Clipboard synchronization across devices

4. Double-click on both options one by one and set both of them to Disabled.

Disable_Cloud_Clipboard_History_Windows_10_Group_Policy.png

That’s it. It’ll permanently disable cloud-clipboard feature in Windows 10.

PS: In future, if you decide to restore default settings and restore cloud-clipboard feature, set the above mentioned options to Not Configured again in Group Policy Editor.

METHOD 2: Using Registry Editor

If you are using Home edition of Windows, you’ll not be able to run gpedit.msc command because this edition doesn’t come with Group Policy Editor.

If you can’t use or don’t want to use Group Policy Editor, you can take help of Registry Editor for the same task. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type regedit and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

3. In right-side pane, right-click on empty area and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value option. Set the new DWORD name as AllowClipboardHistory and keep its value to 0

Again right-click on empty area and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value option. Set the new DWORD name as AllowCrossDeviceClipboard and keep its value to 0

Disable_Cloud_Clipboard_History_Windows_10_Registry_Editor.png

4. Close Registry Editor. You may need to restart your computer to take effects.

That’s it. It’ll completely disable cloud-clipboard feature in Windows 10.

PS: In future, if you decide to restore default settings and restore cloud-clipboard feature, delete the DWORD values created in above mentioned steps from Registry Editor.

Also Check:

[Fix] Some Settings are Managed by Your Organization in Windows 10

You are here: Home » Windows 10 » [Tip] How to Disable Cloud-Based Clipboard (WIN+V) History in Windows 10

Published in: Windows 10

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Source :
https://www.askvg.com/tip-how-to-disable-cloud-based-clipboard-winv-history-in-windows-10/

GPO – Copy files to remote computers

Would you like to learn how to configure a group policy to copy files to remote computers? In this tutorial, we will show you how to copy files using a GPO.

• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016
• Windows 2019
• Windows 10
• Windows 7

Equipment list

The following section presents the list of equipment used to create this tutorial.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Windows Related Tutorial:

On this page, we offer quick access to a list of tutorials related to Windows.

Tutorial GPO – Copy files

Create a shared folder and place a copy of the files.

This will be the distribution point of the files to the network.

In our example, a shared folder named SOFTWARE was created.

All the domain users and all the domain computers were given read permission over this folder.

In our example, this is the path to access the network share.

Copy to Clipboard

\\tech-dc01\SOFTWARE

On the domain controller, open the group policy management tool.

Create a new group policy.

Enter a name for the new group policy.

In our example, the new GPO was named: MY-GPO.

On the Group Policy Management screen, expand the folder named Group Policy Objects.

Right-click your new Group Policy Object and select the Edit option.

On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.

Copy to Clipboard

Computer Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Folders

Create a new folder.

On the General tab, perform the following configuration.

• Action – Update.
• Path – Enter the path to the folder.
• Attributes – Select the attributes to the new folder.

Click on the OK button.

In our example, we are going to create a local folder named TEST on the root of drive C of all computers in the domain.

On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.

Copy to Clipboard

Computer Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Files

Create a new file.

On the General tab, perform the following configuration.

• Action – Update.
• Source – Enter the network path to the file.
• Destination – Enter the local path to save the file.

Click on the OK button.

In our example, we are going to copy a file from the network share named SOFTWARE to the local folder named TEST.

To save the group policy configuration, you need to close the Group Policy editor.

Congratulations! You have finished the GPO creation.

Tutorial – Applying the GPO to copy files

On the Group policy management screen, you need to right-click the Organizational Unit desired and select the option to link an existent GPO.

In our example, we are going to link the group policy named MY-GPO to the root of the domain.

After applying the GPO you need to wait for 10 or 20 minutes.

During this time the GPO will be replicated to other domain controllers.

On a remote computer, verify if the GPO copied the file.

In our example, we copied a file to all domain computers using a GPO.

Source :
https://techexpert.tips/windows/gpo-copy-files/

7 Reasons Why Security Awareness Is Critical for Employees

by hse | Apr 14, 2023 | Security information

There was a time when security awareness training was informal, short, and focused on simple things like using complex passwords. Well, it transpires that keeping these on a post-it note under your keyword or in a text file is in fact not a safe practice.

