Checklist: Tighten default settings to prevent unauthorized access

Many people say information security is a journey: No action you take to secure Windows will make much difference if you don't keep doing more and stay one-step ahead of your nemesis. Even if you spend lots of money, hire the best people, know security backward and forward, implement Fort-Knox-like physical security and anti-logic bomb bunker technologies, you're still going to lose. Someone will be one step ahead of you.

Hogfeathers! This kind of attitude will leave you open to attack. Sure as letting a bull loose in a glass shop, it will result in damaged goods -- your network and your computers will be penetrated.

Instead of bemoaning what you don't know, what you can't do and what the enemy knows, get a grip and start hardening systems. Truth be told, doing so, like eating good food and not standing on a hill during a lightening storm, can protect you from an extraordinary percentage of common attacks.

You have to modify Windows system defaults. Defaults are established to help the most people get the most use out of their s

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Start by disabling unnecessary network connections. These network connections are enabled by default. The key word here is not 'disable' -- it's 'unnecessary.' You may need these connections on some systems but you should have a security policy that defines how and when to use these connections and how they may be secured. Meanwhile, take the attitude that all things should be locked down, and loosened only after need versus risk has been evaluated.

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Windows Security Checklists offer you step-by-step advice for planning, setting up and hardening your Windows security infrastructure.
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