Active Directory (Part 3)

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 








Basics

Management of Users and Computers

Active Directory (AD) management of users and computers is the process of creating, modifying, and deleting user and computer accounts in AD, as well as managing group membership and permissions. AD management of users and computers are important because:
  • Security- AD provides a way to manage user accounts and permissions and helps secure the network. It can also be used to create unique user accounts for each person requiring access, and assign them specific permissions to control what they can do on the network. This offers help in preventing unauthorized access and ensures that only authorized users can have access to the required resources.

  • Productivity- Via AD, it is easier to manage user accounts and permissions. It can help in improving productivity because it allows the users to easily and quickly access the needed resources. 

  • Centralization- AD offers a centralized location for managing users and computers on the network. This will make the management of a large number of users and computers a lot more easier, AD can make changes in multiple accounts at once, saving time used for managing each account individually.

  • Integration- AD can integrate with the other features of the Windows operating system, such as Group Policy and Network Access Protection (NAP), which allows the AD to manage and enforce policies and access controls throughout the network. 

Moreover, there many other ways to manage computers and users via AD. For example, through the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of Microsoft that comes with Windows operating system. The tool can be used to create, delete, and modify user and computer accounts, as well as group membership and permission. 

The other way is via PowerShell, which is a command-line interface, that can be used to manage AD and other aspects of the Windows operating system. These commands can also be used for other tasks unrelated to AD. It is heavily moderated by blue teams. 

Additionally, the AD Administrative Center is another GUI tool that can easily manage AD and other features of the Windows operating system. Although it is same as the AD's Users and Computers tool but, it also provides additional functionality and a more modern interface. There are also third party tools that are rarely used like ADManager Plus that can offer more features to help administrators. 

All the tools discussed above are available and ready to use for the System Administrators and their job is to make the sysadmin life easier and enhance automation. However, the same way malicious attackers can make use of these tools to run scripts, create users, and manage their way to Domain Administrators. 

Conclusion

This part is all about managing of users and computers and all the tools associated with the same. 













































































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