This was when cyber threats from hackers were the work of people with expert skills, and at worst resulted in your computer getting infected with a virus, causing a brief interruption to your working day. Fast forward to the modern reality of the dark web where you can literally shop around and choose the method in which you want to carry out a targeted attack.

Added to that are the near-constant cyber-attacks, where we can see an increase in phishing in the below graph from the Cyber Security Report 2023.

cyber security report - attack techniques - security awareness training

Attackers are not slowing down and always finding new, harmful ways to compromise businesses. The efforts therefore to stay ahead and protect organizations must continue, and one of those is to introduce security awareness training. There is significant evidence that security awareness training is more than just essential. A recent Remote Management Survey by Hornetsecurity showed in fact that 1 in 3 organizations do not provide any kind of cybersecurity awareness training to remote employees.

A reliance solely on an organization’s security function for detection and prevention is no longer sufficient. Employees must be armed with security awareness training to become foot soldiers in this war, and I’ll explain the reasons why.

1. Protects Sensitive Data

Security awareness training helps employees understand the importance of protecting sensitive information and the consequences of a data breach. Protecting sensitive data helps to ensure cyber security and maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your information systems.

Using security awareness services, users are educated to understand how and why sensitive data needs to be protected and can help prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. This security awareness software in turn protects the organization’s reputation and financial well-being, as well as protects the personal information of customers and employees.

Sensitive data is essentially confidential information such as financial records and personally identifiable information (PII) and, depending on the nature of the organization, could also include trade secrets or proprietary information considered commercially sensitive.

Theft and subsequent compromise of sensitive data is very common and a highly prized target during security or data breaches. In IBM’s “Cost of a data breach report 2022” we can see the year-on-year cost of a data breach is going in the wrong direction!

Through a cyber security training program, users become aware of the legal and ethical obligations they have to safeguard it from unauthorized access, disclosure, or misuse. Arming your users with security awareness training provides the knowledge and skills necessary how to handle sensitive information and significantly reduces the risk of a data or security breach.

2. Fosters a Sustainable Security Culture

Creating and fostering a culture of security within the organization is a fundamental step in raising awareness of security threats and practices for mitigating them.

Regular security awareness training promotes a security culture within an organization, making security a priority for all employees. You might have heard the catchphrase “security is everyone’s responsibility.” There’s a lot of truth to that.

Through a security awareness training program, employees benefit by learning and becoming aware of the roles and responsibilities and shifting their mindset from “that’s someone else’s problem” to “that’s my problem.”

Providing security awareness training empowers them to take responsibility and notice and report anything out of the ordinary. This can extend from information security things like phishing scams and emails to physical security and being able to identify or report someone suspicious lurking in the office or tailgating when entering the premises!

A security-conscious workforce brings about a culture where users are more likely to take proactive steps to protect their sensitive data and report suspicious activity.

3. Detects and Prevents Insider Threats

Security awareness training can help identify and prevent potential insider threats, such as employees who may be intentionally or unintentionally compromising the security of an organization, and here is why cybersecurity awareness training is important.

Insider threats refer to security breaches that are caused by a person who has authorized access to an organization’s systems, network, and data. Although only employees are commonly considered, it includes anyone who has access to the organization’s systems like vendors or contractors.

Theft of sensitive information, sabotage of systems, using security credentials, and unauthorized access to confidential data are also examples of insider threats. These threats can significantly impact the organization like financial loss, reputational damage, and even legal liabilities.

4. Increases Employee Engagement

By educating employees on the importance of security threats within and towards it, organizations can increase employee engagement and buy-in to security initiatives.

Engaged employees are more likely to feel like they have a vested interest in the success of their organization, thereby creating a sense of loyalty and responsibility towards it. Ultimately resulting in overall better security practices and reducing the risk of security breaches.

Increased employee engagement through security awareness training can result in employee retention, an often overlooked benefit. When employees leave an organization, they often take away with them potentially institutional sensitive information especially if an employee has a role within the security function of that organization, as their departure could create a security gap and therefore a security risk.

