Operating System and Application Hardening Report

Operating System and Application Hardening 1
OPERATING SYSTEM AND APPLICATION HARDENING REPORT
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1.0. Windows Operating System Hardening...............................................................................5
1.1. Windows AppLocker........................................................................................................6
1.2. Windows Firewall.............................................................................................................7
1.3. Windows PowerShell........................................................................................................8
2.0. Configuration Management in Windows..............................................................................9
2.1. Group Policy.....................................................................................................................9
3.0. Application Hardening........................................................................................................10
4.0. Recommendation................................................................................................................11
5.0. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................12
6.0. References...........................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Operating system hardening is the recurring exercise of configuring an Operating System in
respect of requirements of the security. The Operating system hardening entails installing normal
updates from the developers of the operating system and also covers the vulnerabilities using the
automated tools as well as manual efforts. During operating, system hardening client can
formulate rules as well as defined policies to guarantee system security against threats of the
cybercrimes. In order to reduce the possible dangers possessed by the operating system, the
operating system hardening should be carried out regularly (Little, Treadwell, and Renfro, Bank
of America Corp, 2016). The largest undergoing trend in Industrial control systems is a rise of
capabilities of the network. When devices using the operating system like windows are linked to
the network of the organization, the security of the data becomes more significant than when
industrial control systems are protected. The compromises in risks can result from unexpected
system shutdowns, corruption of the quality and also the safety issues. The main concept of an
industrial control system is to deploy many layers of security. This involves segregating the
automation network originating from the network of the office with firewalls as well as a
demilitarized area, separating the automation network as well as securing devices with software
firewalls, hardening of the system as well as virus protection.
Hardening refers to the removal or disabling machine features, applications as well as ports to
minimize system invade surface hence enhancing security. The outcome of hardening is a secure
administration of the system (Blasing, Batyuk, Schmidt, Camtepe and Albayrak, 2010). It is
compulsory for hardening to be carried in various layers from hardware configuration to program
hardening. Considering the figure below, the model in the left side is a hardening of parts of a
system operating straight at a hardware. This incorporates hardening of the hardware, hardening
of the operating system as well as all personal applications. When virtualization is deployed,
there will be included hardening of the environment of virtualization like in the model at the side
of right. Furthermore, the industrial control systems operate where every host is functioning,
must again be hardened using firewalls. This article aims at the hardening of the operating
system yet measures shown can be employed in hardening of other layers.
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Os Hardening
Hardware Hardening
Virtual Environment Hardening
Hardware Hardening
Industrial Control System Network Hardening

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1.0 Windows Operating System Hardening
Windows is a working framework made by Microsoft Corporation. Nowadays, Microsoft
Corporation has various version of windows for the server, desktop as well as mobile use.
Versions of windows server incorporate memory, networking as well as other capabilities needed
in the environment of the server (Shabtai, Fledel, Kanonov, Elovici, Dolev and Glezer, 2010).
The server of the windows working framework also incorporates server administration software
for efficient management, and they got many server duties as well as features incorporated. A
version of the servers of Microsoft windows is almost the same to the desktop operating systems.
This implies that the version of Windows administration 2008 R2 Operating System is jointly
reflection of Windows 7, Server 2012 R2 has many similar features to Windows 8.1 as well as
Windows server 2012 is almost same to Windows 8. The current Microsoft server version, which
is Windows server 2016 R2 has common properties with Windows 10. This results to the truth
that Windows server 2012 R2, the operating system as well as Windows 10 deployed in this
article do not relate with Windows 10 as well as Server 2016 structure would. Moreover, these
versions still share features and the two can work well with the new version of PowerShell.
In the perspective of hardening, the client, as well as the server Windows working framework,
incorporate multiple properties that are compulsory to be removed or disabled in an Industrial
Control system environment. For instance, Windows store featured in Windows 8 and is again
available is the latest Windows client as well as server versions. There two Xbox live linked
services in Windows Server 2016 Operating System when the workstation is established. These
are advised to be disabled by the blog of the Microsoft Guidance of the security and those
functions are found in Windows 10. The other important issue of making use of Windows 10 is
an Industrial control service, can be the telemetry property featured in Windows 10 and this
implies that Microsoft is gathering data from the system for advancement purposes. A current
technique to build, utilize as well as service Windows operating system has been put in practice
in Windows 10 and this refers to Windows as a service. The main intention of this is to discard
the demand for latest Windows release in fewer years, as well as to include properties to
Windows 10 with upgrades. Current features are provided to the community of Microsoft
Windows Insiders within the shortest time for examination purposes as well as to get a response
(Ferreira, Childers, Melhem, Mossé and Yousif, 2010). The Microsoft Windows servicing

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currently incorporates two categories of updates rather than main revisions, monthly updates as
well as service packs.
The latest categories of feature updates, that include new roles twice annually, as well as quality
upgrades for protection as well as reliability fixes, the updates of high quality, are produced once
every month. For unique systems, they have a long-period channel of servicing, which was
meant to be utilized only with unique machines that normally carry out a single essential role,
such as monitoring medical instrument. These machines will get the latest versions in around
three years, for it is significant to maintain these machines stable, compared to up to date with
modifications in the user interface. Windows Server version 2016 is offered with two
maintaining models, servers which install the administrator with Desktop Skill or server main
releases make use of the Long-period Maintaining Branch which is still deployed in past versions
of the Windows server operating system (Jansen, 2011). This offers several years of mainstream
reinforcement as well as five years of continued support. The following images illustrates how
the windows operating system is hardened.