Neil MacDonald

A Member of the Gartner Blog Network

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Windows 7 Ultimate… Sort of.

October 28th, 2009 · 1 Comment

In my previous post, I stated this:
One important note: Because many of the more popular security features such as BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, DirectAccess and so on require EA/SA, the cost of EA/SA must be factored into any cost-benefit analysis of migration. If you don’t already have EA/SA, this can be a significant expense.
Since [...]

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Tags: Endpoint Protection Platform · Microsoft Security

Windows 7 Launches With lots of Security Features

October 23rd, 2009 · 1 Comment

I haven’t posted in a while – I was preparing for and attending Gartner’s US Fall Symposium conference in Orlando which wrapped up yesterday. Coincidentally, yesterday was also the official launch of Windows 7.
As I talked about here, there are things that organizations can do today to improve the security of their endpoints that don’t [...]

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Tags: Endpoint Protection Platform · Microsoft Security

Looking Ahead to Windows 7 Security

October 9th, 2009 · 2 Comments

I’m working on a detailed research note providing clients specific guidance on planning and deploying the 15 or so security features of Windows 7.
Two things you can do now to improve Windows security (regardless of your deployment timeframes for Windows 7):
1) Get off of IE6. I don’t care if you go to IE7, IE8, Firefox, [...]

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Tags: Microsoft Security

Security No-Brainer #8: Run Users As Standard User

August 13th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Mostly for legacy reasons, many of us continue to run users with administrative privileges on their Windows workstations.
Running as standard user reduces exposure to malware by preventing users from updating protected parts of the file system and registry or accessing sensitive Windows operations. An analysis by BeyondTrust showed that 92% of the critical Windows vulnerabilities [...]

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Tags: Beyond Anti-Virus · Endpoint Protection Platform