Although most organizations have a defined security policy, in reality, the only time an employee reads this is when they initially join and are required to read this part of their onboarding as a compliance exercise. By being and feeling more engaged, you’re likely to see better compliance with and understanding of security policies and procedures.

Understanding why these policies are necessary and how they contribute to the organization’s overall security reduces the risk of accidental or intentional security breaches.

5. Education on Security Threats and How to Mitigate Them

Educating employees on security threats and how to mitigate them is crucial to maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture within an organization.

Employees who don’t work in a security-related role are often unaware of the plethora of security threats their organization faces every day. Incorporating education of security threats in a security awareness training program is an effective method to “enlist” employees as “soldiers” in this perpetual war.

Time is often of the essence when it comes to recognizing an IT security threat. For example, if a user who has not undergone a security awareness training program opens a malicious link, then realizes this, they are less likely to understand the significance of how quickly they must act on this information and report this.

Employees who understand the impact posed by security threats are more likely to make better decisions armed with this education.

6. Reduces Human Error

Employees are less likely to make costly security mistakes if they have received training on identifying and responding to security threats. Human error is a common cause of security incidents and one of the most common methods attackers use to infiltrate a network.

As you will have been, whenever there is a data breach, along with significant reputational damage, the financial cost is often significant. Assessing the cost and worth of implementing these security measures and awareness training is easily outweighed by the savings in not.

7. Supports Incident Response

Security awareness training equips employees with the knowledge and skills to respond effectively to security incidents, reducing the impact and recovery time of such incidents.

In an organization’s cyber security incident response plan, it will include and detail the roles and responsibilities for everyone in the organization. In the event of a security incident, it is important for all members of the organization to understand their roles and responsibilities in responding to the incident.

A security awareness program will help to educate people who are involved in being able to respond in the face of a security incident adequately and more quickly. Educated users are also more likely to recognize the signs of a security incident and report is prompt, which can help the incident response team take action more quickly.

The ability of an organization to respond in such a manner that minimizes the impact can be the difference between “getting owned” and mitigating a potential disaster.

We at Hornetsecurity work hard perpetually to give our customers confidence in their Security Awareness Service, Spam & Malware Protection, Advanced Threat Protection, Email Encryption, Email Archiving, and VM backup strategies.

To keep up to date with the latest security best practices, become a member of the Hornetsecurity blog now (it’s free).

Summary

The importance and benefits of security awareness training programs should not be underestimated for how organizations combat cybersecurity threats. Organizations can no longer think of cyber security awareness training as a maybe when they plan and strategize on how to improve cyber security posture, it’s essential.

In this digital age, many options and methods exist in which a cyber security awareness training program can be delivered, both online and in person. Hornetsecurity is one such place that offers a cyber security awareness training service.

FAQs

What is security awareness training?

Security awareness training is a kind of training that helps people learn about different security risks and how to keep themselves safe from them. Hornetsecurity provides security awareness training to help people become more aware and knowledgeable about security risks and how to protect themselves. By implementing proper security awareness training in your company, your employees will be able to recognize and avoid potential dangers.

Why is security awareness important?

Security awareness training is important to ensure the safety of sensitive data, and protecting against cyber threats is critical in today’s digital age. We at Hornetsecurity provide one-of-a-kind security awareness training that mainly focuses on creating a user-centric experience for employees better to understand the importance of security measures and procedures. With our training, you can rest assured that your systems and confidential information are secure.

What are the types of security awareness?

Our security expertise distinguishes 4 main types of security awareness training:

Classroom training (lecture-based training)
Video training
Cloud training
Simulation training

How often should security awareness training be conducted?

At Hornetsecurity, the Awareness Engine is the technological heart of our Security Awareness Service. It offers the following:

Everyone to have the right amount of training;
Each user receives as much training as necessary and as little as possible;
Demand-driven roll out of relevant e-training content;
Booster option for users who need more intensive e-training;
Fully automated steering of the e-training.

