(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.

(1) Trust Relationships and Work Groups

Trust Relationships: Trust relationship refers to a line between two domains, where one domain is referred to as the trusting domain and other the trusted domain. Trusting domain lets the trusted domain logon. User accounts and groups that are defined for a trusted domain can access trusting domain resource even though those accounts are not present in trusting domain directory database.
Work Group: A distinctive name network resource can be referred to as an object. Similar objects can be grouped into workgroup e.g. printer, scanner etc.

2) Remote Access

Windows 2000 support two kinds of remote access connection metthod:

1. VPN (virtual private network) remote access
2. Dial up remote access

with dial up remote access: A remote access client uses telecommunication infrastructure to crate a temporary physical structure to create a temporary network or a virtual network.

A dial up Remote Access Connection consist of:

1.  Remote access server
2.  WAN infrastructure
3.  Remote access server

with VPN remote access: VPNprovides a secure network connection between two remote machines. remote access of a VPN client uses an IP network to create virtual point-to point connection with a RAS server acting as a VPN server.

(3) ip sec 276

Ip sec is a framework for ensuring secure private coomunication over Ip network. Ip sec provides security for transmission of critical and sensitive information over unprotected security for transmission of critical and sensitive information over unprotected network such as the Internet. IPSec VPNs use the services defined within IPSec to ensure confidentiality, Integrity and authenticty of data communications over the public network, like internet. IPSec operates at the network layer protecting and authenticating IP packets between participating IPSec devices.

Anti Reply: The IPSec receive can detect and reject replayed packet.

Data Origin Authentication: The IPSec receiver can authenticate the source of the IPSec packets sent. This service is dependent upon the data integrity service.

Data confidentiality: The IPSec sender can encrypt packets before transmitting them across a network.

Data integrity: The receiver can authenticate packets sent by the IPSec sender to ensure that the data has not been altered during transmission.

(4) user mode:

User Mode is responsible for providing insulation of end users from kernel mode. Windows 2000 user mode API subsystems are responsible for execution for different supporting system applications like win32 and POSIX. These subsystems have their own API’s (Application Programming Interface) System data and hardware is accessible to kernel mode layer of Windows2000. Operating system itself runs in the kernel mode. Environment subsystems run in user mode. The lowest two layers nearest to the hardware use the kernel and Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) that is written in C and assembly language. Upper layers are written in C and are machine independent layers. Most of the drivers in Windows2000 are written in C or C++.