Rapid-Fire Linkpost #3 – Purely Windows Dressing

CC Photo Credit: by Choctopus on Flickr

Great dirt for Microsoft Windows fans:

Where did I put my shovel?

10 top Vista tweaks, part 2 - Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com.  Thought I posted this before but darned if I can find it.  Good Vista tweaks that shouldn’t damage your system or your sanity.

Nothing stealthy about this Windows Update update - Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com. Yep. Time for Windows Updates to get updated again.  Based on Ed’s comments it looks like it might actually be useful and improved.  Anything that makes it faster on XP systems will be appreciated by me.

Microsoft Malware Protection Center - Top Detections – Stumbled across this Microsoft page a while back.  Shows Redmond’s list of their top detected desktop, MSRT, and malware threats.  For security-minded geek entertainment…check out their threat analysis links.

Microsoft® Malware Protection Center blog got some updates and a new home not too long ago. Welcome to the New Look Microsoft Malware Protection Center Blog.  Certainly not the first site to provide information on malware threats and feedback, but the posts are pretty easy to follow and they are working hard to stay up with the times and present a useful public face.

IEBlog : IE8 Security Part III: SmartScreen® Filter – Awesome and detailed post by the IEBlog team on IE 8 elements for anti-phishing and malware-tainted website protection while surfing.

IEBlog : IE8 Security Part IV: The XSS Filter – More details on how IE 8 may address cross-site scripting attacks as a threat vector for browsing the web.

IEBlog : IE8 Security Part V: Comprehensive Protection – Very detailed and layered explanation of all the security changes being poured into the IE 8 release for our web-surfing safety.

I need to go back and do a more in-depth review of these IE 8 features as well as those in Firefox 3.0 and Opera 9.5. Those browsers already are now including built-in browser protection against phishing and malware-laced sites. IE 8 is joining their direction and, seems hell-bent on surpassing them. I really like what I have read so far on the IE 8 changes. I hope this leads to a new level of browser-arms race!  We all win this way, regardless of your favorite browser flavor!

Looking for a “Reader’s Digest” version of IE8 security features? Try this: Microsoft to ratchet IE8 security another notch in Beta 2 via Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com

Kaspersky Lab releases instructions on how to recover files attacked by the Gpcode.ak virus – OK, not really a Microsoft direct related post, but good news for folks who got key documents locked down.  I advise all sysadmins to read this so they can be prepared in advance, of ever encountering this.  The key?  Act fast so you can recover deleted files before they are overwritten. You can’t use them directly, but they are key to the recovery process.  You will also need some freeware tools/utilities linked from that source.  Download them to a USB stick in advance (and not to the impacted hard-drive)!

Security Database Tools Watch - Pass-The-Hash Toolkit v.1.4 – freeware – Add it to your USB toolbox ladies and gents in the sysadmin field.

The Pass-The-Hash Toolkit contains utilities to manipulate the Windows Logon Sessions mantained by the LSA (Local Security Authority) component. These tools allow you to list the current logon sessions with its corresponding NTLM credentials (e.g.: users remotely logged in thru Remote Desktop/Terminal Services), and also change in runtime the current username, domain name, and NTLM hashes

Windows SteadyState – I’m longing to find a way to apply this free feature for XP/Vista to our training-room PC’s as well as a few other choice deployments at work.  I just need to come up with a plan.  Might apply this to systems in our laptop checkout pool.  Could save us a lot of time reimaging the systems upon bring-back.

Basically, Windows SteadyState is an application you can install on target pc’s.  With it you can lock down the user interface to prevent system changes by users, as well as revert to a previous saved state after the user has finished simply by rebooting the system. Learn more about Windows SteadyState

Windows Steady State Bulletproofs Your System - Download Squad.  More information and comments.

SteadyState - Mess up, Reboot & Everything Is Fixed! - MakeUseOf.com. Yet another SteadyState Review.

Security Now! Transcript of Episode #129 – Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson discuss SteadyState. Also available as a podcast format.

Now the daughter-unit return watch begins…..!

--Claus