Threats and Countermeasures: Security Settings in Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP
The Threats and Countermeasures guide provides you with a reference to all security settings that provide countermeasures for specific threats against current versions of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. This guide is a companion to two other Microsoft publications: The Windows Server 2003 Security Guide, which is available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14845, and the Windows XP Security Guide, which is available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14839. Many of the countermeasures that are described in this guide are not intended for specific computer roles in the companion guides, or in some cases for any roles at all.
The chapters of this guide are structured in a way that approximates how the major sections of settings are displayed in the user interface of the Group Policy Editor. Each chapter begins with a brief explanation of what is in the chapter, followed by a list of subsection headers, each of which corresponds to a setting or group of settings. (These settings are listed in the Microsoft ExcelŽ workbook that is available in the downloadable version of this guide.) Each subsection provides a brief explanation of what the countermeasure does, and includes the following information:
- Vulnerability. Explains how an attacker might mount an attack if the setting is configured in a less secure manner.
- Countermeasure. Explains how to implement the countermeasure.
- Potential Impact. Explains the possible negative consequences of countermeasure implementation.
Read the rest of The Threats and Countermeasures Guide v2.0.