System Center Guide

As the old saying goes, the only constant is change. This holds true for the folks in Redmond. Looks like at the start of the 2011 fiscal year, the Forefront team will become part of the System Center development team. Specifically, the endpoint protection team will be part of the STB’s Management and Services Division overseen by Brad Anderson. More information is available from the link below. What are your thoughts on this? Post a comment to share your thoughts.

http://redmondmag.com/articles/2010/05/28/microsoft-reshuffling-server-and-tools-org.aspx

ST. PAUL, MN–(Marketwire – March 3, 2010) – Shavlik Technologies, LLC, the market leader in simplifying and automating critical IT operations, today announced the Shavlik SCUPdates™ catalog which delivers update information from multiple vendors — like Adobe or Apple — to Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). More and more organizations today are leveraging the power of SCCM to assess, deploy and update Windows systems. By using the Shavlik SCUPdates catalog, SCCM users now have a single workflow for deploying updates for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications.

Read the full press release

This one is probably worth passing along  to friends and family members that aren’t as technically savvy as the general readership here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/26/microsoft_security_essentials_rogue/

Microsoft has released WSUS 3.0 SP1.  This package contains all the components you require to install WSUS 3.0 and SP1.  The server component is supported on Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Server 2008.

WSUS is Microsoft’s free patching solution for Microsoft products, not just Windows.

The improvements include:

• Support for Windows Server 2008.
• New Client Servicing API.
• Improvements for local publishing: supports publishing of drivers within the enterprise by using vendor provided catalogs. API include support for bundles and prerequisites.
• All hotfixes: WSUS 3.0 SP1 includes all the changes and hotfixes that have been issued since the release of WSUS 3.0.
• Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005: WSUS 3.0 SP1 lets you use SQL Server 2005.

Microsoft also released a number of documents for you to read:

• Operations Guide
• Step-by-Step Guide
• Deploying WSUS 3.0 SP1
• Overview
• Release Notes

From the lads at Secure Vantage Technologies:

We just released a Windows Security Auditing Reference List (PDF or XLS) that provides content on more than 1300 Windows security events and settings.

The list currently covers the following platforms:

• Windows 2000, 2003 and XP – Security Events, Group Policy Settings, Services, Files & Folders
• Windows 2008 & Vista – Security Events and Group Policy Settings
• SQL 2005 Server – Security Events

Regardless of the tool you use to audit your environment this is a handy reference to have around.

The resource is based on Microsoft published security resources and includes interactive links to Windows Security Expert Randy Franklin Smith’s security wiki.

For System Center customers this is an excellent reference of the base Windows security events and settings managed via Operations Manager, ACS, Configuration Manager and the Secure Vantage Technologies Compliance Security Suite. Stay tuned as we add more content and scope to the list in 2008.

Download Now (PDF or XLS) – Windows Security Auditing Reference List

This spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the Administrative template files (.admx/.adml) delivered with Windows Server 2008. The policy settings included in this spreadsheet cover Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional, and Windows 2000. You can configure these policy settings when you edit Group Policy objects (GPOs).
In addition, this spreadsheet includes the following categories of security policy settings:

• Account Policies (Password Policy, Account Lockout Policy, and Kerberos Policy)
• Local Policies (Audit Policy, User Rights Assignment, and Security Options)
• Event Log
• Restricted Groups
• System Services
• Registry
• File System policy settings.

Note: This does not include security settings that exist outside of the Security Settings extension (scecli.dll), such as Wireless Network extension, Public Key Policies, or Software Restriction Policies.

Download the spreadsheet here

Ryan Brennan, of Secure Vantage, describes how to deploy Audit Collection Services without the Operations Manager 2007 dependency.

Read the post