Source :
https://www.hornetsecurity.com/en/security-information/security-awareness-training/

Using Wireshark to Analyze and Troubleshoot Hyper-V Networking

Analyze traffic and uncover Hyper-V networking problems has never been easier

Networking problems frequently challenge administrators. Introducing a virtualized switch to the mix adds another layer of complexity and multiple failure points. We can use the popular Wireshark tool to analyze traffic and uncover problems.

Requirements for Success with Wireshark

First, you need the software. You can download Wireshark from Wireshark.org. The site includes substantial information and links to more. Due to the extensive depth of the tool, the value that you get from Wireshark depends directly on how well you’ve learned it. Ideally, you’d go through a guided course and practice on training captures. I understand that you might have more immediate needs. This article illustrates enough to get you started but expect to invest time in training and practice.

Second, you need a working knowledge of Ethernet frame structure. You do not need anything near expert level, but you won’t get far if you can’t make sense of what Wireshark reveals. We have an article series on basic networking that can get you started.

Remote Captures in Wireshark

Wireshark can capture information on remote systems. However, it includes more hints than details. I could not find any directions that I felt comfortable sharing. Fortunately, you have alternatives.

Wireshark will run on Windows Server. Because it relies on the Qt library for its graphical interface, you can run the entire program on a Core mode installation by manually starting “C:\Program Files\Wireshark\Wireshark.exe”. I have no objection to running Wireshark on a server. However, I do not like RDP or similar remote connections to servers. These technologies present a significant attack surface for malware and intruders. Use at your own risk.

During the Wireshark install, you can also select the TShark program, which gives you command-line access to captures. TShark works inside a PowerShell Remote session. That means that you can install TShark on a system that you want to capture “remotely”, output its capture to disk, and then import it into a management system. I will not spend much time on TShark in this article, but I will get you started.

TShark Fundamentals

First, install at least the TShark portion of Wireshark on the target server. That might require a remote desktop connection as Wireshark has no official support for remote or scripted installation. However, running “Wireshark-Win64-<VER>.exe /s” at a command prompt, (or via a script, or possibly even a remote session), should install the software with default options.

Second, open a remote PowerShell session to the server using credentials with administrative privileges on the target:

Connect-PSSession -ComputerName <SERVERNAME>

Alternatively, you can supply credentials at the point of entry:

Connect-PSSession -ComputerName <SERVERNAME> -Credential (Get-Credential)

Once you have your remote session, run Get-NetAdapter to retrieve a list of adapters on the remote server:

Locate the adapter(s) that host the Hyper-V virtual switch on the server and note the value(s) for ifIndex. In my case, I want interfaces 4 and 10. With that knowledge, initiate TShark. Tell it which interfaces to include in the capture and where to write an output file with the -i and -w switches, respectively. That looks something like this:

& ‘C:\Program Files\Wireshark\tshark.exe’ -i 4 -i 10 -w C:\Users\esadmin\Documents\cap.pcapng

You do need the leading ampersand. If you use tab completion for assistance in entering the path to TShark, PowerShell will insert it automatically.

Upon pressing [Enter], the capture starts and writes to the file. Most importantly, you need to know that pressing [CTRL]+[C] stops the capture. Because we did not specify a capture limit, it will run until we either cancel it or the remote system runs out of disk space. Less importantly, the TShark program does not generate all its console output in a way that PowerShell remote sessions can process. You will see some things that look like error messages and other things will not appear at all. Just remember how to start and stop the capture and you will get the expected capture file.

TShark allows you to restrict captures with limits and filters. I will leave learning about that to you. Start with tshark.exe –help. The instructions above will generate a capture file that, at worst, has more data than you want. Once you have that file, you can transfer it to your management workstation and use Wireshark to operate on it.

A Warning about Wireshark and Resources

Wireshark will write to capture files, but it defaults to keeping captured packets in memory unless told otherwise. When possible, only run captures for the time needed to gather the data relevant to the problem you want to solve. Take care to set limits on long-running captures to ensure that you do not consume all host memory or disk space. Remember that a full disk will cause any VMs on that disk to pause. Also, remember that Hyper-V prioritizes processes in the management operating system, so it will squeeze virtual machines as needed to provide CPU and memory resources to Wireshark.

