Windows server 2003 security enhancements

Windows Server Standard Server is the foundation of the Windows Server server architecture. This version of Windows Server is suitable for a wide range of applications in a server environment, providing services from file storage to user account management to HTTP. Because it is likely to be used for many different tasks, numerous security improvements were made to Windows Server Standard Server, including:.

Because EFS is a strong method of protection against physical compromise of a computer, you want to use the strongest possible encryption available. Because numerous features have been added to Windows XP and Windows Server , new group policy settings were added to configure them. This allows these new features to be used exactly as you want across the organization or disabled entirely when appropriate.

And proper configuration of all features through rich Group Policy is essential to deploying and configuring more secure client and server environments. Users running arbitrary software from unsafe sources are some of the biggest security risks you will face as an administrator. Ensuring they are protected from email attachments and software sent on CD-ROM or other removable media is critical.

Virus scanners are often effective in combating this issue, but new virus variants and methods appear almost daily. To help stop the problem at its source, Windows Server Standard Server provides a specific type of group policy restriction called the software restriction policy SRP.

This allows you to describe what programs users can or cannot run. Users who try to run software disallowed by this policy will not be successful, and their computers will remain safe.

Configuring SRP is discussed in depth in Chapter 6. The certification authority available on Windows provided a simple way to configure and issue certificates to users and computers in an enterprise.

It did not provide a great deal of flexibility for customization or newly developed PKI-aware applications. Windows Server Standard Server further improves the certification authority by offering new features such as client autoenrollment to automatically deploy and manage client certificates, configurable application and issuance policies to give the administrator deep configuration control of issued certificates, and certificate authority administrative roles to help prevent any single administrator from holding too much power within a certification authority.

It is frequently used on computers that are accessed anonymously from the Internet. Its security must often be more relaxed than other computers within an organization to allow some of its primary functions to run correctly. In addition, many administrators never configure IIS on their servers, especially if it is not intended to be used on that computer or if the computer is not exposed directly to the Internet.

Because IIS is, by its nature, frequently exposed to the Internet, its relaxed security requirements and its frequent misconfiguration make it one of the biggest areas of security exposure for Windows This is addressed by Windows Server in a straightforward manner: IIS is not installed by default.

When IIS is explicitly installed, most of its features are disabled and must be enabled manually. For more information on IIS and its new security options, see Chapter Windows Server Enterprise Server is the most feature-rich version of Windows Server available. It has the ability to scale to meet the needs of most deployments. Windows Server Enterprise Server provides all the functionality of Windows Server Standard Server plus several enhancements:. All public key certificate requests are issued based on configuration settings.

When you use this authentication method, user credentials are stored in the Active Directory on the domain controller, as an MD5 message digest. This is a type of hash that relies on HTTP 1. However, it provides for enhanced security over Digest authentication, so if all clients that will be accessing the pages are using IE 5 or later, or another browser that supports HTTP 1. You don't have to install any software on the clients to use Advanced Digest Authentication; you only have to ensure that they use an HTTP 1.

Users need to have valid user accounts in the Active Directory domain. To do so, follow these steps:. Right click the object on which you want to use this type of authentication, and click the Security tab it will be labeled either Directory Security or File Security, depending on the object on which you're setting the authentication method.

In the Authentication Methods dialog box, check the Digest authentication for Windows domain servers checkbox in the Authenticated access section, as shown in Figure B. A message window will inform you that Digest authentication works with Active Directory domain accounts and asks if you wish to continue.

Click Yes. A realm is basically a security boundary. This provides for greater security. In other words they are required to run the latest Service Packs. You can also download Windows Server with May Updates. It has brought loads of enhancements to existing functions as well as features like expanded Windows Server Datacenter SKUs. This would be compatible with both 32 bit and 64 bit windows. Windows Server This installation package is intended for IT professionals and Administrators downloading and installing on multiple servers on a network.

Windows Server SP1 enhances security infrastructure by providing new security tools such as Security Configuration Wizard, which helps secure your server for role-based operations, improves defense-in-depth with Data Execution Protection, and provides a safe and secure first-boot scenario with Post-setup Security Update Wizard.

Windows Server SP1 assists IT professionals in securing their server infrastructure and provides enhanced manageability and control for Windows Server users. Windows Server Service Pack 1 provides new functionality to address known security vulnerabilities and prepares companies to better face future security threats. I am needing to rebuild my SBS Premium machine do to hardware failure.

I pulled out the disks and noticed that the main boot disk as a large scratch a crossed it and it of course is causing it to not do the install.