A DNS server is an integral part of an AD environment. Simple yet crucial activities are accomplished using DNS servers, such as authenticating, searching for computers, and identifying domain controllers. But attackers know there are a lot of loopholes in DNS that they can exploit. And, they often already know about these vulnerabilities. In this blog, you will learn how attackers can abuse.

The Get-ADUser PowerShell cmdlet is very helpful for Active Directory user management. But what if you try to use Get-ADUser and get the error below? The term ‘Get-ADUser’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file or operable program. This error simply means that the Active Directory module for PowerShell is not available on your machine.

Using Active Directory security groups is a best practice for quickly and accurately assigning permissions to users, computers, and groups. But how can you get a list of all the members of a security group? While you could use the PowerShell cmdlet Get-ADGroup, group members will be identified by their distinguished names, making the results difficult to read. A better option is to use the Get-ADGroupMember cmdlet. This article provides the syntax of this cmdlet and lots of useful examples.

Active Directory groups are sets of Active Directory (AD) objects — such as users, computers, and even other groups. Using AD groups helps simplify IT administration and ensure accurate delegation of rights and dissemination of information. Active Directory has several built-in groups, and organizations create many additional groups.

Despite the popularity of the cloud, Microsoft Active Directory (AD) remains a crucial component of the IT infrastructure for many organizations. Indeed, Active Directory often serves as the central identity repository and provides vital authentication and authorization services — so keeping it clean and well organized is vital. Discover exactly why regular AD cleanup is critical — and the key signs of a poorly maintained AD environment.

Active Directory security groups are used to grant users permissions to IT resources. Each security group is assigned a set of access rights, and then users are made members of the appropriate groups. Done right, this approach enables an accurate, role-based approach to user management and reduces IT workload.

One important way of securing your organization against attacks and other cyber threats is to implement a Zero Trust security model for groups (distribution lists, security groups, Microsoft 365 groups) in on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD. After all, these groups control access to your IT assets, from sensitive data to vital communications channels and tools like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.

Humans are the weakest link in cybersecurity, and it is inaccurate to say that IT administrators, who often have access to sensitive data and systems, are invulnerable. In this blog post, we demonstrate how a Red Team Operator achieved full Active Directory domain compromise as a result of an IT Administrators’ poor cyber hygiene.

Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is the central credential store for 90% of organizations worldwide. As the gatekeeper to business applications and data, it’s not just everywhere, it’s everything! Managing AD is a never-ending task, and securing it is even harder. At Netwrix, we talk to a lot of customers who are using our tools to manage and secure AD, and over the years, key strategies for tightening security and hardening AD to resist attacks have emerged.

Using groups is a best practice for Active Directory management. This article describes the two types of Active Directory groups — security groups and distribution groups — and offers guidance for using them effectively.