Set capture limits from Wireshark’s main interface by clicking the Capture menu item on the menu bar and then clicking Options.

The Input tab allows you to select the adapters to watch and to define capture filters. The Output tab gives you options for writing to files. You can set finite capture limits on the Options tab that apply whether writing to memory or disk, along with some handy quality-of-life settings.

While we frequently want to capture all data so that we don’t miss environmental problems, you can greatly reduce capture size with capture filters. Unlike display filters, capture filters tell Wireshark to discard information without storing it. Use these cautiously; if you inadvertently throw out interesting frames, you’ll have to perform additional captures.

Finally, remember that 10GB and faster interfaces can already generate heavy CPU loads. Using Wireshark to capture and decipher frames costs that much more. Few systems drive their networking capabilities anywhere near their maximums but remain mindful.

Traffic Must Pass a Physical Adapter for Wireshark to Capture It

With the current way that the Hyper-V virtual switch projects into the management operating system, Wireshark cannot bind directly to it. Instead, we attach it to one or more physical adapters. This means that, at the management operating system level, Wireshark cannot intercept any traffic that never leaves the VMBus.

The VMBus limitation primarily impacts internal and private virtual switches. Without a physical adapter, you have few options. If you have an unused physical adapter, you could temporarily bind the virtual switch to it with Set-VMSwitch. If your host uses the older LBFO technology, you can add a team NIC in another VLAN and bind your virtual switch to that. Even with these alternatives, you will still miss anything that does not cross the bound adapter.

However, this should only present a problem in edge cases. Wireshark and TShark can operate just as well inside a virtual machine as they can in the management operating system. Wireshark does not distinguish between virtual and physical adapters. Set it to watch the virtual adapters involved in your communications chain, and you’ll see the traffic. If you can’t install either product inside a given virtual machine, you still have Hyper-V’s port mirroring feature.

Capturing All Virtual Switch Traffic

When you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, which applies well when you don’t have much experience with network captures, just get everything. When you first open Wireshark, it will present all network adapters that it can operate with. Find the physical adapters that host your virtual switch and highlight them:

Remember that choosing anything that says “vEthernet” in its name binds to that virtual adapter, not the virtual switch. For switch monitoring, you must choose the physical adapter(s).

You can either right-click your selection and click Start Capture or you can click the blue shark icon at the left of Wireshark’s icon menu. If you made a mistake in adapter selection or just want to change it after the capture has started, select Options from the Capture menu:

Once the capture starts. you should see a rapidly scrolling screen like the one below. If you’re working on a problem, reproduce it while the trace runs.

Once the trace has captured enough information, click the red square button on the toolbar to end it. Regardless of your intentions, I recommend saving the file. It’s better to have a capture file that you don’t need than the opposite.

You can scan through the capture to look for anything that seems out of place or just to acclimate yourself to a network capture. If you’ve never used Wireshark before, the topmost pane shows a list of captured frames with some basic information about each. The middle pane tries to break the selected frame down into its individual components. Click on the triangle icon to the left of any item to drill down further. Wireshark uses “dissectors” to interpret frame components. Anything that it doesn’t recognize goes into the generic “Data” portion. The third pane shows a binary dump of the frame. If you click any part of that, the dissector pane will shift focus to that location.

Listings such as this allow you to peruse the activity crossing your virtual switch. You can investigate whatever interests you.

Exercise 1: Capturing Virtual Switch Traffic by Port

Tracing traffic by port can help you locate breaks in communication. It helps you to discover if messages that you expect to arrive on a virtual machine ever make it to the virtual switch at all. You can ensure that servers on virtual machines respond to clients as expected. You can watch for traffic coming from unexpected (potentially malicious) sources.

