Microsoft network protocols – NetBIOS, SMB, and LDAP operations, vulnerabilities, and exploitation

In the modern era, organizations depend upon Microsoft and its products because they are user-friendly and provide better communication between a client and a server. Now, to communicate between the client and the server, various protocols are required to resolve machine hostnames, secure file sharing between them, and most importantly, locate data and resources about individual users and the organization.

Combining all this to work as one in a whole domain is very difficult, and if misconfigured, this can leave doors open for attackers to take advantage and compromise the critical assets in an organization. So, let’s look at some of the network protocols defined by Microsoft in the domain that helps to communicate, locate and share resources between a client and a server.

NetBIOS

NetBIOS can be defined as the Network Basic Input Output System, which is a legacy...