Beyond the Mcse: Active Directory for the Security Professional

by Sean Metcalf
Active Directory (AD) is leveraged by 95% of the Fortune 1000 companies for its directory, authentication, and management capabilities. This means that both Red and Blue teams need to have a better understanding of Active Directory, it's security, how it's attacked, and how best to align defenses. This presentation covers key Active Directory components which are critical for security professionals to know in order to defend AD. Properly securing the enterprise means identifying and leveraging appropriate defensive technologies. The provided information is immediately useful and actionable in order to help organizations better secure their enterprise resources against attackers. Highlighted are areas attackers go after including some recently patched vulnerabilities and the exploited weaknesses. This includes the critical Kerberos vulnerability (MS14-068), Group Policy Man-in-the-Middle (MS15-011 & MS15-014) and how they take advantages of AD communication.
Some of the content covered:
Differing views of Active Directory: admin, attacker, and infosec.
The differences between forests and domains, including how multi-domain AD forests affect the security of the forest.
Dig into trust relationships and the available security features describing how attack techniques are impacted by implementing these trust security features.
AD database format, files, and object storage (including password data).
Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODCs), security impact, and potential issues with RODC implementation.
Key Domain Controller information and how attackers take advantage.
Windows authentication protocols over the years and their weaknesses, including Microsoft's next-generation credential system, Microsoft Passport, and what it means for credential protection.
Security posture differences between AD on-premises and in the cloud (Microsoft Azure AD vs Office 365).
Key Active Directory security features in the latest Windows OS versions - the benefits and implementation challenges.
Let's go beyond the standard MCSE material and dive into how Active Directory works focusing on the key components and how they relate to enterprise security.

[@virtualallocex1062]

Excellent Talk, thanks a lot for sharing that great knowledge!

[@marianarlt]

Cat tries to eat plushy fish: 80mio views in two days Very good in-depth talk about the technologies that run our world that are still valuable years later:

[@AZTEch203]

Great work!

[@Wrexthor]

Great talk!

[@RedstoneFTW]

You had me at Star trek =)

[@shanewilliams5326]

Eye opening!

[@brysendash8748]

sorry to be so off topic but does any of you know of a trick to log back into an instagram account..? I stupidly forgot the login password. I would love any tricks you can offer me

[@deaconjay6224]

@Brysen Dash instablaster =)

[@brysendash8748]

@Deacon Jay i really appreciate your reply. I found the site thru google and im in the hacking process now. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

[@brysendash8748]

@Deacon Jay it worked and I finally got access to my account again. I'm so happy:D Thank you so much you really help me out !

[@deaconjay6224]

@Brysen Dash Glad I could help xD