In my example exercise, I want to verify that my “primary” domain controller properly receives and responds to authentication traffic. For the most basic trace, I can set a display filter on a previously captured file or on an active trace with this format: tcp.port == 389:

Capturing Virtual Switch Traffic by Port

For thoroughness, I want to look at all traffic that a domain controller would utilize for authentication traffic. I can filter to multiple ports like this: tcp.port == 88 or tcp.port == 389 or tcp.port == 636 or tcp.port == 3268 or tcp.port == 3269

Pressing [Enter] or the white arrow with the blue background at the end of the filter field will update the display to show only frames that match the filter:

Scanning the filtered view, I see frames that it clearly identifies as LDAP and others that it marks only as TCP. When Wireshark cannot identify a frame, look to the Info column. In the third row of the screenshot, we see that it has marked the frame as [ACK]. That tells us that the frame contains an acknowledgement of a previously received frame.

If I want to find out what the frame acknowledged, I can right-click on the line item, hover over Conversation Filter, and choose one of the offered items. In this case, I don’t want to miss anything, so I choose Ethernet as the least specific filter:

In response, Wireshark pares down the display to only the items that belong to that particular “conversation”. Also, notice that it updated the display filter:

I know that 192.168.5.1 belongs to the domain controller of interest. I also know that 192.168.5.2 belongs to my “secondary” domain controller. Therefore, before I even performed any of these tasks, I could have guessed that these frames carry requests or updates that keep domain information synchronized. To confirm, I select the first frame in the conversation in the top pane. In the second pane, I find the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol section that indicates a dissector has come into play. In the bottom frame, I locate the highlighted information (remember that this matches whatever I selected in the middle frame):

The frame appears to have something to do with DNS settings. I look at the same portion of the second frame:

We already know that the third and final frame in the conversation is an ACK. So, we can surmise that 192.168.5.2 asked 192.168.5.1 about SVDC02 as a DNS server, got a NO_OBJECT result, and acknowledged receipt of the result. It appears that I may have some DNS troubleshooting to do.

However, I was interested in authentication traffic. We learned that the tracked conversation dealt with DNS servers. I can return to my previous filtered view by clicking the drop-down arrow at the end of the filter line and choosing the filter that I want to see again:

Exercise 2: Including or Excluding Virtual Switch Traffic by IP Address

To continue with the scenario set up in exercise 1, I still want to see all the authentication traffic to my “primary” domain controller, but I want to exclude anything between it and my “secondary” domain controller. The simplest display filter looks like this: ip.addr != 192.168.5.2. If I wanted to only see traffic on that IP, then I could use double equals (==) or eq instead of!=.

Of course, I don’t want non-authentication traffic. So, let’s modify the filter to ip.addr != 192.168.5.2 and (tcp.port == 88 or tcp.port == 389 or tcp.port == 636 or tcp.port == 3268 or tcp.port == 3269). Pay attention to the usage of parentheses. This grouping tells Wireshark that we want traffic where no frame includes IP address 192.168.5.2 but does contain any of the TCP ports inside the parentheses:

Including or Excluding Virtual Switch Traffic by IP Address

The remaining list tells us multiple things:

No non-domain controller except 192.168.10.1 talked to the domain controller during the capture (were we expecting traffic from someone else?)
We see the beginning of a conversation between the domain controller and 192.168.10.1 (indicated by the SYN packets)
192.168.10.1 performed a bind and SASL operation
All traffic was on port 389
We see the end of a conversation (indicated by the RST, ACK packet followed by a FIN, ACK packet)

While not captured in the screenshot, the Info contents provide enough preview information for me to understand what the SASL conversation was about. However, I can click on the individual frames and use the other two panes to get a deeper look at the traffic.

Exercise 3: Determine the Physical Adapter(s) Used by a Virtual Machine

The Hyper-V virtual switch makes its own decisions when placing traffic on the members of a switch-embedded team. If you use the Hyper-V Port load balancing algorithm, it will affinitize each virtual adapter’s incoming traffic to a physical adapter. While it can dynamically change affinities in response to events, each virtual adapter will always receive on exactly one physical adapter. If you use the Dynamic load balancing algorithm instead, then Hyper-V can exploit Ethernet and TCP/IP characteristics to distribute physical adapter use down at the conversation level.

