Last week I talked about the importance of Cloud Backup in our new remote teaching and learning and back-office school environments. This week I am going to talk about secure and reliable communications. The reality is that the number one threat to your network is your users clicking on attachments or web links that lead […]

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Remote Risks and Compliance Part II – Secure and Reliable Communications

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Secure Your Endpoints with Disk Encryption
Disk encryption is growing in popularity as a means of better-securing laptops and desktops. Microsoft is offering BitLocker natively in Windows 10. Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager has a built-in BitLocker Administration console. If you don’t have SCCM, then Microsoft offers the MBAM console to manage encryption.

Tech Tidbit – Closing Time. Protocols and Processes that have to go!
For the last few years Microsoft has been talking about “Modern” this or “Modern” that. In the quest for improved security they are agressively trying to move everyone to more modern protocols. The impending LDAPS changes are an example of this. However, there are more processes and protocols that they are urging you to retire.

Tech Tidbit – Your Battle – Deny Lateral Movement vs. Momentum
I constantly harp on denying the bad guys access to your network, and if they are inside already, denying lateral movement. At the last Tech Talk, I mentioned that I am watching many of the Paladin Sentinel Monitoring sites just RDP into all the servers with the true Domain Admin Administrator ID – just like […]

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Breaking up the band. It is time to better segment critical network functions
We have spent two decades linking all sorts of servers and processes to Active Directory for “ease of use”. Sadly ease of use now can also mean “ease of hacking”. Therefore, we must be much more critical of when integration is genuinely helpful (LDAP for instance), vs.

Tech Tidbit – Two ways to sanely maintain remote endpoints
The reality of many K-12 school districts is that you either have handed out or are handing out laptops to teachers and critical staff to get through this quarantine. All those great tools you had been using: WSUS, SCCM, and KACE are now functionally useless for those remote users.

CSI Tech Talk – Active Directory Cleanup Best Practices – Recording Available
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Weekly Tech Tidbit – VPN Access for your staff could be a hacker’s delight. Are you prepared?
These have been extraordinary times for the world, our country, our school districts and our families. We are implementing remote learning plans and remote access plans to keep the district functioning in this time of social distancing, crowd restrictions and mandated closings.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – NIST Significantly Changes Password Recommendations
Earlier this month, on March 2, NIST formalized a significant number of changes to its password recommendations as part of the final release of its updated Digital Identify Guidelines document or NIST publication SP 800-63-3. The full document which includes three additional sister documents (800-63A, 800-63B & 800-63C) is here: https://csrc.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – If you woke up and LDAP authentication were dead, what would you do?
Microsoft has announced they are tightening the security standards for LDAP communications on Microsoft Active Directory networks. This has huge implications as there are so many things in a typical school district’s use that require some form of LDAP communication.
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