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  4. Windows Server Hardening (Basic Steps)
  1. Home
  2. Hosting & Servers
  3. Windows Hosting
  4. Windows Server Hardening (Basic Steps)
  1. Home
  2. Hosting & Servers
  3. Web Hosting
  4. Windows Server Hardening (Basic Steps)

Windows Server Hardening (Basic Steps)

1. Check that the default Admin Account and Guest Account are renamed

(e.g. RENAdministrator and RENGuest; but you should choose your own idea here!)

2. Check the screen saver will lock out the screen after x min (would prefer 15min) or not

3. Check that the default Admin Account and Guest Account require a password. This can be done via.

Net user RENAdministrator /PASSWORDREQ:YES
Net user RENGuest /PASSWORDREQ:YES

4. Windows Hardening: Disable the Print Spooler Service

5. Hardening Windows: Disable NTFS 8 Dot 3

6. Hardening IIS: Disable SSL 2.0 & PCT 1.0 & disable weak ciphers

7. Disable SMBv1

As SMBv1 is quite old and has some vulnerabilities you should disable that (as explained here) via the following:

Windows 2012:

<>  Set-SmbServerConfiguration -EnableSMB1Protocol $false

Windows 2008:

<> Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters” SMB1 –Type DWORD -Value 0 -Force

This would still leave SMBv2 and SMBv3 activity which can be used.

8. Upgrade Diffie-Hellman Prime to 2048 bit as explained here.

9. Enable TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 as a default secure protocols in WinHTTP.

Updated on April 21, 2020

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