If you want to view its decisions in action, Wireshark can help. Get a capture of traffic on your switch’s physical adapters. Select any frame in the top pane. In the middle pane, expand the Frame group at the top, then the Interface item. Look at the Interface description field:

Skip around in a generic capture and look at the ways that it uses physical adapters. Notice how it freely distributes multicast and broadcast traffic as it sees fit. Notice how it picks an adapter for any given individual unicast conversation and keeps it there.

We will expand on this subject in the next two exercises.

Exercise 4: Determine the MAC Addresses Used by a Virtual Machine

This exercise may seem pointless because you can use PowerShell or the various graphical tools to find the MAC assigned to a Hyper-V virtual network adapter. Bear with me though, as you may see things that you don’t expect.

This exercise begins similarly to exercise 3. Pick a frame from the top pane and look in the center pane. The second section, after Frame, is Ethernet. It shows the MAC addresses involved in the frame, which probably aligns with what you see in your tools:

Determine the MAC Addresses Used by a Virtual Machine

Then again, it might not:

In fact, even though it includes the IP address of a virtual machine (192.168.127.3, visible in the third row), neither the source nor destination MAC belong to a Microsoft virtual adapter. For this reason, I counsel against filtering Hyper-V virtual switch traffic by any MAC owned by a virtual adapter unless you’re doing something like validating MAC address spoofing.

How did this happen? Short answer: Hyper-V silently utilizes the MAC addresses of physical adapters when load balancing traffic from a single virtual adapter. If that seems strange, understand that physical switches do the same thing. Knowing the MAC address that Hyper-V assigned to a virtual adapter does not guarantee that the virtual switch will only use that MAC in conversations involving that adapter. The only Ethernet segment that absolutely must have the correct MAC for an adapter is its direct switch connection. In Hyper-V’s case, that connection only exists on VMBus which, as we discussed earlier, cannot be seen in Wireshark. If you want a longer explanation, I wrote an article that talks about how this very thing can cause problems when using a dynamic-mode Hyper-V virtual switch in conjunction with load balancers.

You can see the MAC-to-adapter matching by comparing the MAC to the interface ID or description (as shown in exercise 3). You can use this information to filter a virtual machine’s traffic by adapter as shown in the next exercise.

Exercise 5: Find Traffic for a Virtual Machine that Uses a Specific Virtual Adapter

We’ll combine what we learned in the previous two exercises to answer a specific question: how do I filter the traffic from a specific virtual adapter that crosses a specific physical adapter? In case you skipped the previous sections, this question only makes sense when your Hyper-V virtual switch involves a physical adapter team.

The part of the virtual machine that does not change is its IP address, so I will filter by that first. Next, I will have Wireshark look at the frame object. As you type the filter, it will make suggestions. I begin my filter with ip.addr == 192.168.127.3 and frame.. Note that this is an incomplete query, and it includes a period at the end of frame:

You can see that Wireshark makes suggestions to help us out. The subcomponent of frame that interests us is the interface, so start typing that to shorten the suggestion list:

If you recall the Wireshark-assigned interface ID from previous exercises, then you can select the interface_id subcomponent and that number. I like repeatable, memorable things, so I will use the interface_description with the name that I gave the adapter in Windows: ip.addr == 192.168.127.3 and frame.interface_description == PTL. You do not need quotes around the name:

My display now contains traffic for that virtual machine that uses the designated physical adapter, even though none of it includes the virtual machine’s “correct” MAC address:

Expect to see many frames marked “TCP Spurious Retransmission” on the physical adapter(s) that substitute their own MAC in place of the virtual adapter’s. Network load balancing does not come free.

Expand on these Lessons

This article only scratched the surface of Wireshark’s capabilities. Most importantly, it empowers you to see below the layer 3 and higher pieces that the virtual adapters deliver into the guest operating systems. You can now see the data that enters and leaves your virtual switch and use that knowledge to find the truth behind those vague “it must be something wrong with the network” excuses.

Source :
https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/wireshark-hyper-v-networking/