Related Chapters:

• Chapter 4: Attacking and Defending Windows XP Professional

• Chapter 5: Attacking and Defending Windows 2000

• Chapter 6: Securing Active Directory

• Chapter 16: Network Architecture

Introduction

Window's Terminal Services (TS) is a graphical user interface (GUI) that can deliver the ferocity of a full blown 32-processor Windows server right to the desktop of your workstation. To quote Microsoft, "Windows 2000 Terminal Services is a technology that lets you remotely execute applications on a Windows 2000 based server from a wide range of devices over virtually any type of network connection." This statement, although factually correct, leaves a bit to be desired from the security point of view; this is not surprising since the statement was taken from their site in early 2000, when their security focus was far weaker than it is currently. My experience tells me Windows systems are dominating the IT industry, and furthermore, with the right team of configuration engineers, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 can be security equals of any mainstream Unix operating system.

In an article entitled "Terminal Server: The Day of Reckoning" (www.foundstone.com/knowledge/article-TermServer.html), Clinton Mugge and I stated, "The majority of our concerns, in most cases, are not a result of poor products but products being implemented poorly." I think we can all agree that if you hope to secure any system, you must first understand it. However, I feel like many Windows administrators, lacking a deep enough understanding of the system, are making the same security mistakes over and over yet...