Explain the following with reference to "hardening" in WINDOWS 2000 O/S:

(1) Hardening the O/S and application code

MIcrosoft peridically ditributes large updates to its OS in the form of service packs. Service Packs include all the major and minor fixes up. microsoft also distributes intermediate updates to their operating systems in the form of Hotfix.

The following steps descrive the automated process of deisoverting and installing service packs and hotfixes to a window 2000 system

·         Open IE (internet Explorer)

·         Go to tools - windwos update

·         when askesd if you trust microsoft, say YEs.

(2) Hardening the file system security

In this case , we have to make sure that the hard drive partitions are formatted with NTFS. This file system is more secure than FAT of FAT32 schemes

Step1: check your hard drive partitions

·         Log in as Administrator

·         Double click on My computer

·         Right CLick on each Hard Drive and Chosse properties

·         Generat tab will identify the File system type.

Step2: Converting FAT or FAT32 partitions to NTFS

·         Go ro start- RUN

·         Type cmd and click OK

·         At command prompt issue the following command convert drive

·         Hit return to run the command

·         Reboot the system.

(3) Hardening the local security policies

While many system attacks take advantage of software inadequacy, many also make use of user accounts. To prevent such sort of vulnerability, "policies" or rules defien what sort or account/password " behavior" is appropriate, what type of auditing is required.

Account policy answers the following.

·         How often do I need to change my password?

·         How long or how complex does my password need to be?

Auditing policies determine what kind of security transactions are recorded in the security Event Long.