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European Windows 2016 Hosting - HostForLIFE.eu :: Top Security Features in Windows Server 2016

clock December 9, 2016 07:19 by author Scott

Most of the press surrounding the release of Windows Server 2016 has focused primarily on new features such as containers and Nano Server. While these new capabilities are undeniably useful, the bigger story with the Windows Server 2016 release is Microsoft's focus on security.

Admittedly, it is easy to dismiss claims of enhanced operating system security as being little more than marketing hype. After all, every new Windows release boasts improved security. In Windows Server 2016, however, Microsoft has implemented a number of new security mechanisms that are designed to work together to provide better overall security.

This article discusses virtual secure mode, which serves as the foundation for several new Windows Server 2016 security features, and three of the more innovative new features.

Microsoft's Virtual Secure Mode

Microsoft's latest security-related buzz phrase is Virtual Secure Mode. The idea behind virtual secure mode is that the Windows operating system can be made more secure by offloading some of its security functions to the hardware, rather than performing those functions solely at the software level.

There are two important things to understand about virtual secure mode. First, virtual secure mode doesn't really provide any security by itself. Instead, virtual secure mode is more of an infrastructure- level component of the operating system, and is the basis for other security features which will be discussed later on.

The other thing that must be understood about virtual secure mode is that the word virtual is there for a reason. As you probably know, modern CPUs include on-chip virtualization extensions. Historically, these virtualization extensions have been the basis of server virtualization. The hypervisor sits on top of the CPU and acts as an intermediary between the virtual machines and the hardware.

One of the big advantages to using this approach to server virtualization is that the hypervisor is able to ensure that virtual machines are truly isolated from one another. Virtual secure mode uses a similar technique to create a virtualized space on top of the hypervisor. Sensitive operations can be securely performed within this space, without being exposed to the host operating system.

Feature No. 1: Credential Guard

As previously noted, virtual secure mode is not a security feature itself, but rather a platform that can be used by other security features. Credential Guard is one of the security features that relies on virtual secure mode. As its name implies, Credential Guard is designed to prevent user credentials from being compromised.

The authentication process used by the Windows operating system is a function of the Local Security Authority (LSA). Not only does the LSA provide interactive authentication services, but it also generates security tokens, manages the local security policy and manages the system's audit policy. Credential Guard works by moving the LSA into Isolated User Mode, the virtualized space created by virtual secure mode.

Although the operating system must be able to communicate with the LSA in order to perform authentication services, Microsoft has designed the operating system to protect the integrity of the LSA. First, the memory used by the LSA is isolated, just as a virtual machine's memory is isolated. Microsoft also limits the LSA to running only the bare minimum binaries, and strict signing of those binaries is enforced. Finally, Microsoft prevents other code, such as drivers, from running in Isolated User Mode.

Feature No. 2: Device Guard

Device Guard is another operating system feature that leverages virtual secure mode. Device Guard isn't really a feature per se, but rather a collection of three security features that fall collectively under the Device Guard label. These three features include Configurable Code Integrity, VSM Protected Code Integrity, and Platform and UEFI Secure Boot (which has been around since Windows 8). Collectively, these three features work together to prevent malware infections.

The Device Guard component that is designed to work with virtual secure mode is VSM Protected Code Integrity. This component ensures the integrity of code running at the kernel level. Although moving kernel mode code integrity into virtual secure mode goes a long way toward protecting the operating system, the Configurable Code Integrity feature is equally noteworthy. This feature is designed to ensure that only trusted code is allowed to run. Administrators can use the PowerShell New-CIPolicy cmdlet to create integrity policies that essentially act as whitelists for applications.

In case you are wondering, these policies are based on application signatures. Since not all applications are signed, Microsoft provides a tool called SignTool.exe that can create a catalog (a signature) for unsigned applications.

Feature No. 3: Host Guardian and Shielded Virtual Machines

Although server virtualization has been proven to be relatively secure, it has always had one major Achilles heel: virtual machine portability. Today, there is little to prevent a virtualization administrator, or even a storage administrator for that matter, from copying a virtual machine's virtual hard disk to removable media.

The rogue administrator would then be able to take the media home, mount the virtual hard disks on his own computer and gain full access to the virtual hard disk's contents. If necessary, the administrator could even go so far as to set up their own host server and actually boot the stolen virtual machine. Microsoft's Host Guardian Service is designed to prevent this from happening by allowing the creation of shielded virtual machines.

The Host Guardian Service is a Windows Server 2016 attestation and key protection service that allows a Hyper-V host to be configured to act as a guarded host. A guarded host must be positively identified on the network and attested at the Active Directory and/or TPM level. If TPM trusted attestation is being used, then Windows goes so far as to verify the host's health by comparing its configuration against a known good baseline configuration. It is worth noting, however, that Active Directory trusted attestation does not support host configuration verification.

The Host Guardian Service enables the use of shielded virtual machines. A shielded virtual machine is a virtual machine whose virtual hard disks are encrypted via virtual TPM. This encryption prevents a shielded virtual machine from running on any Hyper-V server other than a designated guarded host. If a virtual hard disk is removed from the organization, its contents cannot be accessed and the virtual machine cannot be run.

Shielded virtual machines are BitLocker encrypted. BitLocker makes use of a virtual TPM device, residing on the host server. The virtual TPM is encrypted using a transport key, and the transport key is in turn protected by the Host Guardian Service.



