Improving security posture by mitigating common active directory security misconfigurations in active directory environments

• Main Author: Villapando, Christian Joseph D.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Directory services (Computer network technology); Information Security
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/13399
• Institution: De La Salle University

Active Directory Directory Services (AD DS) is commonly used by small and large organizations today as their primary identity and access management solution over the past 20 years. It is so common that Active Directory (AD) is used by approximately 90% of the Global Fortune 1000 companies today. It also means that adversaries know that encountering AD being used in the organization they are targeting is very likely. Adversaries also know that knowing how to abuse its weaknesses in the form of security misconfigurations would increase the likelihood of their operation being a success. This paper presents the risk organizations face today caused by common security misconfigurations in AD. It also presents in detail specific open-source tools and commands to detect or hunt these identified security misconfigurations and provides specific remediation techniques to improve the AD environment's current security posture.