Microsoft Active Directory is a critical tool that helps system administrators manage user privileges and secure their IT infrastructure, yet Active Directory presents several security challenges. Most problematic is that Active Directory’s attack surface is huge. Targets for attack include every domain name user account, admin and security group, domain controller, backup, admin workstation, and admin delegations and privileges. If any one of these targets is compromised, your entire Active Directory can be compromised too.

The Threats

It is already the second half of August and we are quickly approaching a busy conference time for DLT. Up-coming events will take DLT all over the country, but some of the best are local ones happening just down the road. The annual Innovation Nation Forum, hosted by MeriTalk, will take place Tuesday, August 23 at the Washington Convention Center. Aiming to “Shake IT Up,” Innovation Nation will focus on three Federal IT hot topics- cloud computing, cybersecurity and data center consolidation.

Quest Software, DLT and NetApp recently sponsored a panel discussion in Washington to discuss data center consolidation and cloud computing. The panel participants were progressive well-respected IT leaders from different federal agencies that had all launched consolidation projects. The speakers reported that most projects would take several years and acknowledged that consolidations were really evolutionary transformations to achieve long term objectives. The ultimate goal for each agency is to have no more than 5 major production sites with total capacity to serve both the current and future needs. Even after consolidating and increasing utilization rates, the plans predicted there would be excess IT capacity – theoretically this capacity could be “reallocated” to other entities.