The Microsoft Baseline Analyzer

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The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is Microsoft’s user-friendly software vulnerability assessment tool intended for IT security professionals from small to medium-sized organizations used to scan one or more computers, and provide a detailed security assessment report with specific recommendations and guidance on correcting any found deficiencies (Vacca 2013). The MBSA used for this assignment was the MBSA version 2.3, which performed scans for missing patches, missing/weak passwords, and assess the holistic security status to determine any associated potential risks to the computer. MBSA utilized the Microsoft update catalog and determined which security updates required updating, provided a report on specific system information, and performed Windows Security and Desktop Application Scans to report any further administrative vulnerabilities.
The resulting security assessment report indicated that the scanned computer was at potential risk due to the failure of one or more non-critical checks. The results proved surprising as the scanned computer was purchased a little over a month ago. The failures in the report included, a) a missing a service pack (Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool released March 2014) and b) non-expiring and weak passwords for the user accounts. Fortunately, the MBSA found no other issues with the scanned computer’s firewall or desktop applications. These results were informative and provided guidance on how to better improve the scanned computer’s security measures. Using the recommendations for a solution to mitigate the potential risks, I installed the Malware Removal Tool software, created new more complicated passwords, and adjusted the user setting by removing the “password nev...

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...cate itself and propagate through removable media such as USB flashdrives and portable external hard drives wreaking havoc and spreading throughout the networks. Figure 3 below illustrates how the Conflicker worm infiltrated the networks.
Corporate network system administrators routinely use vulnerability assessment tools such as the popular and user friendly MBSA to scan the corporate IT systems for potential risks to the network. One of the features of the MBSA is the administrative vulnerabilities assessment as part of the Windows Scan which, among a myriad of other assessments, analyses the system’s firewall and determines if there any exceptions configured in the firewall. Unauthorized exceptions the firewall configuration could be an indicator of infiltration in the network.

Works Cited

http://www.sans.org/security-resources/policies/Password_Policy.pdf

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