Chapter 7: Securing Data and Applications

Security is essential for your devices and your end users. Data leakage seems to occur very often nowadays. Almost every day, you read that a company, a web shop, or a forum has been hacked and that their customers' details are for sale on the dark web. In this chapter, you will about learn some relevant security features that you can implement in Windows 10 to secure your system.

This chapter introduces the sixth objective, which is to know how you can configure the User Account Control (UAC) prompts, set threat management, implement disk and file encryption, and use AppLocker to control whether or not the end user can open applications.

The following objectives will be covered in this chapter:

• Configuring User Account Control
• Configuring Threat Protection
• Implementing encryption
• Using AppLocker

By providing you with the skills to configure User Account Control, configure Threat Protection, and implement...

Technical requirements

In this chapter, we will look at PowerShell code. This code is available on this book's GitHub page: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Microsoft-Exam-MD-100-Windows-10-Certification-Guide

In the Configuring UAC notifications section, you will learn how you can change the UAC notifications. The steps that you are going to follow have also been recorded. You can find the relevant videos at https://bit.ly/2LsQDqD.

Configuring User Account Control

Most users sign in to their computers with a user account that has more privileges to run their applications and access their data files than required. Using an administrative user account for day-to-day user tasks poses significant security risks.

Windows 10 provides UAC to simplify and help secure the process of elevating your account rights. However, unless you know how UAC works and how it can affect your users, you might have problems when you attempt to carry out typical end user support tasks. This section introduces how UAC works and how you can configure UAC notifications.

Understanding User Account Control

The User Account Control security feature provides a way for users to raise their privilege status from a regular user account to an Administrator account, without allowing them to sign into or switch user profiles. UAC is a collection of features, not just a prompt. Such features, which include File and Registry Redirect, Installer...

Configuring Threat Protection

A Windows 10 computer is more vulnerable to threats that originate from the network than from any other location. This is because network attacks can target a significant number of computers, while other forms of attacks require physical access to the computer. In this section, you will understand what malware and threat protection is. Furthermore, you will learn about the advanced protection methods that you can use to reduce threat protection.

Understanding malware and threat protection

Malicious software, or malware, is software that attackers design to harm computer systems. Malware can do many things, from causing damage to the computer to allowing unauthorized parties remote access to the computer, to collecting and transmitting sensitive information to unauthorized third parties. There are several types of malware, including the following:

• Computer viruses
• Computer worms
• Trojan horses
• Ransomware
• Spyware

To protect...

Implementing encryption

There are two types of encryption technologies available for Windows 10 devices: BitLocker and Encrypting File System (EFS). Both tools are available for use on all Windows 10 editions, except for Windows 10 Home. While both technologies offer robust methods of encryption, you need to understand how to implement each technique.

EFS has been available since Windows 2000, but very few organizations implement this type of encryption. Most organizations that require encryption choose to use BitLocker Drive Encryption. The difference between EFS and BitLocker is that EFS encrypts at the folder and file level, while BitLocker encrypts complete hard disks and removable drives.

First, we will understand BitLocker.

Implementing BitLocker

BitLocker allow you to encrypt an entire hard disk, which can be the Windows 10 OS drive, a data drive, or a removable drive. During the encryption process, BitLocker configures the drive that contains the OS so that you...

Using AppLocker

The organizations of today face many challenges in controlling which applications run on client computers. These challenges include managing the following:

• The Universal Windows Platform apps and desktop apps that users can access
• Which users are allowed to install new applications
• Which versions of the applications are allowed to run, and for which users

Unauthorized software can experience a higher incidence of malware infections and generate more helpdesk calls. However, it can be difficult for you to ensure that users' computers run only approved and licensed software.

You can use AppLocker to specify which software can run on a user's PC. AppLocker enables users to run the applications, installation programs, and scripts that they require to be productive while still providing the security and compliance benefits of application standardization.

Important Note

Only Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education editions...

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about the use of User Account Control to prevent unwanted programs, such as malware, from being installed on a computer. You learned about the two types of elevation prompts and also learned how to configure UAC notifications.

Furthermore, you learned what threat protection is and what types of threat protection there are. Using many of the built-in Windows Defender features makes your computer much safer. You learned what the security baselines are and how you can implement them. To protect company information, you can use Windows Information Protection.

Another form of security that you can implement is encryption. In this chapter, you learned about BitLocker and Encrypted File System. More organizations are embracing BitLocker rather than EFS, but EFS is not a bad choice.

The last thing you learned about is how AppLocker works and how you can configure AppLocker with specific application-independent rules.

In the next chapter, you...

Questions

1. Can a standard user reset the network adapter?
2. Are there four settings for UAC notifications? If yes, name them.
3. Can WIP automatically protect the content that is downloaded to the device?
4. Can EFS encrypt the whole hard disk?
5. Can BitLocker be used without a TPM chip?
6. Is AppLocker Event ID 8023 a valid event ID?

Further reading

• How User Account Control works: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/user-account-control/how-user-account-control-works
• Understanding the User Account Control message: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03313350#AbT2
• Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit 1.0: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55319
• BitLocker: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/information-protection/BitLocker/BitLocker-overview
• Working with AppLocker rules: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-defender-application-control/applocker/working-with-applocker-rules
• User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/security-policy-settings/user-account-control-admin-approval-mode-for-the-built-in-administrator-account
• Microsoft's Authenticode Technology: https...