Forum Discussion
Hardening Windows 10 on an IT Pro's laptop
- DeletedApr 13, 2018
a clean install of Windows 10 is pretty good, that said, I do have the following advice:
- It is important to properly configure User Account Control on all machines; out of the box it is very insecure meaning anything can bypass it to grab admin privileges.
- It is important to make sure that Secure Boot is enabled on all machines.
- BitLocker is an obvious one, enable it on all machines.
- You may want to use Windows Defender Firewall to block all inbound connections on the private and public profiles, its very effective for protecting devices in public places and usually has no negative impact but should be assessed per requirements.
- You should deploy the uBlock Origin browser extension to all browsers, it blocks a significant amount of malware and greatly reduces the bandwidth used by your org; for the record, Chrome and Edge are much more secure than other browsers.
- Also remember to properly patch, if Windows, Defender, or Browser are out of date then you WILL be targeted.
Following the above will significantly benefit you and your users and can be done by anybody without any extra cost; I hope that's useful for you
Edit: oh, and if you're ever able to: I recommend you look into Windows 10 S (soon to be called Windows Pro in S Mode)
yes, it gets a lot of stick for restricting you to Edge and Store apps but that thing is rock solid; even if you never ever use it, it's the best example of Device Guard Code Integrity in action and how powerful it can be when properly configured
Edit: from 1803 Hypervisor enforced Code Integrity (HVCI) will be enabled by default via clean install, you can enable it on previous versions by following these instructions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/security/threat-protection/enable-virtualization-based-protection-of-code-integrity
HVCI is a feature that helps defend against kernel level malware; I initially didn't mention it because I'm not sure what the real world benefits are and I'm aware that it can cause instability and performance problems, however since Microsoft seems to be pushing for its implementation I felt it was worth adding. (I imagine they may also do the same for DMA Protection in the future)
If you want to go for more than just "kind of secure, unless it's inconvenient" consider leveraging Client Hyper-V to use a hypervisor boundary to protect your sensitive config from your productivity / riskier usage.
We talk about Privileged Access Workstations here: http://aka.ms/cyberpaw - Jian Yan has been working on this model and talk about an updated architecture here: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/datacentersecurity/2017/10/13/privileged-access-workstationpaw/
We also document our security baselines here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-security-baselines
Yep, I think that' son Deleted security todo list which I am slowly going through , starting with Bitlocker. One thing I did was turn was allowing complex passwords prior to enabling Bitlocker. Oddly I didn't get much feedback regarding Drive C whereas Drive D I got the full progress dialog. Seems to be working well and will test hibernation recovery at some stage.
As for your suggestion, Are there any downsides to this as I want to work seamlessly with PowerShell, Azure, REST calls etc