European Windows Hosting - HostForLIFE.eu :: New Features in Windows Server 2016

clock November 3, 2016 08:59 by author Scott

As we’ve come to expect from new versions of Windows Server, Windows Server 2016 arrives packed with a huge array of new features. Many of the new capabilities, such as containers and Nano Server, stem from Microsoft’s focus on the cloud. Others, such as Shielded VMs, illustrate a strong emphasis on security. Still others, like the many added networking and storage capabilities, continue an emphasis on software-defined infrastructure begun in Windows Server 2012.

The GA release of Windows Server 2016 rolls up all of the features introduced in the five Technical Previews we’ve seen along the way, plus a few surprises. Now that Windows Server 2016 is fully baked, we’ll treat you to the new features we like the most.

Here are several features that you can get from Windows Server 2016:

Nano Server

Nano Server boasts a 92 percent smaller installation footprint than the Windows Server graphical user interface (GUI) installation option. Beyond just that, these compelling reasons may make you start running Nano for at least some of your Windows Server workloads:

  • Bare-metal OS means far fewer updates and reboots are necessary.
  • Because you have to administratively inject any server roles from outside Nano, the server has a much-reduced attack surface when compared to GUI Windows Server.
  • Nano is so small that it can be ported easily across servers, data centers and physical sites.
  • Nano hosts the most common Windows Server workloads, including Hyper-V host.
  • Nano is intended to be managed completely remotely. However, Nano does include a minimal local management UI called "Nano Server Recovery Console," shown in the previous screenshot, that allows you to perform initial configuration tasks.

Containers

Microsoft is working closely with the Docker development team to bring Docker-based containers to Windows Server. Until now, containers have existed almost entirely in the Linux/UNIX open-source world. They allow you to isolate applications and services in an agile, easy-to-administer way. Windows Server 2016 offers two different types of "containerized" Windows Server instances:

  • Windows Server Container. This container type is intended for low-trust workloads where you don't mind that container instances running on the same server may share some common resources
  • Hyper-V Container. This isn't a Hyper-V host or VM. Instead, its a "super isolated" containerized Windows Server instance that is completely isolated from other containers and potentially from the host server. Hyper-V containers are appropriate for high-trust workloads.

Linux Secure Boot

Secure Boot is part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification that protects a server's startup environment against the injection of rootkits or other assorted boot-time malware.

The problem with Windows Server-based Secure Boot is that your server would blow up (figuratively speaking) if you tried to create a Linux-based Generation 2 Hyper-V VM because the Linux kernel drivers weren't part of the trusted device store. Technically, the VM's UEFI firmware presents a "Failed Secure Boot Verification" error and stops startup.

Nowadays, the Windows Server and Azure engineering teams seemingly love Linux. Therefore, we can now deploy Linux VMs under Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V with no trouble without having to disable the otherwise stellar Secure Boot feature.

ReFS

The Resilient File System (ReFS) has been a long time coming in Windows Server. In Windows Server 2016, we finally get a stable version. ReFS is intended as a high-performance, high-resiliency file system intended for use with Storage Spaces Direct (discussed next in this article) and Hyper-V workloads.

Storage Spaces Direct

Storage Spaces is a cool Windows Server feature that makes it more affordable for administrators to create redundant and flexible disk storage. Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 extends Storage Spaces to allow failover cluster nodes to use their local storage inside this cluster, avoiding the previous necessity of a shared storage fabric.

ADFS v4

Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) is a Windows Server role that supports claims (token)-based identity. Claims-based identity is crucial thanks to the need for single-sign on (SSO) between on-premises Active Directory and various cloud-based services.

ADFS v4 in Windows Server 2016 finally brings support for OpenID Connect-based authentication, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and what Microsoft calls "hybrid conditional access." This latter technology allows ADFS to respond when user or device attributes fall out of compliance with security policies on either end of the trust relationship.

Nested Virtualization

Nested virtualization refers to the capability of a virtual machine to itself host virtual machines. This has historically been a "no go" in Windows Server Hyper-V, but we finally have that ability in Windows Server 2016.

Nested virtualization makes sense when a business wants to deploy additional Hyper-V hosts and needs to minimize hardware costs.

Hyper-V Server has allowed us to add virtual hardware or adjust the allocated RAM to a virtual machine. However, those changes historically required that we first power down the VM. In Windows Server 2016, we can now "hot add" virtual hardware while VMs are online and running. I was able to add an additional virtual network interface card (NIC) to my running Hyper-V virtual machine.

PowerShell Direct

In Windows Server 2012 R2, Hyper-V administrators ordinarily performed Windows PowerShell-based remote administration of VMs the same way they would with physical hosts. In Windows Server 2016, PowerShell remoting commands now have -VM* parameters that allows us to send PowerShell directly into the Hyper-V host's VMs!

Invoke-Command -VMName 'server2' -ScriptBlock {Stop-Service -Name Spooler} -Credential 'tomsitprotim' -Verbose

We used the new -VMName parameter of the Invoke-Command cmdlet to run the Stop-Service cmdlet on the Hyper-V VM named server2.

Shielded VMs

The new Host Guardian Service server role, which hosts the shielded VM feature, is far too complex to discuss in this limited space. For now, suffice it to say that Windows Server 2016 shielded VMs allow for much deeper, fine-grained control over Hyper-V VM access.

For example, your Hyper-V host may have VMs from more than one tenant, and you need to ensure that different Hyper-V admin groups can access only their designated VMs. By using BitLocker Drive Encryption to encrypt the VM's virtual hard disks, shielded VMs can solve that problem.

 



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