How do you begin to build a strong Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) strategy? It begins with an understanding of your unique identity environment, says Maarten Goet, Director for Cybersecurity at Wortell and an expert in Microsoft technologies and communities. “The top identity security concern is [organizations] typically don’t…
A plan for recovering Active Directory (AD) should be a priority for your identity threat detection and response (ITDR) plan. After all, we live in a federated world of hybrid identities, zero-touch login, and distributed work. In this digital landscape, everything is connected. For most organizations, AD is at the…
To contend with the explosion of cybercrime and its impact on business operations, many organizations are updating their disaster recovery plans to include cyber incident response. Many of the processes and guidelines in traditional disaster recovery plans have changed little in years, sometimes even in over a decade—making them ill-suited…
Identity threat response—the initial aspect of ITDR—is gaining importance as cyberattackers continue to find new ways into victims’ environments. I recently spoke with Brian Desmond, Principal at Ravenswood Technology Group, about his experience helping organizations secure identity and protect and recover critical identity assets like Active Directory (AD). “Anything that…
Even after more than 20 years of service, Active Directory (AD) remains one of the most critical components of the typical enterprise’s IT infrastructure. AD security is easy for users to take for granted when it is working. However, in the event of an attack, its criticality to business operations…
Most organizations have virtualized some or all their AD domain controllers (DCs). Virtualized DCs have their advantages, but they also introduce risks that didn’t exist with physical servers. One of these risks is the temptation to use hypervisor snapshots (a point-in-time VM image) for AD backups. Don’t. Let’s be clear: Even though Microsoft supports hypervisor snapshot restores since Windows Server 2012 (i.e., they won’t break AD as they could in…
Ransomware attacks have reportedly declined this year. But don’t start celebrating just yet. “Gang models are evolving,” notes my colleague, Alexandra (Alix) Weaver, Semperis Solutions Architect. “I caution everyone: Do not let your guard down.” Part of the changing trend, Alix says, might be attributed to an increase in the…
Active Directory has been a top cybersecurity tool for more than two decades. The problem with protecting AD—used by roughly 90% of the Fortune 1000 companies—from ransomware attacks is simply that it wasn’t designed for today’s security landscape. Many organizations don’t even know the full map of their deployment, making…