Understanding Windows network security
In this section, we will review the core networking components of Windows clients and servers. Having familiarity with these components is a must for any security professional when managing and troubleshooting Windows devices. It's also recommended that you apply the baseline recommendations for network-related settings to ensure your system is hardened correctly.
Network baselining
Referencing back to Chapter 2, Building a Baseline, you will want to ensure that your network-specific components have been configured based on the recommendations. There are many network-related settings for Windows and implementing the baseline recommendations is the more practical approach compared to building your own standards from scratch. As an example, referencing back to the latest Microsoft security baseline for Windows clients, simply filtering for the network keyword in the Security Template worksheet provides 40 settings.
