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Windows 10 Hardening (Part II)

Using the Security Compliance Manager

SCM 4.0 provides ready-to-deploy policies based on Microsoft Security Guide recommendations and industry best practices, allowing you to easily manage configuration drift, and address compliance requirements for Windows operating systems and Microsoft applications.

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Update baselines

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Windows 10 Hardening (Part I)

Using the STIG templates

Just like in previous version of Windows, some of the requirements in the Windows 10 STIG depend on the use of additional group policy administrative templates that are not included with Windows by default. The new administrative template files (.admx and .adml file types) must be copied to the appropriate location in the Windows directory to make the settings they provide visible in group policy tools.

This includes settings under MS Security Guide, MSS (Legacy), and the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) tool. The MSS settings have previously been made available through an update of the Windows security options file (sceregvl.inf). This required a change in permissions to that file, which is typically controlled by the system. A custom template was developed to avoid this.

The custom template files (MSS-Legacy and SecGuide) are provided in the Templates directory of the STIG package. The EMET administrative template files are located in the tool’s installation directory, typically “\Program Files (x86)\EMET x.x\Deployment\Group Policy Files\”.

The .admx files must be copied to the \Windows\PolicyDefinitions\ directory. The .adml files must be copied to the \Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US\ directory.

NOTE: EMET’s end of life date is being extended until July 31, 2018a and at this time there are no plans to offer support or security patching for EMET that date. For improved security, everyone should migrate to the latest version of Windows 10. EMET 5.5 is compatible with current versions of Windows 10 but according to this article, it won’t be compatible with future versions of the latest Microsoft OS.

Before the installation of the STIG templates, Windows 10 Enterprise has:

  • 2283 Computer configuration settings
  • 1731 User configuration settings

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